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Marginalized Identity and Active Resistance: Milwaukee Socialists and German-Americans During World War I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2025

Elizabeth A. Hoffmann
Elizabeth A. Hoffmann*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Purdue University, 100 N University St, Beering Hall, Suite 1114, office 1152, West Lafayette, IN 47907
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

When the USA entered World War I, Socialists, German immigrants, and German-Americans in southeastern Wisconsin went from being generally accepted and influential members of their communities to being marginalized and vilified. German immigrants who had been well integrated into conventional society became enemy aliens. Socialists and German-Americans faced new restrictions on their movement and speech. Scholarship on groups faced with this level of repression finds that they often either withdraw from mainstream society and acquiesce to their mistreatment or fight back through violent or other extralegal tactics. Socialists and German-Americans in Milwaukee did neither. Instead, they embraced their marginalized status and continued to use the law to advance their interests. They resisted their vilification by the law by uniting around those very shared identities that the law was used to marginalize them.

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Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , First View , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Bar Foundation

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