Heinrich Armin Rattermann

Background

Heinrich Armin Rattermann was born on Octember 14, 1832 in the Hanoverian town of Ankum, near Osnabrück, Germany, the son of a cabinet maker, Hermann Rat(h)ermann, and his wife, Katharine Helmsing.

Education

The education of the precocious boy was brought to a close at the age of thirteen, when he emigrated with his parents to the United States.

Career

Arriving in 1846 in Cincinnati, where a brother had settled before him, the father found immediate though not very remunerative employment at his trade. The son toiled at various occupations, in a brickyard, slaughter-house, restaurant, decorator's and carpenter's shop. The situation was aggravated when his father died in 1850, leaving to him the main support of his mother and two younger children. His uncle took him into his lumber business, but economic success did not come to the young man until, at the age of twenty-six, he established the German Mutual Fire Insurance Company, of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio.

At the fiftieth anniversary of the founding in 1908, the company possessed a capital of one and one-third millions of dollars and a surplus of $500, 000. While his self-made position did not bring him great wealth, it enabled him to support a large family, gather a valuable private library, and make frequent trips in the interests of his historical investigations. Though he was a faithful servant of his clients, business and statistics never completely satisfied him.

Between 1862 and 1870 he wrote and published, in English and in German, several librettos for operas performed in Cincinnati: D. F. E. Auber's La Muette de Portici; G. A. Lortzing's Undine, and Der Wildschütz; Carl M. von Weber's Oberon; The Interrupted Sacrifice, an American opera, the scene of which was laid in Peru; and Die Fehme im Froschreiche, a satirical farce with music by a local composer, Theodore Wilmes, which was performed with acclaim at a Cincinnati carnival in 1869.

Rattermann was also one of the founders in his city of German singing societies such as the Sängerbund, the Männerchor, and the Orpheus, and for twelve years he directed the choir of the Catholic Church of St. John. His very active participation in the promotion of vocal and instrumental music became less in the early seventies, when his interest in historical investigations grew.

In 1874 Rattermann accepted the editorship of the monthly historical journal Der Deutsche Pionier, founded a few years previously. In his hands it became a mine of information on the German pioneers and a most valuable source for the history of the German element in the United States. He continued the work through the eighteenth volume and then published a continuation in 1886-87 called Deutsch-Amerikanisches Magazin.

Late in life he began to publish a selection of his works, Gesammelte Ausgewählte Werke. He was his own publisher, even his own type-setter, and with the aid of his daughter, he would have accomplished the task had not bad health and the delays of the printers thwarted him. Twelve volumes of the eighteen he had originally planned were published between 1906 and 1914. When he wrote verse Rattermann assumed the suggestive pseudonym, Hugo Reimmund, for very skillful rhymer he was, and from his inexhaustible mine he occasionally brought forth a nugget of gold. A volume of poems, Nord-Amerikanische Vogel in Liedern (1904), is dedicated to his friend, the ornithologist, Henry Nehrling, and is a tribute to American birds.

His private library was that of a self-educated scholar and very wide reader. It comprised more than 7, 000 volumes and a large number of pamphlets, also files of newspapers, and was particularly rich in travel literature concerning colonial North and South America, and in works on the history of German settlers and pioneers from the earliest times to the nineteenth century. A group of friends bought the Rattermann library and presented it to the University of Illinois in 1916, when the collector could no longer enjoy the use of it himself. Rattermann lived to the age of ninety-one.

Achievements

• He spared neither pains nor expense in getting access to family documents, to court and land records, and to hidden archive materials. His work shows the inevitable faults of pioneer production, but he is at his best in biographical sketches, the material being well sifted and drawn from his own recollections. Rattermann never aspired to political office, though his political speeches sometimes furnished material for campaign documents. He was influential in the nomination of Tilden at the convention in St. Louis, and subsequently stumped the state of Ohio for Tilden.

Works

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  • Nord-Amerikanische Vögel in Liedern: Für Familien-und Schulgebrauch (Classic Reprint) (German Edition)

    (Excerpt from Nord-Amerikanische Vögel in Liedern: Für Fam...)

  • Deutsch-Amerikanische Dichter und Dichtungen des 17ten und 18ten Jahrhunderts (eine Anthologie) (Classic Reprint) (German Edition)

    (Excerpt from Deutsch-Amerikanische Dichter und Dichtungen...)

  • Denkreden und Vorträge Gehalten im Deutschen Litterarischen Klub von Cincinnati, O, Vol. 1: Shakspeareana, Musiker-und Künstler-Biographien und Vorträge (Classic Reprint) (German Edition)

    (Excerpt from Denkreden und Vorträge Gehalten im Deutschen...)

  • Geschichte des Grossen Amerikanischen Westens Nach Quellen Bearbeitet (German Edition)

    (Geschichte des Grossen Amerikanischen Westens Nach Quelle...)

  • Gesammelte Ausgewählte Werke, Vol. 1 (Classic Reprint) (German Edition)

    (Excerpt from Gesammelte Ausgewählte Werke, Vol. 1 Sm flom...)

  • Gesammelte Ausgewählte Werke, Vol. 9 (Classic Reprint) (German Edition)

    (Excerpt from Gesammelte Ausgewählte Werke, Vol. 9 Seinem...)

  • Aphorismen und Agrionien, Vol. 1: Denksprüche und Räthsel in Prosa und Versen (Classic Reprint) (German Edition)

    (Excerpt from Aphorismen und Agrionien, Vol. 1: Denksprüch...)

  • Aphorismen und Agrionien, Vol. 2: Denksprüche und Räthsel in Prosa und Versen (Classic Reprint) (German Edition)

    (Excerpt from Aphorismen und Agrionien, Vol. 2: Denksprüch...)

Personality

He was quite deaf and totally blind during his last years, but never lost his cheerful and serene spirit.

Connections

He was twice married, his first wife dying within a year after her marriage. His second wife, Dorothea Müller, died in 1896. He was survived by four sons, two daughters, and thirteen grandchildren.

Father:

Hermann Rat(h)ermann

Mother:

Katharine Helmsing

Spouse:

Dorothea Müller

Friend:

Henry Nehrling