Theirs was the American Dream

Anna Sartorius/Behr 1815 – 1884

née Anna Sartorius or Anna Behr (b. Feb. 13, 1815, Würzburg, Bavaria now Germany] - d. April 1, 1884, New York, N.Y., U.S.), publisher and philanthropist who helped establish a major German-language newspaper and contributed liberally to German-American institutions.

impressions4 Anna Sartorius was married first to Jacob Uhl, and later to Oswald Ottendorfer.

She received a scant education and about 1836 she immigrated to the United States and settled in New York City. Sources are divided over whether her marriage to Jacob Uhl, a printer, took place before or after she moved to the United States. In either case, by 1844 they had bought a print shop and along with it the contract to print the weekly New Yorker Staats-Zeitung.

They bought the newspaper outright the following year. Together Anna Uhl shared in the editorial, business, the composing room and even presswork.

Together they built the paper into a successful institution that was distributed to other cities with sizable German communities. It soon became a triweekly and then in 1849, a daily.

Anna and Jakob Uhl had six children Emma (1841-1902), Hermann (1842–1881), Edward (1843-1906), Isabelle (1847-1873), Mathilde (1848-1937) and my great-grandmother Anna W. (1850-1931).

After the death of her husband Jakob in 1852, Anna Uhl, aged 37, managed the entire enterprise.

In 1859 she married Oswald Ottendorfer, a Moravian immigrant who had joined the Staats-Zeitung in 1851 and had become editor in 1858. She served thereafter as general manager of the paper and in later years took up philanthropy.

In 1875 she contributed $100,000 to build the Isabella Home for elderly women of German ancestry in Astoria, Long Island. A similar gift in 1881 established the Hermann Uhl Memorial Fund, named for a deceased son, to support the study of the German language in American schools, principally through the German-American Teachers’ College of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

In 1882 she gave a women’s pavilion to the New York German Hospital and in 1884 a German dispensary and reading room. Gifts totalling $225,000.

She gave lesser amounts to other institutions in Brooklyn, New York, Newark, New Jersey and her will left another $250,000 to various German-American institutions.

American National Biography

OTTENDORFER, Anna Behr Uhl (13 Feb. 1815 - 1 Apr. 1884), newspaper owner and philanthropist, was born in Würzburg, Bavaria, the daughter of Eduard Behr, a storekeeper of modest background, and a mother whose name is unknown. Little has been recorded of Anna Behr's early life in Germany. She immigrated in 1837 to the United States, where she joined her brother on a farm in Niagara County, New York.

impressions5 In 1838 Anna Behr married Jakob Uhl, another immigrant from Bavaria who worked as a printer in New York City. In 1844 Uhl acquired his own print shop in New York and a year later he purchased the New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung, a German-language newspaper for which he had been the printer. Together the couple developed the weekly paper, which had been founded in 1834, into a daily, and saw its circulation grow as the city's German Population expanded. It became the principal German-language organ for the Democratic Party in New York City. Although occupied with the raising of the couple's six children, Anna Uhl played an active role in the business management of the paper. After Jakob Uhl died in 1852, she refused to sell the paper and took over control of its publication. She relied for assistance on Oswald Ottendorfer, who had been a staff member of the paper since 1851 and whom she married in 1859. The Ottendorfers had no children.

From 1859 onward, Anna Ottendorfer left most of the editorial functions of the newspaper to her husband while continuing to play a strong part in the paper's business management. Virtually every business day until shortly before her death found her in the newspaper's offices. The Staats-Zeitung prospered in the years during and after the Civil War and became the preeminent German-language journal of New York City and the most widely circulated German paper in the United States. By the early 1870s the newspaper rivalled in circulation the city's major English language newspapers such as the New York Times and the New York Tribune. The Staats-Zeitung occupied an imposing five-story Victorian structure built specially to house it at "Printer's Square" on Park Row, where the other major New York newspapers were located. As proprietor of the largest German newspaper in the country, Anna Ottendorfer became the most influential woman in German-language journalism in the United States.

