No war leaves anything but a stain on the history of a nation, and World War I for the United States is no different in this regard. That doesn’t mean that their histories cannot be interesting, however, and the study of any nation’s involvement in any war always leads to new insights regarding political tendencies, cultural psychology, and game theory. But sometimes, it’s worth studying the history just because it’s interesting, and not necessarily because there’s all that much in the way of profound insight to take away from it. That’s how the case of Hoboken’s involvement in World War I plays out — no matter how you twist it, there’s something interesting to learn. The phrase “Heaven, Hell, or Hoboken. . .” , after all, has to come from somewhere.
Some Background: The HAPAG
Hoboken’s most significant involvement in the Great War actually has quite a bit to do with Germany more than the United States, intriguingly enough. To understand why and how, we first have to mention the HAPAG, or Hamburg Amerikanische Paketfahrt Actien-Gesellschaft. Which we’ll refer to as the Hamburg-America Line, for obvious reasons. The Hamburg-America Line was a transatlantic joint stock company that, in its early days, was responsible for connecting European ports to two American outlets: New Orleans, and Hoboken, New Jersey.
In World War I, the Hamburg-America Line was significant because it facilitated shipments to and from Germany. In order to prevent the shipment of American goods to Germany and gain an additional port upon the USA’s entry into the war, the U.S. government seized the Hamburg-America Line steamship docks (which, by the way, the government is allowed to do, by exercising a power called eminent domain).
From that point on, Hoboken became a significant shipment portal; many shipments bound for European destinations set off from Hoboken, for instance, and many people coming home set out to Hoboken before shipments to their home bases – hence the generals’ promises of “heaven, hell, or Hoboken . . . by Christmas.” In its early days, the dock was significant enough to bring a large number of German natives to the U.S. to participate in its establishment and ensure its proper operation, an immigration pattern that becomes important later.
Hoboken and Culture During World War I
Unfortunately enough, human nature has a tendency to encourage anti-racial sentiment, and this was fairly prominent in Hoboken during the years of World War I. Thanks to highly effective propaganda campaigns, a heavy air of anti-German sentiment settled over the U.S. for those years, and in Hoboken, the sentiment was so sharp that many German-American citizens were either driven out of the city, or moved of their own accord to nearby areas like Ellis Island of New York City.
This led to an influx of other ethnic and racial groups to fill the employment voids left behind by the emigrating German-Americans. The region’s current Irish and Italian population in large part began its growth in the World War I years, as they immigrated from surrounding areas and, in some cases, directly from their home countries to take advantage of the opportunities left open by the mass outflux of workers.
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