Lunchbox Lecture: Death, Poverty, and Bread: How German Russians found success in Nebraska

Join us at the Nebraska History Museum on Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 12 pm, as Dr. Jennifer Garza of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia traces the German Russians’ long road to Nebraska during November’s Lunchbox Lecture. During the 17th and 18th centuries, war devastated the German states, leaving violence and poverty in its wake. Religious persecution and economic hardship added to the turmoil, and thousands of Germans left their homelands in search of a better life. Some looked west to the newly colonized Americas. Others looked east to a growing Russia, where successive monarchs eager to expand and westernize their empires offered settlers special economic, religious, and cultural freedoms. When those freedoms began to be taken away, the German Russians turned west again, drawn by the cheap lands of the Great Plains. Lincoln became their starting point in Nebraska. But would America give them the prosperous lives they had been seeking for so long? Special thanks to the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation for providing funding for this event series and the recording to broadcast on LNKTV. About Dr. Jennifer Garza Garza is the archival research coordinator at the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia She received her BA in history from Florida State University and her PhD in Russian history from Emory University. She is the author of two books: Keeping the Faith: Russian Orthodox Monasticism in the Soviet Union, 1917-1939 (Texas A&M University Press, 2004); and The Nebraska Ordnance Plant (Arcadia Press, 2024). and is currently working on a book about the history of German Russians in Lincoln.