In our fourth episode, Andrew Sola and Sebastian Wuepper, historian of German immigration, continue telling the story of Chicago history by discussing the first two waves of Germanic migrants to Chicago, the so-called Dreiziger (the 30-ers, the ones who arrived in the 1830s) and the Vierundachtziger (the 48-ers, or the ones who arrived due to the 1848 revolutions in various German-speaking states, duchies, and principalities in what is now modern Germany).

Topics include the rapid growth of Chicago between 1833 and 1880, when it grew from a mere 200 to over 500,000 inhabitants, making it the world's fastest growing city; the difficulty of defining "German immigrants" in early Chicago because Germany did not yet exist as a nation-state; tensions between the 30-ers and the 48-ers; the strong political beliefs of the 48-ers, including a staunch opposition to slavery and secession; the shift of their political support from the pro-immigrant Democratic Party to the anti-slavery Republican Party of Abe Lincoln; the importance of beer to the German immigrants, as seen in the Lager Beer Riot of 1855; the creation and deployment of so-called ethnic regiments, including German ethnic regiments, during the Civil War; and the importance of German community associations, namely the Turnverein or Turner halls as well as singing societies and choirs, throughout the 1800s.