Tag Archives: German-Americana

Henriette Davidis and Her Cookbooks in the German Americana Collection

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Cover of Henriette Davidis' Pratkisches KochbuchFood always provides a familiar comfort for people.  As anyone who has attempted to get baking supplies over the last few weeks may know, people have been turning to cooking for some solace and perhaps just something to do in these unusual times.  If you are looking for any historic recipes or information on a historic cookbook author or just something to read, this blog post is for you!

Several years ago, I discovered a cookbook by the author Henriette Davidis in the German Americana collection at the Archives and Rare Books Library.  Initially I was just looking for a sample cookbook and Davidis’ cookbook had a nice cover which would work well visually for showing a class.  As I began researching the author, though, I found that this cookbook and its author had an interesting story. Continue reading →

Ohio Digital Newspapers & Chronicling America Presentation in ARB on Thursday July 26

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Come hear about Ohio’s digital newspaper project and learn how to freely access historic newspapers from around the country.

When:  Thursday July 26 from 11:00am-12:30pm

Where:  Archives and Rare Books Library, Seminar Room 814

Westliche Blatter mastheadDid you know that 90 Ohio newspapers including foreign language papers have been digitized and are now part of the Library of Congress’ free newspaper database Chronicling America?  Learn how to access the over 13 million pages of historic newspapers from 47 states and territories covering 1789-1963 on Chronicling America.  Jenni Salamon, Coordinator for the Ohio Digital Newspaper Program, and Bronwyn Benson, Quality Control Technician, from the Ohio History Connection will demonstrate basic and advanced search strategies and how to work with your results to find information about local, state, national and international events, people, places and culture. They will also provide a brief overview newspaper digitization process and an update on the digitization of Ohio’s foreign language newspapers.

The Colored Citizen mastheadTreasures from the Archives and Rare Books Library collections including items from the German Americana collection that complement the digitized newspapers will be available for viewing before and after the presentation.

 

Indian Clubs and German-American Health Promotion

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By:  Kevin Grace

Women with Indian ClubsOn a hot June day in 1909, thousands of people gathered at the Carthage Fairgrounds just beyond the city limits of Cincinnati.  There on the nubby dusty infield of the racetrack, groups of women clad in long dresses divided themselves into squads of threes and fours and faced the spectators.  In each hand they held an “Indian club,” a standard piece of gymnasium equipment at the time, and as the crowd watched, the women began a series of intricate, graceful movements, swinging the clubs up from their sides and around their bodies, crisscrossing the clubs in patterns that emphasized coordination and discipline.  The demonstration was just one of several exhibits of mass exercises at the quadrennial Turnfest that was hosted by the Cincinnati Turners organizations that year, a fitting location as the American Turner movement was founded by German immigrants in Cincinnati in 1848.

The festival attracted Turner athletes from around the country and around the world, all journeying to Cincinnati as they had to other cities in past years to exhibit the Turner philosophical ideals of physical and mental fitness, and civic responsibility.  In the days before the ladies’ exercise with Indian clubs, students in the city’s schools demonstrated the skills they had learned in physical education classes, a mainstay of the public school academic program in Cincinnati.  The proper uses of parallel bars, wands and rings, and the pommel horse were performed in front of school officials and Turner judges.  It was a program already several decades old, begun in earnest after the Civil War when secondary and primary teachers learned the techniques of physical fitness and health promotion under the leadership of Turner instructors. Continue reading →

Don Heinrich Tolzmann Collection Now Available for Research

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By: Kevin Rigsby, ARB Intern, Fall Semester 2017

AbendschuleThe University of Cincinnati Archives and Rare Books Library announces the opening of the Don Heinrich Tolzmann German-Americana Collection.  This collection contains a wealth of material from the German-American community in the United States, especially from Germans in the Greater Cincinnati area.  Of particular note are several sets of German almanacs from the early 20th century, papers and photographs from prominent German-American organizations such as the Turners, and histories and biographies written by or about influential figures in the German-American community.  There are also German-language newspapers from the beginning to the end of the 20th century, along with histories of several German religious institutions from the Cincinnati area.  This collection provides a valuable resource for students and scholars researching the history of German-American culture, and we extend our great appreciation to Dr. Tolzmann for his important donation.

The online exhibit for this collection showcases some highlights from this collection and provides a glimpse of the materials it holds.  The exhibit can be found on the Archives & Rare Books Library website at http://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/exhibits/tolzmann-ga/.  And in looking at this exhibit, be sure to view other collections of German-Americana at https://libraries.uc.edu/arb/collections/german-americana.html, including the “Gut Heil! The 1909 Cincinnati German Turnfest and Urban Sport” exhibit and the “Sacred Spaces of Greater Cincinnati and the German Influence” exhibit.  To learn more about the German Americana Collection, which is one of the top collections in the world of its type, or the other collections in the Archives & Rare Books Library, visit us on the 8th floor of Blegen Library, call us at 513.556.1959, email us at archives@ucmail.uc.edu, view our website at http://libraries.uc.edu/arb.html, and follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ArchivesRareBooksLibraryUniversityOfCincinnati.

Developing Future Access to Cincinnati’s Third Protestant Memorial Church Collection

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By:  Alia Wegner, ARB 2017-2018 Intern

Third German Protestant Church

The Third German Protestant Church located at 829 Walnut Street, photo taken in the 1920s.

