Emil Preetorius (journalist)
Emil Preetorius (born March 15, 1827 in Alzey , † November 19, 1905 in St. Louis ) was a German-American journalist and publicist.
Life
Preetorius was a son of the leather manufacturer and later liberal member of the state parliament Wilhelm Preetorius and his wife Luise. He attended high schools in Mainz and Darmstadt and studied law at the Universities of Giessen and Heidelberg . In Gießen in 1845 he became a member of the old Gießen fraternity Allemannia , as well as the fraternity of Rhenania and in 1846 a member of the corps Rhenania Gießen which emerged from this . In Heidelberg he was awarded Dr. iur. PhD . He practiced successfully as a lawyer, but had to leave Germany because of his involvement in the Baden Revolution .
Like many Forty-Eighters , he emigrated to the USA and came to St. Louis in 1854. After a short time as a businessman, he became a journalist. In 1856 he became a member of the Republican Party. In 1862 he founded his own newspaper, Die neue Zeit . In 1864 he moved to the Westliche Post as editor-in-chief , which under his leadership became one of the most influential German-language newspapers in the USA. The politician Carl Schurz became a partner in the Westliche Post in 1867 , which encouraged its further development.
With the outbreak of the Civil War he put himself fully in the service of the northern states and organized the formation of regiments of German immigrants. To avert the secession of Missouri, he allied himself with Francis Preston Blair junior . He was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 1862 , where he stood out as a vehement advocate of the immediate and complete abolition of slavery in the United States ( immediate emancipationist ). In the presidential election in the United States in 1872 , he stood up for the Liberal Republicans and their candidate Horace Greeley .
In 1898 the Westliche Post and the Anzeiger des Westens merged, and Preetorius, as well as the editor-in-chief of the Anzeiger, Carl Daenzer, took his leave.
He turned down a Prussian medal offered to him and never returned to Germany: when he would have gone back he could not, and when he could have gone back, he would not ( when he would have gone back, he could not , and as he had can return, he didn't).
Preetorius died of blood poisoning after a leg wound at the age of 78. In its obituary, the New York Times named him one of the most important German newspaper journalists in the United States ( one of the foremost German newspapermen of the United States ).
monument
The German-American population in St. Louis, represented by the German-American Alliance established in 1914 in memory of Carl Daenzer , Carl Schurz and Emil Preetorius that of Wilhelm wall cutter designed monument with the emblematic figure "The Naked Truth" ( The Ugly Truth ) .
The German-language part of the bilingual dedication inscription reads:
AS A GERMAN AMERICAN AND LEADER OF YOUR COUNTRY PEOPLE IN PUBLIC LIFE, YOU ALWAYS HAVE THE LIGHTHOUS GOAL IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES TO SERVE YOUR ADOPTIVE FATHERLANDS FAITHFULLY. INDEPENDENT CHARACTERS FOR EVERYTHING LARGE AND BEAUTIFUL: THEY ARGENTED TO BRING THE PRECIOUS GOODS OF GERMANIA CULTURE AND PUT THEM INTO COLUMBIAS 'LAP TO BLESS ALL FUTURE GENDERLY.
IN ENDLESS RECOGNITION, YOUR GRATEFUL CITIZENS.
literature
- J. Thomas Scharf, History of St. Louis etc. (2 vols.), Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts & Co., 1883, v. I, p. 942.
- Obituary , The New York Times
- Thomas S. Barclay: Preetorius, Emil. In: Dictionary of American Biography , vol. 15 (1935), p. 15.
- Lawrence O. Christensen: Emil Preetorius , in: Dictionary of Missouri biography 1999, p. 624
- Hans-Georg Balder, Rüdiger B. Richter: Corporated in the American Civil War . Hilden: WJK-Verlag, 2013, p. 251
- Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 4: M-Q. Winter, Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 3-8253-1118-X , pp. 346-347.
Web links
- Biographical information , emigration from the regions of today's Rhineland-Palatinate
Individual evidence
- ^ Kösener corps lists 1910 , 56 , 338.
- ^ Obituary , The New York Times
- ^ Obituary , The New York Times
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Preetorius, Emil |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-American journalist and publicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 15, 1827 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Alzey |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 19, 1905 |
| Place of death | St. Louis |