Henry F. Urban (February 13, 1862 – May 13, 1924) was a

German American German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...

journalist, author, and playwright.

Biography

Reportedly a descendant of Johann Heinrich Voss, Urban was raised in Berlin and

emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

to the United States in 1887. He was

naturalized Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...

as a

U.S. citizen Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constituti ...

in 1899 in New York. In the following years, he reported on life in America, often in a critical vein, as a freelance correspondent for the newspapers '' Berliner Tageblatt'' and ''

Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger The ''Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger'' was a daily newspaper published in Berlin, with one of the highest national circulations of its time. Its publisher was newspaper magnate August Scherl, who also owned ''Die Woche ''Die Woche'' (, "The Week") was ...

'' as well as for the weekly magazines ''Jugend'' and ''

Simplicissimus :''Simplicissimus is also a name for the 1668 novel Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus, Simplicius Simplicissimus and its protagonist.'' ''Simplicissimus'' () was a satire, satirical German language, German weekly magazine, headquartered in Munich ...

''. His comedy ''Der Froschkönig'', loosely derived from the

Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the ...

fairy tale "The Frog Prince", was staged at the Irving Place Theatre in 1918. An outspoken critic of the

women's suffrage movement Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to gran ...

, he was primarily known in Germany for a

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

novel about naive German immigrants eager to strike it rich in "Dollarland" America and for collections of his humorous narratives,Henrici, ''Das Buch der Deutschen in Amerika'', p. 393.
/ref> a number of which have been reissued in the twenty-first century.

Works

* ''Just Zwölf. Yankee-Schnurren und anderes.'' Berlin, 1903. * ''Die Maus Lula. Tragisches und Tragikomisches.'' Berlin, 1904. * ''Aus dem Dollarlande.'' Berlin, 1906. * ''Lederstrumpfs Erben. Neue Geschichten aus dem Dollarlande.'' Berlin, 1908. * ''Die drei Dollarjäger aus Berlin. Eine heitere New Yorker Geschichte.'' Berlin, 1910. * ''Die Entdeckung Berlins.'' Berlin, 1911. * ''Der Frosch von Seeburg.'' Berlin, 1911. Coauthor Robert Overweg. * ''Der Eisberg und Sonstiges.'' Berlin, 1912. * ''Katzenmüller und andere Erzählungen.'' Leipzig, 1913. * ''Der Nussknacker. Eine Humoreske in drei Aufzügen.'' Play script. Berlin, 1914. * ''Der Froschkönig.'' Play script, 1918. * Preface to ''Drei Mann in einem Boot, vom Hunde ganz zu schweigen'' by

Jerome K. Jerome Jerome Klapka Jerome (2 May 1859 – 14 June 1927) was an English writer and humourist, best known for the comic travelogue ''Three Men in a Boat'' (1889). Other works include the essay collections '' Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow'' (1886) a ...

, trans. A. & M. Springer. Berlin, 1920. * ''Ernste und heitere Gedichte. Aus dem Nachlass''. Newark, 1920. * ''Wie der Berliner ins Seebad fährt''. Berlin: Epilogmedia, 2010. * ''Die Schwierigkeit, den Grunewald zu entdecken''. Berlin: Epilogmedia, 2010. * ''Die Kunst, am Sonntag Pfannkuchen zu kaufen''. Berlin: Epilogmedia, 2010. * ''Die Entdeckung Berlins.'' Michael Bienert, ed. Berlin: Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, 2014. . * ''Der Eisberg''. Günter Bäbler, ed. Berlin: epubli, 2018. .

References

External links

* Works by and abou
Henry F. Urban
in the

German National Library The German National Library (DNB; german: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany. It is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its task is to colle ...

* Recording o
"Die Franzer"
written and recited by Henry F. Urban {{DEFAULTSORT:Urban, Henry F. 1862 births 1924 deaths American male journalists Emigrants from the German Empire to the United States Journalists from Berlin Berliner Tageblatt people Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger