German-Americans make up one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States, yet their very success at assimilating has also made them one of the least visible. Contented among Strangers examines the central role German-speaking women in rural areas of the Midwest played in preserving their ethnic and cultural identity. Even while living far from their original homelands, these women applied traditional European patterns of rural family life and values to their new homes in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. As a result they were more content with their modest lives than were their Anglo-American counterparts. Through personal recollections—including interesting diary material translated by the author, church and community documents, and migration and census data—Pickle reveals the diversity and richness of the women's experiences.

| Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. "The Best Household Utensil": Women and Families before Emigration 23 2. Arriving, Settling In, and Surviving: Emigration and the Concrete Aspects of Adaptation 41 3. Adventure, Alienation, and Adaptation: The Subjective Experiences of Immigrant Life 91 4. Strangers in a Strange Land: Women and Their Families in Special Groups 131 5. The Rural German-Speakers and Their Descendants: Reflections on Ethnicity in America 181 Appendixes A. Sources on German-Speaking Immigrant Women and Their Families 201 B. German-Speakers as Immigrants and Midwest Residents: A Statistical Analysis 207 Notes 231 Index 303 Illustrations follow pages 108 and 138 | Winner of the Missouri Conference on History Book Prize, 1997. — Missouri Conference on History