Background
George Baer was born in Lavansville, Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
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( Winner of the 2011 St. Paul, Biglerville Prize from the...)
Winner of the 2011 St. Paul, Biglerville Prize from the Lutheran Historical Society of the Mid-Atlantic In the summer of 1816, the state of Pennsylvania tried fifty-nine German-Americans on charges of conspiracy and rioting. The accused had, according to the indictment, conspired to prevent with physical force the introduction of the English language into the largest German church in North America, Philadelphia’s Lutheran congregation of St. Michael’s and Zion. The trial marked the climax of an increasingly violent conflict over language choice in Philadelphia’s German community, with members bitterly divided into those who favored the exclusive use of German in their church, and those who preferred occasional services in English. At trial, witnesses, lawyers, defendants, and the judge explicitly linked language to class, citizenship, patriotism, religion, and violence. Mining many previously unexamined sources, including German-language writings, witness testimonies, and the opinions of prominent legal professionals, Friederike Baer uses legal conflict as a prism through which to explore the significance of language in the early American republic. The Trial of Frederick Eberle reminds us that debates over language have always been about far more than just language. Baer demonstrates that the 1816 trial was not a battle between Americans and immigrants, or German-speakers and English-speakers. Instead, the individuals involved in the case seized and exploited English and German as powerful symbols of competing cultural, economic, and social interests.
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George Baer was born in Lavansville, Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
Baer received some schooling at the Somerset Institute and the Somerset Academy and at thirteen became a "printer's devil" in the office of the Somerset Democrat.
After working there for two years he entered Franklin and Marshall College at Lancaster.
In 1861 he and his brother Henry became owners of the Democrat. Its political policy aroused resentment, and at one time a mob attempted to wreck the plant, but was beaten off. About this time Henry enlisted as a soldier, and George was left to manage the paper alone. He set type, wrote articles, and looked after the business generally, and at odd hours studied law.
In the summer of 1862 he organized a company, of which he was elected captain, for the 133rd Pennsylvania Volunteers. The regiment was assigned to Humphreys's division of the Army of the Potomac and joined the army at the time of the second battle of Bull Run.
Baer served through the Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville campaigns and was then detailed as adjutant-general of the 2nd brigade. At the end of a year's service he returned to Somerset and resumed the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in April 1864.
In 1868 he removed to Reading, where he soon built up a lucrative practise. He successfully conducted several damage suits against the Philadelphia & Reading Railway Company, and the energy and ability which he displayed in this work brought about, in 1870, his employment by the company as counsel. He invested his earnings in various manufacturing enterprises, in many of which he became a director, and he was also chosen a director of the Reading company. Early in his business career he formed an association with John Pierpont Morgan as the magnate's local representative and co"perated with him in his plan of uniting all the coal-carrying roads with terminals in New York City. The plans of the Reading company, under the presidency of Angus McLeod, for the invasion of the territory of the New Haven railroad, then dominated by Morgan, were opposed by Baer, who withdrew from the company. Morgan later gained control of the Reading properties, and in the reorganization that followed (1901) Baer was made president of each of the three Reading companies and was later placed at the head of the Central company. Under his administration the Reading properties are said to have prospered. But early in May 1902, came the great strike declared by the United Mine Workers of America throughout the anthracite region--a strike in which 147, 000 wage-earners were thrown out of employment and an invested capital of $500, 000, 000 went idle. From the beginning the owners maintained a stubborn refusal to deal with the strikers. Morgan declined to be drawn into the controversy, and Baer at once became the leader of the interests resisting the strike. "We will give no consideration, " he declared, in June, in a statement to the press, "to any plan of arbitration or mediation or to any interference on the part of any outside party. "
He was brought into instant and nation-wide fame by the publication of a letter dated July 17, and signed "Geo. F. Baer, " addressed to W. F. Clark, of Wilkes-Barre, who had appealed to him to end the strike. "The rights and interests of the laboring man, " read one of the sentences, "will be protected and cared for - not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in his infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country, and upon the successful management of which so much depends. " A storm of jeering and denunciatory comments followed the appearance of the letter. The time was one of great popular dissatisfaction with the policies of the monied interests, and this inept expression of an obstinate and anti-social attitude served only to array public sentiment more solidly against the owners. For a time, however, they ignored the warning. As late as September 16 Baer gave out a statement that the operators would not yield. President Roosevelt, however, now intervened, and on October 3 brought together representatives of both sides in a conference. Eleven days later the President announced that the operators were willing to arbitrate. Under a provisional agreement the miners resumed work October 23, and a commission, during the following winter, settled, for the time being, the outstanding issues of the conflict.
Baer's later life was uneventful. He was a student and spent much time with his books.
He died on April 26, 1914 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He left a fortune estimated at $15, 000, 000.
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
( Winner of the 2011 St. Paul, Biglerville Prize from the...)
In mental characteristics it was said of him that he was more like Morgan than any other man with whom the great magnate was ever associated, both having to a superlative degree the qualities of determination, confidence, and self-control. His manner was quiet, and though he was sometimes brusque in business contracts he is said to have been always genial to friends. He is reported to have had a keen sense of humor, but the evidence is not conclusive. He was about five feet six inches in height, of wiry build, slight and erect, and with a well-poised head. "He had, " writes one observer, "almond eyes, like those of an Oriental. " All his portraits show a mustache and short beard.
On June 14, 1866, he was married to Emily Kimmel.