Saturday, September 17, 2016

Employees of the Sandusky Demokrat



This picture from 1888 shows several employees of the Sandusky Demokrat in Sandusky, Ohio. The  Demokrat was a German language newspaper published for the many local residents who spoke German. The company also offered printing services in either the English or German language. 

From left to right in the picture are: Charles Ruemmele, John Erney, Otto Mielke, Albert Kolb and William F. Senn, who was the editor and publisher of the Demokrat in 1888. Peeking out from an upper story window is Philip Buerkle. The building was located at 742 Water Street in 1888, which was later 216 West Water Street. (This structure no longer stands.) You can see 742 Water Street in a portion of the 1886 Sanborn Map below. It was on the south side of Water, east of Jackson Street.


The Sandusky Demokrat was in business in Sandusky from 1856 to 1919. A front page article in the May 7, 1919 issue of the Sandusky Register reported that the Demokrat had become “a thing of the past.” At the time it ceased operations, it was considered Ohio’s oldest German language newspaper. The newspaper closed for a variety of reasons, many caused by pressures arising from anti-German sentiment that was prevalent throughout the United States due to the war in Europe.



You can read more about German language newspapers in Sandusky in a previous post at Sandusky History.

3 comments:

Lisa said...

Does the Sandusky library have microfilm of this newspaper? Would be great for ancestry research.

Sandusky Library Archives Research Center said...

Unfortunately, we do not. A complete run of the newspaper does not appear to exist today, sorry to say.

Ed Daniel said...

My father, Cyril Daniel, was born in Sandusky in 1895, and he used to tell us children that the family (immigrants from Germany in 1838) still spoke German at home (and in public, I assume) until 1918, when it was considered un-American to do so. At the time of his First Holy Communion, in about 1912, the Sandusky Star Journal (or the Register??) made special note of the fact that during the service, in "St. Mary's German Catholic Church," the sermon would be given in English!!