My Grandfather, Fritz Hertha, received his Abitur in 1911. He would have been 18 years old. He then worked for his uncle, Albin Hertha, who was a doll manufacturer. Max Hertha, Fritz’s father, worked for the American chainstore, F.W. Woolworths, and was involved in exporting toys, dolls and other things, to the United States.
On December 6, 1913, which coincidently was his twentieth birthday, Fritz boarded the ship Pretoria in Hamburg departing for New York. On his arrival on December 22nd, he made his way to St. Louis Missouri to take a position as Floor Man with the F.W. Woolworths Company. I asked my father why he had left Germany to go to the United States and he said it was because he thought that’s where the future was.
He lived in a boarding house1, which I expect made sense for his specific situation2. This picture, taken at his place of residence, shows my grandfather, on the left, sitting on the rail, with other guests of the house standing or sitting in the background.
The composition of the picture is quite good in that my grandfather is well exposed, being in the sun, while leading lines draw attention to the guests in the background. Furthermore, being on a diagonal, these lines provide a sense of depth and movement, or conversely, the composition avoids the static sense that a picture taken square-on would leave. As the picture is reasonably crisp and focused, though its detail is limited by the technology of the time, I am left with the impression that the person who took the picture had good equipment for the time and knew what they were doing.
One gets a sense of the place where he lived, which seems to be a large house with a large veranda. Seeing the other guests, suggests he is not alone, and he is with a little community. However, they all appear to be older, possibly his parent’s age. I don’t know how well my grandfather spoke English, but I know he had studied Esperanto, and French would have been part of his core curriculum, however I’m unsure about English. Having said that, given his position as a Floor Man, I might assume he was reasonably capable3.
What I find odd is the separation between my grandfather and the other guests. What is even more interesting to consider is that they would accept such an arrangement. I can only wonder whether there was an explanation and then what it might have been.
- located at 3458 Pestalozzi Street, ST. Louis Missouri. There is a house there now, however, it’s not clear that it is the same one.
↩︎ - National Census data of the period suggests that between 10-20% of people lived in boarding or rooming houses. Boarding was particularly common among single people (especially young, single workers) and recent arrivals to a city—whether from rural areas or from abroad.
↩︎ - Based on the 1910 Census, around 60,000–70,000 St. Louis residents were foreign-born Germans (i.e., people actually born in Germany).
The number of people of German descent (including second- and third-generation families) was much larger. Contemporary estimates suggest that 25%–35% (or more) of St. Louisans had German roots by the early 1900s. This could easily place the total population with German heritage in the 150,000–250,000 range or approximate 25% of the city’ population. ↩︎
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