Fulda Health Support Association

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The Fulda Health Support Association was founded on October 9, 1881 in New York “by 22 perfectly healthy men” from the city of Fulda and the surrounding area. The number of these (health) support organizations that were founded in the second half of the 19th century - especially in the 1880s - was quite large. The associations concentrated on the settlement centers of the emigrants or on the places where the emigrants arrived in the New World .

In New York, in addition to the Fulda Health Support Association, the Marburg Health Support Association, the Kurhessische Health Support Association at Wilhelmshöhe, the Frankenberger Health Support Association and the Wabern Health Support Association are also occupied.

In addition to providing support in the event of illness and death, the associations also devoted themselves to “social life” and gave “new immigrant compatriots advice”, as the Kurhessische Nationalverein put it in a report from Chicago.

As a self-help organization, the association paid sickness and death benefits to its members. The association's statutes stipulated that “every healthy German man from 18 to 45 years of age” could acquire membership. The so-called entrance fee was 2 dollars , the quarterly fee was 1.50 dollars. Each sick member received $ 5 a week in sickness benefits, and in the event of death the association paid $ 100 to the bereaved.

In 1888 the association had 60 members. In 1888 the board consisted of John Völler (President), Anton Hohmann (Vice-President), Oscar Knips (Protocol Secretary), Wilhelm Liebig (Finance Secretary) and Ambros Golbach (Treasurer). The meetings of the association took place twice a month in the "headquarters" of the association, which was in 1888 in the "inn of Henry Kämpf" 520, Sixth Street (6th Street). The club's assets totaled $ 1,500 in 1888.

In 1913 the association met in “House No. 393, Second Avenue ”. The board consisted of August Hahn (President), Joseph Kircher (Vice-President), Christoph Guckes (Prot. And Corr. Secretary), Chas. Schmidt (Finance Secretary), Peter Bott (Treasurer), Chas. Staiger, Ed. R. Becker and Chas. Englert (Finance Committee), Ferdinand Muth and Wilhelm Muth sen. (Trustees). Henry Schwabe was the honorary president. According to the report from the General Assembly, the association had 82 members and cash assets of $ 5,700. When the USA entered the war against the German Reich in 1917 and the associated reprisals against the German-Americans, their language, businesses, associations and institutions, the traces of the Fulda Association in New York have been lost so far. In the association news, which was published in the German-language newspaper "Hessische Blätter / Hessen-Darmstädtische Zeitung" (New York), the names of other association members are named in addition to the board of directors. Among others, the following are documented: John Mackenrodt, Caroline Mackenrodt, Peter Bott, Chr.Kramer, Robert Schluck, Carl Heier, H. Quell, Ferdinand Muth, Hugo Füller, Herbert Pfeffermann, John Becker, Ernst Völler, Louis F. Riedel, Joseph Erb, Charles Otterbein, Louis Lorey, Georg Ehret, F. Kimmer, F. Keil, J. Betzold, J. Mangold, Franz Schlapp, Julius Knips and Friedrich Schürer.

literature

  • Roland Paul: The only Hessian organ in America. The "Hessische Blätter" and the "Hessen-Darmstädter Zeitung". In: Hessian papers for folk and cultural research. New series Volume 17, 1985, pp. 161-171.
  • Hessische Blätter / Hessen-Darmstädter Zeitung. The only organ of the Hessians in America. Ed. Voelker Brothers, New York 1887–1917. Available at the Institute for Palatinate History and Folklore, Kaiserslautern.
  • Stefan Arend: From the Fulda region to the new world. Traces of the 19th century emigrants from America. In: Jahrbuch Landkreis Fulda 1996. pp. 29–33.