In this work first issued in 1940, the largest, most varied, and least assimilating of white ethnic groups in the US is examined. This includes the nature of the German character and the complexity of its variants, set against the German immigrant experience in the US. The extent of contribution to US development is contrasted implicitly with the difficulties both in the old world and in the new in maintaining identity. Racism, intolerance, and hostility were visited on Germans in recurrent veins throughout US history, with Hawgood focusing on the post Napoleanic 19th century. Hawgood's study includes the critical role of language in preserving cultural integrity, particularly in the context of anti-German laws leveled throughout the states and territories throughout the century.

This is actually very interesting reading about an important, diffuse, varyingly cultured and anti-intellectual, forgotten-as-such minority.