A German Edition of an American Periodical

The Sandusky Library has an issue of the German edition of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, dated October 22, 1881, in the historical files of the Archives Research Center.

The cover of this issue featured the 100 year anniversary of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. The German text was easy for local residents of German descent to read. The German-born population of Sandusky in the 1880s was about 25% of the total population, so German was a prominent second language in the city at that time.

The item was donated by Mrs. Louis Duennisch, who was both the daughter and wife of men who had been born in Germany.

Her father, Conrad Ebert, was born in 1824 in Bavaria, where he learned the trade of cabinetmaking. Mrs. Duennisch was the second wife of Louis Duennisch, who was born in Ostheim, Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach in 1847. He emigrated to the U.S. with his widowed mother in 1857. Louis Duennisch worked at the Sandusky Sash, Door & Blind Company, where he eventually became foreman of the shop. He continued at that firm as well as its successors, for over thirty five years. At the time of his retirement, the business was known as George R. Butler and Company. Mr. and Mrs. Duennisch traveled extensively, both in the United States and abroad; the library has a photograph album of their travels from 1895 to the early twentieth century. Visit the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center to learn more about the former residents and businesses of Sandusky and Erie County, Ohio.