Travel Tuesday -- August Wenkel 1861-1954

1887 Immigration Card for August, Sophie and Lina Wenkel

I found this really cool immigration document.  It is cool because of the information this document provides.  Yes, I have already posted about August, Sophia and Lena's immigration using the Ship's manifest for the proof.  That is cool, too, and you can see it here.  Images of those documents are found in these following links:

• 1887 Immigration Manifest Part 1
• 1887 Immigration Manifest Part 2
• 1887 Passenger Ship Donau from http://fdpiech.tripod.com/ships/ssdonau.htm

But now I include this 1887 Immigration card.   Some information I can glean from this card is that it was filled out much later, sometime after 1937.  How can I tell that?  Good question.  See the very tippy top left where it says "Stand, Paint. & Litho. Co. Balto.?  Right after that is the date.  About this time, as part of the Conservation Corps program during or after the Great Depression, people were hired to index and categorize historical documents.  Someone who was grateful for a paying job read all the ship manifests and put the names down on cards, which were then alphabetized.  This is the most efficient method when there are no computers.

So, what else can we find?  Not much more than we already know.  August Wenkel age 26, male, Farmer from Germany, destined for the United States.  He came with Sofie age 23 and Lina age 10 months.  How difficult would it be to have an infant in a crowded ship for a month?  Was the ship crowded?  Did they get enough food and sunlight?  Did they get sick?

They entered through Baltimore Maryland on 24 May 1887, disembarking the ship Donau.

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