Objekt des Monats
Jedes Objekt in der Sammlung des Deutschen Auswandererhauses erzählt eine ganz persönliche Auswanderungs- oder Einwanderungsgeschichte. In dieser Rubrik stellen wir Ihnen jeden Monat ein anderes Objekt vor – eine Fotografie, ein Dokument oder ein persönliches Erinnerungsstück.
April 2019
Book – Christoph von Schmid: The Easter Eggs. A Story for Children and Friends of Children – from the year 1816
Historical Context
In the mid-19th century, German-language printing in the USA could already look back on a history of more than 100 years. Entertaining children’s literature beyond the educational and moralizing ABC books was not prominently represented. During the era of mass German immigration to the USA starting around 1830, this changed. The increasing demand for contemporary entertaining books for the second generation of immigrants was initially met by imports from German-speaking countries. When the high import duties made such imports no longer profitable, publishers in the USA began to reprint German works on a large scale – legally according to the contemporary provisions of American copyright, which protected the economic enterprise rather than the intellectual creator. One of the most important of these reprinting publishers, with a focus on German-language children’s literature, was the German emigrant Ernst Steiger.
Short Biography Ernst Steiger
Ernst Steiger was born on October 4, 1832, in Gastewitz near Oschatz (Saxony). The talented son of a farming family completed an apprenticeship as a bookseller in Leipzig. After two years of work in Dresden, he accepted an offer from the German-American publisher Bernhard Westermann in 1855 to serve as his assistant in New York. There, he established his own news agency in 1864, later adding publishing, a bookstore, and a printing company. In 1867, he married Bertha Krehbiel in New York, the daughter of German migrants. While at that time Steiger stood out with imported German printed materials, he soon shifted to reprinting works by German and European authors. These reprints were published in series under his publishing name; “Steiger’s Youth Library” is just one among others like “Steiger’s Home Library” or “Steiger’s Reader Books”. For his contributions to the promotion of German literature in North America, Steiger received numerous honors, including the Prussian Crown Order in 1873. His publishing house operated as “E. Steiger & Company” since 1880 but remained a family business, involving all four of the Steiger couple’s children. It was not until he was 82 years old—three years before his death in 1917—that Ernst Steiger retired from the business.
Significance of the object
The narrative “The Easter Eggs,” which first appeared in 1816, is intended, as the author Christoph von Schmid states in a “Pre-Memory for Children,” to serve “as an educational and pleasant entertainment” – not just for “you, my dear children,” but “indeed also for you older siblings and even your parents.” Is it any wonder that Ernst Steiger expected even greater sales success with this title more than half a century later? For those who had read the sentimental story as children in the “Old World,” it not only stirred up personal memories but also fulfilled the hope of making the world of those memories, which they might never have seen, accessible to children growing up in America in a literary way.
Do you also …
… have a family migration story to share and wish to provide the associated objects and documents to the German Emigration Center for its collection? Then please contact Dr. Tanja Fittkau at the phone number 0471 / 90 22 0 – 0 or by email at: t.fittkau@dah-bremerhaven.de
Archive: Previous Objects of the Month
Show all objectsDo You Also Have …
… a story of emigration or immigration in your family that you would like to share with the German Emigration Center together with the related objects and documents for its collection? Then please contact Dr. Tanja Fittkau by phone at +49 471 / 90 22 0 – 0
or by e-mail at: t.fittkau@dah-bremerhaven.de