At its peak, how many German speakers were there in the US?

[King of Kensington]

Hard to know because most of the old Census Bureau data on mother tongue was only for the foreign-born population in the US.  But it would be interesting to know how many German speakers there were in the US at its peak? (which I'm guessing was around the turn of the 20th century).

[dead0man]

the wiki on the subject never explicitly said, but with the information available there that there was 2.76 million German foreign born German speakers that there has to be well more than that.  How much more would need more information even to make a decent guess.  At this point, my guess is 1915, 3.7 million.  Then the forgotten anti-German racism started for a couple of generation, nearly erasing the culture of the largest ethnic group in the US.

[King of Kensington]

The 1940 census has mother tongue for the entire population:

German  4,949,780
Italian  3,756,830
Polish  2,418,320
Spanish  1,881,400
Yiddish  1,751,100
French  1,412,060

This is after the WWI Germanophobia, so I'm sure it would have been quite a bit higher in say 1910.

[RINO Tom]

The 1940 census has mother tongue for the entire population:

German  4,949,780
Italian  3,756,830
Polish  2,418,320
Spanish  1,881,400
Yiddish  1,751,100
French  1,412,060

This is after the WWI Germanophobia, so I'm sure it would have been quite a bit higher in say 1910.

It certainly would have been higher, but I think the dramatic dropoff did not come until World War II.  My grandpa's father was born in 1900 (his parents were from Germany), and he was fluent in German.  My grandpa was born in 1933 (i.e., after WWI but before WWII) and grew up learning German as a very young kid, but his parents ceased teaching him once the war broke out in 1939.  Just anecdotal, of course.

[King of Kensington]

The 1940 census has the mother tongue population by generation:

German Mother Tongue

Foreign born  1,589,040
Native born, foreign parentage  2,435,700
Native born, native parentage  925,040

[King of Kensington]

The 1940 census has mother tongue for the entire population:

German  4,949,780
Italian  3,756,830
Polish  2,418,320
Spanish  1,881,400
Yiddish  1,751,100
French  1,412,060

This is after the WWI Germanophobia, so I'm sure it would have been quite a bit higher in say 1910.

It certainly would have been higher, but I think the dramatic dropoff did not come until World War II.  My grandpa's father was born in 1900 (his parents were from Germany), and he was fluent in German.  My grandpa was born in 1933 (i.e., after WWI but before WWII) and grew up learning German as a very young kid, but his parents ceased teaching him once the war broke out in 1939.  Just anecdotal, of course.

That may be right.  I suspect there was a significant drop-off in German mother tongue among those born in the interwar period, but they still would have been 20 or under in 1940.  Meanwhile the second generation from the late 19th century wave would still be around.  They may have been using less German, but they would have grown up with the language.

[pikachu]

The 1940 census has the mother tongue population by generation:

German Mother Tongue

Foreign born  1,589,040
Native born, foreign parentage  2,435,700
Native born, native parentage  925,040

A book I own on German-American history suggests that in 1940 there were over 6 million people who were either born in Germany or had at least on German parent. The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians from the 1980s also has a similar number, with 5 million have two German parents.