Bennett Law of 1889

ASSIGNMENT

Pick one law listed on the website “History of Racist Laws in America” and summarize the law for your peers. Do not limit yourself to only laws against African Americans…any law that goes against an American’s right for equality has a dramatic effect on the society as a whole.

The Bennett Law was a highly controversial state law passed in Wisconsin in 1889, that required the use of English to teach major subjects in all public and private elementary and high schools. It affected the state’s many German-language private schools (and some Norwegian schools) , and was bitterly resented by German-American communities.

In 1888 the Republican party nominated William D. Hoard, a dairy farmer with no political experience as governor. He found the opposition of the Germans to the Bennett Law an insult to the English language, and he tried to mobilize the Yankee population of the state behind his reelection in 1890 by hammering at the necessity to have all children speak English. (Most German children were bilingual in the cities and towns, but those in rural areas spoke mostly German.)

Hoard ridiculed the Germans by claiming he was the better guardian of their children than their parents or pastors. Hoard counted votes and thought he had a winning coalition by whipping up nativist distrust of Germania as anti-American. In Milwaukee, a predominantly German city, Hoard attacked Germania and religion. By June, 1890, the state’s Missouri Synod and Wisconsin Synod (the main German Lutheran groups) had denounced the law. The law was repealed in 1891, but Democrats used the memories to carry Wisconsin and Illinois in the 1892 presidential election.