Hermann Eduard von Holst (June 19, 1841 – January 20, 1904) 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 ...
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...
.
Biography
Holst was a
Baltic German
Baltic Germans (german: Deutsch-Balten or , later ) were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined ...
born at
Fellin
Viljandi (, german: Fellin, sv, Fellin) is a town and municipality in southern Estonia with a population of 17,407 in 2019. It is the capital of Viljandi County and is geographically located between two major Estonian cities, Pärnu and Tart ...
,
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. (It is now Viljandi,
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
.) He was the seventh of ten children of a
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...
minister. His father died while he was in the
Gymnasium (elite secondary school), and he had to teach and live frugally to stay in school.
He studied history at the universities of
University of Dorpat
The University of Tartu (UT; et, Tartu Ülikool; la, Universitas Tartuensis) is a university in the city of Tartu in Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is the only classical university in the country, and also its biggest ...
now (Tartu) and
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
, where he received a
doctorate
A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...
under
Ludwig Häusser in 1865. In 1866, he settled in
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, but in consequence of a pamphlet on an attempt on the life of the emperor, which he published at
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
while he was traveling abroad, his return to
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
was forbidden.
He decided to emigrate to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
in July 1867.
He settled in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, where he taught modern languages for a time in a small private school and made a number of political speeches in the runup to the
1868 election.
In the autumn of 1869, he became assistant editor, under
Alexander Jacob Schem
Alexander Jacob Schem (16 March 1826, in Wiedenbrück, Prussia – 21 May 1881, in West Hoboken, New Jersey) was a German-American writer, editor and educator.
Early life
He attended the Paderborn gymnasium from 1839 to 1843, and then studied ...
, of the ''Deutsch-Amerikanisches Conversations-Lexicon''.
His work in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
on
Louis XIV
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of Ver ...
, ''Federzeichnung aus der Geschichte des Despotismus'',
appeared in Leipzig soon after he arrived to the US. He subsequently became a contributor to several American journals.
On April 23, 1872 in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, he married Annie Isabelle Hatt, the daughter of the Rev. Josiah Hatt (1821–1857), pastor of the Baptist Church in
Hoboken, New Jersey
Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58,690 i ...
, and his wife, Mary Thomas. Their son
Hermann V. von Holst, the future architect, was born in
Freiburg im Breisgau in 1874.
A call to a professorship of history in the newly reorganized
University of Strasbourg
The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers.
The French university traces its history to the ea ...
brought him back to Germany in 1872.
In 1874, he was given the chair of modern history at
University of Freiburg
The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemb ...
in the
Grand Duchy of Baden where he stayed until 1892. For ten years, he was a member of the Baden Herrenhaus, and he was vice president for four years. He revisited the United States in 1878 and 1879 and in 1884. In 1882 he was elected a member of the
American Antiquarian Society
The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society i ...
In 1892, he became head of the department of history at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
. Retiring on account of ill-health in 1900, he returned to Germany and died at Freiburg in January 1904.
Von Holst's works are almost all on American topics.
Through his books and his lectures at the University of Chicago, he exerted a powerful influence in encouraging American students to follow more closely the German methods of historical research.
Works
*''Verfassung und Demokratie der Vereinigten Staaten'' or ''Constitutional and Political History of the United States'' (German ed., 5 vols., 1873–91; English trans. by Lalor and Mason, 8 vols., 1877–92) This is his principal work. It covers the period from 1783 to 1861, though more than half of it is devoted to the decade 1850-60. It is written from a strongly
anti-slavery
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The Britis ...
point of view.
*''Das Staatrecht der Vereinigten Staaten'' or ''The Constitutional Law of the United States of America'' (German ed., 1885; English trans., 1887)
*''John C. Calhoun'' (1882), in the American Statesmen Series
*''John Brown'' (1888)
*''The French Revolution Tested by Mirabeau's Career'' (1894) The topic of this book was the subject of a series of twelve lectures he gave for the
Lowell Institute
The Lowell Institute is a United States educational foundation located in Boston, Massachusetts, providing both free public lectures, and also advanced lectures. It was endowed by a bequest of $250,000 left by John Lowell Jr., who died in 1836. ...
's 1893-94 season.
[Harriet Knight Smith]
''The history of the Lowell Institute''
Boston: Lamson, Wolffe and Co., 1898.
Notes
References
* This work in turn cites:
** Obituary in ''Political Science Quarterly'', vol. v
pp. 677-78
** Obituary in ''Nation'' (New York), vol. lxxviii. pp. 65–67.
External links
*
*
*
*
Guide to the Hermann Eduard Von Holst Collection 1869-1902at th
University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holst, Hermann Eduard von
1841 births
1904 deaths
People from Viljandi
People from Kreis Fellin
Baltic-German people
19th-century German historians
German politicians
German male non-fiction writers
German expatriates in the United States
University of Tartu alumni
Heidelberg University alumni
University of Chicago faculty
Academic staff of the University of Strasbourg
Academic staff of the University of Freiburg
Members of the American Antiquarian Society