news history peeps: walter kamphoefner professor of history december 5 2022 history peeps: walter kamphoefner professor of history history peeps: walter kamphoefner professor of history growing up dr walter kamphoefner felt almost destined to become a historian he was born in the town of defiance missouri where daniel boone led a settlement effort in 1799 and he distinctly recalls eating picnic lunches under the shade of the boone historic home during this […] history peeps: walter kamphoefner professor of history growing up dr walter kamphoefner felt almost destined to become a historian he was born in the town of defiance missouri where daniel boone led a settlement effort in 1799 and he distinctly recalls eating picnic lunches under the shade of the boone historic home during this time he developed a lifelong fascination with german american history from stories of german settlers in missouri during the civil war whose staunch loyalty to the union held this important border state despite guerilla attacks by pro-confederate bushwhackers the first member of his family to go to college (concordia senior college in fort wayne) dr kamphoefner initially considered becoming a lutheran pastor he ultimately rejected this path because the social expectations of a pastor would have been too limiting instead he found himself increasingly drawn towards deep academic topics historical and otherwise he remembers being excited by the double helix on james watsons and francis cricks discovery of the structure of dna and how much he enjoyed discussing the 1968 book with friends but his main interests remained historical and before long he found himself loading up on history courses and applying to the history graduate program at the university of missouri in 1972 after a string of post-doc and assistant professor positions including a stint at germanys university of munster from 1978 to 1981 dr kamphoefner landed a permanent post at texas a&m in 1988 texas he believes has been a perfect place to study transatlantic german american immigration since it stands alone in the former confederacy as a state that attracted large numbers of immigrants in the swath of central texas where this migration was widespread in towns like fredericksburg new braunfels and boerne a dialect of german was the second most commonly language spoken until quite recently in fredericksburg kamphoefner notes german remained the most common language aside from english until 2000 when spanish surpassed it since earning his phd dr kamphoefner has continued to explore german american history from a transatlantic perspective he notes that he was using the transatlantic framework before transatlantic was even a term as a professor dr kamphoefner says that his highest calling is to combat historical ignorance by making history more accessible to the public beyond the numerous academic articles he has penned he frequently appears on radio programs to discuss his work and has even begun dabbling in new media with a guest appearance on the our missouri podcast his most recent book germans in america: a concise history (2021) is a synthesis account from decades of research he conducted on individual german american families to which historical figure would dr kamphoefner want to say howdy given the chance he would pick gert goebel a nineteenth century german missouri settler about whom he wrote a biography dr kamphoefner says he would enjoy the chance to have a face-to-face conversation and see if his impressions of goebel from a lifetime of study hold up patrick grigsby ‘27 history peeps