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From New York to San Francisco: Travel Sketches from the Year 1869 (Encounters: Explorations in Folklore and Ethnomusicology) Kindle Edition

by Ernst Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (Author), Gertrud Graubart Champe (Editor), Barbara Thiem (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 11 ratings
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A “fresh, wonderful, captivating” journey across 19th-century America through the letters of composer Felix Mendelssohn’s nephew (alfemminile.blogspot.com).
 
Welcome to an America you’ve never seen. Where anyone can drop by the White House and visit the President between 10 a.m. and noon; where cowcatchers are bloodied daily on train tracks between New York and Boston; where spent bullets are strewn across Civil War battlefields, and Indians still roam Yosemite Valley; where pigs rut in the sand-and-clay streets of Washington, DC., and the weather-bleached skeletons of oxen and horses line the old mail roads across the West.
 
For three hot summer months in 1869, Ernst Mendelssohn-Barthody, the nephew of famed composer Felix Mendelssohn, traveled by train across the United States accompanied by his older cousin. His letters back home to Prussia offer fascinating glimpses of a young, rapidly growing America. Unceasingly annoyed at the Americans’ tendency to spit all the time, the Prussian aristocrats seemingly visited everyone and everywhere: meeting President Grant and Brigham Young; touring Niagara Falls, Mammoth Cave, the Redwoods, and Yosemite; taking in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Omaha, San Francisco, and the still war-ravaged city of Richmond; and crossing the continent by rail just two months after the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads had been joined at Promontory, Utah.
 
Full of marvelous tales and insightful observations, Ernst Mendelssohn-Barthody’s letters are a revealing window to a long-ago America.
 
“If you love epistolary genre and the USA and if you want to understand how Americans lived immediately after the Secession War, From New York to San Francisco is the book you were waiting for.”—alfemminile.blogspot.com
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  1. Part of series
    Encounters
  2. Print length
    121 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publisher
    Indiana University Press
  6. Publication date
    September 11, 2017
  7. File size
    2943 KB
  8. Page Flip
    Enabled
  9. Word Wise
    Enabled
  10. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  11. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

" Fresh, wonderful, captivating. If you love epistolary genre and the USA and if you want to understand how Americans lived immediately after the Secession War, From New York to San Francisco is the book you were waiting for.
"―alfemminile.blogspot.com

About the Author

Barbara Haimberger Thiem is a performing cellist and teaches at Colorado State University. She spends the summers in Austria and Germany keeping up the tradition of gathering at Traunsee in the old family place, surrounded by immediate and more distant family members.

Gertrud Graubart Champe, PhD, is a professional translator with an interest in European cultural history.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B075R4K252
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Indiana University Press (September 11, 2017)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 11, 2017
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2943 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 121 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 11 ratings

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
11 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Donna M.
5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary Snapshot of a Young America Through the Eyes of European Traveller
Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2017
Verified Purchase
This gem of a book transported me to an America of 150 years ago that was by turns hard to recognize and utterly familiar. An insightful snapshot of our adolescent society only just recovering from the devastating civil war. The travel log from Berlin to California in 1869 by a pair of European sophisticates captures technical details of rail and steamship transport, ladies' fashion, mores and societal norms and manners. I was surprised, for example how easy it was for Mendelssohn to get access to the President of the United States, US Grant and the informality of the exchange. During reading I reflected on my own state of mind when travelling, which is one of absorption and observation rather than documentation. So I was astonished at the discipline and focus required to write such precise and thoughtful descriptions at the end of a long day of travel in various hotels, trains and boarding houses. I often lack the energy to even take an iphone photo. Thanks to the translator who brings these letters to life.
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Dennis
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2018
Verified Purchase
Great tales of 19th century America, written as letters of travelers back to family in Europe
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2018
Verified Purchase
Wonderful letters describing a very young nation
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Jake
5.0 out of 5 stars An interesting look at an interesting time
Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2021
This slim but fascinating book takes us along with letters written by a German traveler across America in 1869.
The details are enjoyable, but be prepared to wince at the prejudices built with the account from Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. But I applaud the translators for giving us the unvarnished opinions held by him from what is now 150 years ago. Put any of us back in that time and have our opinions judged.
The book is subtitled sketches, sharing that we get glimpses from him, with some very good detail,
from the ocean crossing to New York and all the way to San Francisco, with some side trips in between.
Well worth the read, I'm glad I found it.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Two Young Berliners take the new Transcontinental Railroad across America
Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2017
A wonderful book of letters by Ernst Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and his cousin, two affluent young men, of Jewish background, from Berlin, describing their adventures and encounters crossing the United States in 1869 on the transcontinental railroad, which had just been opened. They get an audience with President Ulysses S. Grant in Washington, and delve into the paradoxes of Mormon life and polygamy in Utah. Mendelssohn's impressions are fresh, vivid and charming. This is a book for people who enjoy reading about early railway travel and about the first tourists in the American West. It is also a contribution to understanding the amazing Mendelssohn family, which included Felix and Fanny, the composers. Readers will find it intriguing to see how two Europeans of Prussian-Jewish background react to the racial stratification and treatment of blacks in post-Civil War America. The editors Barbara Thiem and Gertrude Graubart Champe have given us an excellent translation of the original, and included an accessible introduction, along with unobtrusive notes and a biographical list of the people mentioned in the account. The book itself is slim and elegantly produced. Would make a great present for the holidays.
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Twin Dragons
5.0 out of 5 stars and she enjoyed it very much
Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2017
My mother in law gifted the book to her friend, and she enjoyed it very much. Here's her review:

I thoroughly enjoyed (your, this?) book. One of the pleasures was reading the
letters of such a likeable person. What a great traveler! He was so
keenly interested in everything he was witnessing and experiencing that
there was no time for complaining --just onward to the next adventure!
For an aristocrat and a royalist, he was quite generous in his opinions--except for the Indians. But they would have been alien creatures to him. An interesting contrast was his appreciation of the Chinese. I guess he never made it to Asia.
I feel I have had a delightful look at my country's history, a break from the more dismal present.

Rosemary Whitaker
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