The newspaper's prosperity by the 1870s brought considerable social status to Anna Ottendorfer, both within the German community and in New York society generally. It also allowed her to devote herself to philanthropy at the same time that her husband became involved in the politics of the city. The principal objects of her charitable activity were the welfare of women and children and the fostering and preservation of German language and culture. In 1875 her benefactions established the Isabella Home (named for her deceased daughter Isabella who died in 1847 aged 26) for aged German women in Astoria, New York. In 1881 she contributed $35,000 for German education in memory of her late son Hermann Uhl (who died in 1881 aged 38); these gifts supported the impressions6 national German - American Teachers' Seminary in Milwaukee and various German-language schools in New York City. She also established a fund at the New York Normal School for prize awards for scholarship in German. In 1882 the German Hospital of New York City opened a new Women's Pavilion at Seventy-seventh Street and Fourth Avenue through a gift of $100,000 from Anna Ottendorfer. In 1882 and 1883 she made extensive contributions for the relief of flood victims in Germany; in gratitude for these efforts Empress Augusta, (queen of Prussia 1858 - 1921) awarded her the Frauenverdienstkreuz (in the center is a cross fleury with stylized cornflowers between the arms of the cross. The medallion is framed by a string of pearls and is surmounted by a crown. On the edge of the medallion is the blue enameled inscription FÜR VERDIENSTE. On the lower half of the edge are laurel branches flanking the intertwined letters AV (Augusta Victoria). The insignia of the order was worn on a white bow on the left chest.)

At the time of Anna Ottendorfer's death, work was being completed on a new building for the German Dispensary, a branch of the German Hospital for outpatients at Ninth Street and Second Avenue. She had paid for the building and its land and acquired adjacent tracts of land to house the Ottendorfer Branch of the New York Free Circulating Library. She had donated the land and the building for the library; benefactions from her husband furnished it and stocked it with 8,800 volumes, about half of them in German. Both the new dispensary and the library were opened after her death in 1884. Her will bequeathed an additional $250,000 to various charities, bringing the total of her charitable gifts to at least $750,000.

Anna Ottendorfer died at her home on East Seventeenth Street in New York City. Her funeral was judged by the New York Times to be the largest ever held for a woman in New York City. The flags at City Hall were flown at half-mast, over two hundred carriages joined the procession, and Carl Schurz, the most prominent German American leader of the day, delivered the principal eulogy.

Files of the New- Yorker Staats-Zeitung during Anna Ottendorfer's career are in the New York Public Library. Detailed information about the paper can be found in Karl J. R. Arndt and May E. Olson, 77, The German Language Press of the Americas, vol. I, History and Bibliography, 1732 to 1955 (3d rev. ed., 1976). A biographical memoir by Heinrich A. Rattermann, "Eine deutsch-amerikanische Philanthropin: Frau Anna Ottendorfer," is in Deutsche Pionier 16 (1884): 293¬-301. An article about the dedication of her library is in the New York Times, 7 Dec. 1884. 'The Staats-Zeitung published a memorial volume, Zur Errinerung an Anna Ottendorfer (1884). A lengthy obituary appeared in the Sonntagsblatt der New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung, 6 Apr. 1884. Other obituaries are in the New York Times. 2, 5 Apr. 1884, and in Harper's Bazar, 3 May 1884.

JAMES M. BERGQUIST

The National Encyclopaedia of American Biography

V.1-13. 1989, 1893-1909.

OTTENDORFER, Anna Behr, philanthropist and journalist, was born at Würzburg. Bavaria, Feb. 13.1815. A brother having migrated to New York State, settling in Niagara County, Miss Behr left for this country in 1837, and for some time resided with him at his home. In the following year she married Jacob Uhl, a printer by trade, who in 1844 started a job office in New York city and in the following year purchased the « New Yorker Staats-Zeitung » then a small weekly paper, which became the foundation of the great German organ of New York.

With the diligent assistance of his young wife, Mr Uhl was soon enabled to change his paper to a tri-weekly and in 1840 to a daily newspaper. In 1852 he died, leaving his widow, in addition to the care of her children, the burden of the management of the newspaper. Mrs Uhl, however, had thoroughly familiarized herself with the details of newspaper management, possessed executive abilities and business skill, and by perseverance, energy and pluck succeeded in making her newspaper not only remunerative but a power in the land.

