Book Order from St. Lous to Paige, Texas, 1912

Conrad Witter was a prominent St. Louis publisher of German language educational books in the late 19th to early 20th century. Some of his books found their way to a German community in Texas in 1912, as indicated on this billhead, less than a decade before their use for instruction in public schools was outlawed.

Actually, in 1909, three years before this order was placed, the Texas legislature passed a law mandating English as the primary language of instruction in public schools. Rural schools whose teachers taught a bilingual curriculum with the primary language being German, carried on as usual despite the law. Enforcement was problematic in the rural farming communities and the schools themselves may have been funded by their communities, creating a loophole in the law meant for public schools. 

Germans began immigrating to Paige, Texas and the surrounding communities in Bastrop County and Central Texas before the Civil War. After the Civil War, German immigration experienced a boom in the region that lasted well into the 1890s and German language education thrived during and beyond that time. And then came the Great War, as World War I was known before a second world war necessitated Roman numerals to distinguish each. 

In 1917, the United States declared war on Germany and the Texas legislature got busy with passing laws the next two years that criminalized the use of any language other than English in instruction. That was later strengthened to specifically forbid the use of German. 

Businesses such as Conrad Witter's in St. Louis were devastated, if not completely wiped out. Witter adapted and survived after losing customers such as the Pauls Department Store in Paige, Texas. Yes, tiny Paige, Texas once had what passed as a department store. Johann Edward Pauls immigrated from Germany in 1881 and by 1891 had established a merchant business in Paige that was highly advanced for its rural location. He even added a two-story warehouse. The diversity of his business may have helped it survive two world wars and a Great Depression. Pauls died in 1926 but his store continued until 1951.  

 But in 1912, German books for educational instruction were ordered through Pauls' store by Professor Thomas J. Marth, another German-born immigrant to Texas. Marth had taught in German settlements around Texas until landing in the communities surrounding Paige in his 70s for private teaching roles to rural German families. The books were ordered from Witter's business in St. Louis at a discount noted on the billhead and sent to Pauls' store in Paige for families to purchase there. Also noted in the message to Pauls is Witter’s hope that they sell a good many and an expectation to hear about how the sales are going.

They should have gone well. Marth had designed the curriculum, coordinated the textbook order through Pauls’ store, and was ready to start teaching the new term when he suddenly fell ill and went to be with family in Dallas where there was also better medical care. Some five months after those textbooks arrived in Paige, the professor died in Dallas.

So what happened to the books? With the steep wholesale discount, the sale was likely firm and families may have purchased the books anyway. The books listed on the billhead were standard texts for German-American communities: Witter’s Schreib- u. Lesefibel (Writing and Reading Primers); Neues Lesebuch (New Readers); and Dessar Kleine Sprach- u. Rechtschule (Small Language & Orthography/Grammar School guides).

That’s where the story ends for this billhead that documents a single order between a German-language textbook publisher in St. Louis and a Texas German community and teases out a bit of Texas history, German-American history, educational history, and political history to go with the book-related history that finds its way into this blog.

An idea has come to me as I write the final lines. I wonder if any of those textbooks that found their way to Paige, Texas in 1912, and went into service without a trained teacher, might still survive on a second-hand market today as a worn, long-out-of-print, relic from an old German-American farmhouse or church where children may have benefitted from its intended use? Of course, I’ll be on the lookout for one and will certainly report back here should I discover a needle in the haystack.