One of my internship projects this year is developing a digitization plan for the Cincinnati German Third Protestant Memorial Church Collection (Accession number GA-09-03).  Acquired a decade ago, the Third German Protestant Memorial Church was formerly known as the Third German Protestant Memorial Church of Cincinnati, the German and Evangelical Lutheran and Reformed Church, and the North German Lutheran Church.   This collection spans 1814 to 1982 and includes records of births, marriages, deaths, confirmations, along with financial records and a few photographs.  For the most part, it has been used by family historians but once it is digitized and available as a global resource, the records can be used by urban historians, religious scholars, ethnicity and immigration researchers, and many others, as well as providing excellent primary resources in teaching.

The collection forms an important part of the University of Cincinnati’s German-Americana holdings but poses some challenges for digitization. The TPMC collection is composed primarily of handwritten German documents that need to be transcribed as well as scanned.  Since transcribing foreign language documents adds an additional layer of processing, it is important to get a clear sense of the extent and composition of the collection. One of my first tasks in this project was creating a collection overview. Continue reading →

The Don Heinrich Tolzmann German-Americana Collection

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By:  Kevin Rigsbee, ARB and History Department Intern

Tolzmann German Americana Turnfest PostcardThe University of Cincinnati Archives and Rare Books Library recently received the papers of Don Heinrich Tolzmann, a retired Senior Librarian at UC and the former director of German-American Studies.  He has served as president of the Society for German-American Studies and during his tenure of office, he helped commemorate the 1983 German-American Tricentennial to mark the establishment of the first German-American settlement at Germantown, Pennsylvania Tolzmann also led the 1987 campaign to establish October 6th as German-American Day in the United States.  He has also served on the boards of international and national organizations, including the Deutsches Auswandererhaus in Bremerhaven and the Friends of the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C. and he is currently president of the German-American Citizens League of Greater Cincinnati,

Dr. Tolzmann created the German-Americana Collection (also known as the Fick Collection because the initial bulk of the collection came from the library of noted Cincinnati educator and poet H.H. Fick) when he was on the University of Cincinnati Libraries faculty and built it into a world-renowned resource for research and teaching. This extensive collection contains materials from the nineteenth century to the present day, and ranges from periodicals and newspapers to personal letters, census records, and spelling books and almanacs. Continue reading →

German-American Places & Events and Other Updates on ARB Website

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By:  Suzanne Maggard

The Archives and Rare Books Library has added some new links on our website for Cincinnati German-American places and events.  Have you seen the Sausage Queen at Bockfest?  Have you danced the Chicken Dance at Oktoberfest?  If not, learn more about these German-influenced events in the Cincinnati area.  We’ve also updated other links on ARB’s website for research resources, exhibits, and websites related to our collections.  Take a look and see if there is anything that interests you.  For more information, contact the Archives and Rare Books Library staff directly at 513.556.1959 or archives@ucmail.uc.edu

Screen Shot from German-Americana website

OhioLINK EAD Task Force Annual Report Now Available

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By:  Suzanne Maggard

Some of our regular blog followers may have noticed that both the Archives and Rare Books Library and the Winkler Center are active contributors to the OhioLINK Finding Aid Repository.  This repository was designed to help researchers find special collections, manuscripts, and archival material throughout the state of Ohio.  A total of 60 institutions are currently participating and the repository now holds more than 4000 finding aids.   Researchers can find 330 of the Archives and Rare Books Library’s finding aids on the site.  Although the repository is not yet comprehensive, it does allow researchers to find an important avenue to find collections within the state of Ohio.

OhioLINK EAD Finding Aid Repository website

Continue reading →

Two UC Students Explored Life in Nazi Women`s Labor Camps

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By Suzanne Maggard

Mary Louise Eich

Mary Louise Eich

College students are notoriously adventurous and University of Cincinnati students are not immune to the exploratory spirit.  In the Archives and Rare Books Library, we are in the unique situation to learn about and discover student adventures that may have otherwise been forgotten.  An example is the story of Mary Louise Eich and her friend and Delta Zeta sorority sister, Mary Nichols.   Last week, we received a donation of a book entitled, An Odyssey in the Life of Mary Louise Eichwritten by William Neal, the son of Mary Louise Eich.

Mary Nichols

Mary Nichols

The book tells the story of Mary Louise’s life and the trip she made with Nichols in the summer of 1936 to Nazi Germany.  Both Eich and Nichols spent a month working in Women’s Labor Service camps.  Upon their return they both wrote articles for the Cincinnati Post about their experiences.  Neal’s book provides transcriptions of the articles Eich and Nichols wrote for the Cincinnati Post and is a great addition to our library’s holdings on German-Americana and University of Cincinnati history. Continue reading →

ARB's Next "50 Minutes-1 Book" Presentation

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By:  Kevin Grace

On Tuesday, November 20, the Archives & Rare Books Library will present the second in its series of lunchtime talks for this academic year.  The book to be presented is George Moerlein’s A Trip Around the World.  Moerlein, the son of Moerlein LectureCincinnati beer baron Christian Moerlein, undertook a global journey in 1885 and chronicled his adventures the next year with the publication of this volume.

Printed and designed locally, and heavily illustrated, Moerlein’s travel account was published in both German and English, the better to use as a marketing tool for Cincinnati’s beer-drinking population.  In fact, the end paper of the volume was a color lithograph of the Moerlein Brewery on Elm Street in Over-the-Rhine, a copy of which now decorates the entrance in the Moerlein Lager House brewery and restaurant on Cincinnati’s river bank. Continue reading →