Life patterns on the move. The state deportation of “dissolutes” and “vagrants” to North America in the nineteenth century

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Karin Orth
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 561083360

The study examines a research desideratum: the mass deportation, conceived, financed, and executed by the state, of “vagrants” (“Vaganten”) and “dissolutes” (“Liederliche”) in the nineteenth century. This phenomenon is exemplified using the two villages of Rineck and Herrischried, from which the Grand Duchy of Baden deported around 1,600 undesirables to America on four transports in the mid-nineteenth century. The United States took them in. The study centers on three stages: the initial situation in Baden including the deportation; being on the move; and the subsequent stages of life in the United States. Three levels are analyzed in each case: the policies and measures taken by the authorities; the behavior of the local, unaffected social environment; and the perspective and agency of the “vagrants” and the “dissolutes.” The exceptionally good source material on Rineck and Herrischried renders this approach feasible. In this way, it will be possible to work out whether and, if so, how the family traditions of non-sedentarism and, respectively, “illegitimacy” established in Baden were practiced during passage and especially in the United States, and whether they continued in the next generation. The focus is on the analysis of “life patterns on the move,” the question of whether and, if so, how the intercultural transfer of these traditions, of non-sedentarism and “illegitimacy”, succeeded.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants