Hermann Raster

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Hermann Raster
Collector of Internal Revenue for the First District of Illinois
In office
December 1869 – March 30, 1872
Preceded byEdmund Jüssen
Succeeded bySamuel A. Irvin
Secretary of the State Assembly of Dessau
In office
1848–1851
Personal details
Born
Wilhelm Friedrich Hermann Raster

May 6, 1827
University of Berlin
ProfessionEditor, journalist, politician
Signature

Hermann Raster (May 6, 1827 – July 24, 1891) was an

Elihu Washburne, and Francis Wayland Parker, much of which is preserved at the Newberry Library in Chicago.[4]

Biography

Early life and the Revolutions of 1848

The revolutionary Erfurt Union Parliament, of which Raster was Chief Stenographer during its brief existence

Raster was born in

Forty-Eighters or to face criminal prosecution for his actions.[7]

New York

Raster in 1882

Raster arrived in

anti-slavery articles in the German press, and promoting the personal liberty cause. He was a very strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln and helped convince the German and European communities to vote Republican. His wife, Emilia, died on October 14, 1861, at the age of 25, of an unknown cause. She is interred at Evergreens Cemetery in New York.[8] During the American Civil War, he was the primary American correspondent for the newspapers in Berlin, Bremen, Vienna, and other Central European cities, and was regarded as more effective in campaigning for the American cause in Germany than any politicians at the time.[7][9] He returned to Germany briefly during the war to drum up support for the Union and find investors for Union bonds.[10] Up until 1867 he was also the Wagonmaster of the United States Custom House in New York City.[11]

Chicago and later life

In 1867, Raster accepted

Haymarket Affair, Raster was trying to delegate the rioters before he left the scene when he realized any hope for containing the situation was lost. Once the perpetrators were caught he wrote a letter to the Governor, John Peter Altgeld demanding that the prisoners be put to death.

A cartoon in Puck caricaturing Grover Cleveland's entry into Washington following his 1885 inauguration in which Raster is featured in the foreground clutching a copy of the Staats-Zeitung alongside other Republican leaders

He blamed the recent German "immigrant radicals" for the issues at hand and suggested immigration reforms be made, stating, "Unfortunately it is from the German Reich that these bloody scoundrels, these socialists, communists, and anarchists have come."[16] Despite his own history as a revolutionary, Raster drafted an "Anarchist Expulsion Bill" in 1887 for Congressional Debate.[17]

Raster was an active member of the Chicago Intelligentsia of the late 19th century, and was on the first 9-member board of the Chicago Public Library in the 1870s.[18] He was also on the Chicago Board of Education for many years, and was on the board of trustees for the Field Museum of Natural History.[19]

Death and legacy

Raster died on July 24, 1891, in Kudowa-Zdrój, Silesia, where he had traveled in June 1890 because of his poor health.[20]

His body was brought back to the United States on board the SS Eider of the Norddeutscher Lloyd. On August 12, his funeral services were conducted at the German Press Club in Chicago, and speakers from as far away as New York and New Jersey attended.[21] The hall was decorated with hanging crepes and his casket, made of walnut and "heavily" mounted with silver, was "literally covered in floral emblems sent by various German-American press organizations." The German American Press Club of Philadelphia sent a large anchor, and the German Club of Hoboken, New Jersey, gave a laurel wreath wrapped in the colors of the 1848 revolution, which Raster was a part of, that said, "To the German Hero from the German Club." His wife Margarethe refused to leave his casket and "sobbed violently" until the group convinced her to go to her carriage.[22] Honorary pallbearers at his funeral included Mayor Hempstead Washburne and Senator Charles B. Farwell.[23]

Raster's grave at Graceland Cemetery

On his death, the Chicago Tribune produced an article which said, "His writings during and after the Civil War did more to create understanding and appreciation of the American situation in Germany and to float U.S. bonds in Europe than the combined efforts of all the U.S. ministers and consuls." Raster was interred at Graceland Cemetery on August 13, 1891, where his grave remains today.[21]

In 1891, Raster's family and friends published a novel filled with his travel papers and biography, called "Reisebriefe von Hermann Raster". Over 3,900 of his papers, correspondence, notes, and manuscripts were donated to the Newberry Library in 1893.[7] In 1893 the Hermann Raster School was opened on 6937 Wood St in Chicago and had 200 students. In 1910, the larger Hermann Raster Elementary School was built at 6936 Hermitage Ave,[7] but the school has since changed names and hands, and is now the campus of The Montessori School of Englewood.

Raster's son-in-law was Chicago architect Arthur Hercz and his granddaughter Corrine married Chicago-based industrialist and horticulturist Bruce Krasberg.[24]

Selected bibliography

  • Die drei Betrüger : Nach der im Jahr 1598 erschienen Schrift: De Tribvs Impostoribvs, 1846
  • Thatsachen aus der politischen Geschichte der Vereinigten Staaten, 1860
  • Einheit und Freiheit, 1863
  • General Butler in New Orleans, 1864

References

  1. ^ "Illinois Staats-zeitung (Chicago, Ill. Weekly)". Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections. University of Illinois. Retrieved May 31, 2022.
  2. ^ Blair, Francis P., John C. Rives, Franklin Rives, and George A. Bailey. The Congressional Globe. 1st ed. Vol. 66. Cambridge: Blair & Rives, 1872. Print.
  3. ^ "The City." Chicago and Its Resources Twenty Years after, 1871-1891: a Commercial History Showing the Progress and Growth of Two Decades from the Great Fire to the Present Time, by Royal L La Touche, Chicago Times Company, 1892, pp. 30–31.
  4. ^ "Inventory of the Hermann Raster Papers". The Newberry Library. Archived from the original on June 11, 2011. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
  5. ISBN 3910192661
    .
  6. ^ Raster, Hermann. Reisebriefe von Hermann Raster: mit einer Biographie und einem Bildniss des Verfassers. Berlin: Buchdr. Gutenberg (F. Zillessen), 1891. Print.
  7. ^ a b c d e Knutson, Larry (May 13, 1965). "School's Name Honors Raster, Famed Editor". Chicago Tribune. p. 35. Retrieved November 14, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795-1949
  9. ^ Illinois Historical Collections
  10. ^ Schrader, Frederick Franklin. The Germans in the Making of America Boston: Stratford 1924. Haskell House Publishers, 1972.
  11. ^ "The Chicago Collectorship". Chicago Tribune. March 28, 1871. p. 4. Retrieved November 14, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ The American-German Review. Vol. 6, Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation, 1939.
  13. ^ Moses, John, and Joseph Kirkland. History of Chicago, Illinois. Munsell & Co., 1895.
  14. ^ Sawislak, Karen. Smoldering City: Chicagoans and the Great Fire, 1871-1874. University of Chicago Press, 1996.
  15. ^ Grant, Ulysses S. The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant: 1873. N.p.: SIU, 1967. Print
  16. ^ Hirsch, Eric L. Urban Revolt: Ethnic Politics in the Nineteenth-century Chicago Labor Movement. N.p.: University of California, 1990. Print.
  17. ISBN 978-1683932222
    .
  18. ^ Moses, John. History of Chicago. 2nd ed., vol. 2, Munsell & Company, 1895.
  19. ^ Seeger, Eugen. Chicago, the Wonder City. Nabu Press, 2010.
  20. ^ Illinois Staats-Zeitung, July 25, 1891
  21. ^ a b "Hermann Raster's Body Received". Chicago Tribune. New York. August 11, 1891. p. 2. Retrieved November 14, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ^ "Honor Herman Raster". Chicago Tribune. New York. August 12, 1891. p. 2. Retrieved November 14, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ^ Chicago Biographical Pamphlets: John P. Altgeld Memorial at the Garrick Theater, 1907
  24. ^ Who's who in Commerce and Industry, Volume 15. Canada: Marquis Who's Who. 1968. p. 776.

External links

Preceded by Collector of Internal Revenue for the 1st District of Illinois
December 1869 - March 30, 1872 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Editor in Chief of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung
1867-1891 		Succeeded by
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