- New Yorker Staats-Zeitung
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The New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, nicknamed „The Staats“, is the premier German-language weekly newspaper in the United States.
Contents
History
Anna Uhl Ottendorfer, business manager 1845-1884
The Staats-Zeitung was founded in 1834 by German immigrants. Jacob Uhl purchased the newspaper in 1845, at that point a weekly paper with very limited circulation edited by Gustav Adolph Neuman. Jacob Uhl, with his wife, Anna Uhl, who worked as compositor, secretary and general manager,[1] immediately enlarged the sheet and shortly developed it into a daily newspaper. When Jacob Uhl died in 1852, Anna Uhl took over management of the newspaper, with the assistance of Oswald Ottendorfer, who had been hired in the counting room. In 1858, Ottendorfer became editor, and in 1859 he married Anna Uhl. Anna Ottendorfer continued as business manager until shortly before her death in 1884 when her son Eward Uhl[2] succeeded her. Together Anna and Oswald Ottendorfer developed the Staats-Zeitung into a major newspaper. By the 1870s, its circulation was comparable to English-language newspapers like the New York Tribune and the New York Times.[3]
In 1879, the property of the paper was changed into a stock company.[4] When Oswald Ottendorfer died in 1900, the newspaper was sold to Herman Ridder. Ridder went on to contribute to the foundation of the Knight Ridder conglomerate, and the Staats-Zeitung gradually became a side line. It stayed in the Ridder family until 1953, when it was sold to the Steuer family who changed from a daily newspaper to three times a week and finally a weekly. In 1989, it was sold to Jes Rau.
From 1860 to 1864, Franz Umbscheiden was on the staff.[5] From 1968 to 1969, the German entertainer and comedian Herbert Feuerstein was editor-in-chief of the newspaper.
Current status
The newspaper aims to promote historical awareness, inform about current events and encourage critical thinking about German-American relationships. Today[when?], there are eight German-language newspapers in the United States.[citation needed]
See also
- Anzeiger des Westens The German language daily paper in St. Louis founded one year later, that became the largest newspaper of any language in the state
References
- ^ Edwin H. Zeydel (1928-1990). "Ottendorfer, Anna Behr Uhl". Dictionary of American Biography. VII, Part 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 106–107.
- ^ de:Edward Uhl
- ^ James M. Bergquist (1999). "Ottendorfer, Anna Behr Uhl". American National Biography. 16. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 841–842.
- ^ Sarah Knowles Bolton (1896). Famous givers and their gifts. p. 329. http://books.google.com/books?id=GlwoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA329.
- ^ Carl Wittke (1952). Refugees of Revolution: The German Forty-Eighters in America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 270. http://www.archive.org/details/refugeesofrevolu008276mbp.
- History of a New York City institution (at the Staats-Zeitung website)
"Ottendorfer, Oswald". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900.- Obituary of Anna Ottendorfer at The New York Times.
External links
Further reading
- Karl J. R. Arndt and May E. Olson, The German Language Press of the Americas, Volume I: "History and Bibliography, 1732 to 1955", 3rd revised edition, 1976.
- Carl Wittke, The German Language Press in America, 1957.
Categories:- Newspapers published in New York City
- German-American culture
- Weekly newspapers published in the United States
- Publications established in 1834
- German-language newspapers published in the United States
- German-American history
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