Many offers of purchase were made but she declined them all, and from 1852 until 1859 was sale manager. In July 1859, she became the wife of Mr. Oswald Ottendorfer, who had been for a long time on the staff of the paper; and after that Mr Ottendorfer occupied the chief editorial chair while his wife, up to a period near to her death, was business manager. Mrs. Ottendorfer was famous for her works of charity. In addition to innumerable acts of private benevolence, of which the public never learned, she devoted a large portion of her great wealth to creating enlarging or endowing charitable and other institutions.

In 1875 she built, in memory of her daughter Isabella, the Isabella Home for aged women, in Astoria, Long Island, on which she spent altogether $ 50,000. In 1881 she contributed about $ 40,000 to a memorial fund in support of several institutions, and the following year she spent about $ 75,000 in building and furnishing the woman’s pavilion of the German Hospital of New York City. She also paid out over $ 100,000 for the German Dispensary in Second Avenue and at her death bequeathed $ 25,000 to be divided among the employees of the “Staats-Zeitung”.

Mrs. Ottendorfer's Estate

A WILL WHICH BEQUEATHS LARGE SUMS TO CHARITY

The will of the late Anna Ottendorfer, wife of Oswald Ottendorfer, of the Staats-Zeitung, was, presented for probate in the Surrogate's office yesterday. In it Mrs Ottendorfer gives

• to her daughter Emma Schalk, wife of Adolph Schalk, a set of pearl ornaments;

• to her daughter Anna Woerishoffer, wife of Charles F. Woerishoffer, a large diamond brooch, a bracelet set with rubies, and an onyx brooch set with diamonds;

• to her daughter Mathilde Riedl von Riedenstein, wife of Frederick Riedl von Riedenstein, of Vienna, a set of jewelry, consisting of a gold chain, a cross and a bracelet set with diamonds;

• to her daughter-in-law, Jane M. UhI, widow of her late son, Hermann UhI, a cameo set consisting of a brooch and a bracelet;

• to her grandson Hermann UhI, the gold watch and chain which she wore during the closing years of her life.

• She directs her Executors to present to each of her grandchildren as a memento an article of jewelry to be selected from those not otherwise bequeathed.

• The remainder of her jewelry and personal adornments and wearing apparel is given to her three daughters in equal parts.

• To her husband, Oswald Ottendorfer, is given all the household furniture, plate, pictures, books, horses, carriages, and harness, for his use during life, and on his death to her three daughters.

The "Deutscher Frauenverein zur Unterstützung hilfsbedürftiger Witwenwaisen und Kranken" of New-York" is given $10,000; the German Hospital and Dispensary of New-York:" $10,000; the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, $5,000· and the German Hospital in Newark, N.J. $5.000. Charlotte Worch, widow of Freiderich Worch, formerly in the office of the New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung, is given $5,000, which in case of her death goes to her children; John Lauckhardt, of the Staats-Zeitung, is given $6,000; Theophil Reust and Edward Brion, also of the Staats-Zeitung, $5,000 each.

• To her son Edward UhI, Mrs Ottendorfer gives one-half of all her shares and stock in the StaatsZeitung corporation, and

• to her Executors the remaining half in trust for her three grandsons, Hermann, Oswald, and Manfred Uhl, minor children of her deceased son Hermann. The dividends on this stock are to be applied so far as needed to the education and maintenance of the grandsons.

• In a codicil which accompanies the WiII, this bequest is changed so that Edward UhI gets 102 shares and the grandsons 48 shares of the Staats-Zeitung stock.

• To her son, Edward UhI, is given all Mrs Ottendorfer's lands in Kansas, and

• to her husband all her real estate in Manhattanville, which is bounded by the Boulevard, the Hudson River, One Hundred and Thirty-seventh and One Hundred and Thirty-eighth streets; her house and lot at No.7 East Seventeenth street, and a stable at No. 10 East Eighteenth-street. Mr Ottendorfer may surrender this property to the residuary estate if he so wishes. It is provided that all the bequests must be paid out of the personal estate and that none shall constitute a charge or lien upon the real estate.

• The remainder of the estate is given to the Executors as Trustees to be divided into five shares for Emma Schalk, Anna Woerishoffer, Mathilde Riedl von Riedenstein, Edward UhI, and the three grandsons.

In addition to changing the bequests of the shares in Staats-Zeitung corporation the codicil gives to the "Isabella Heiruath" corporation, of New-York, $25.000; to the United Relief works of the Society for Ethical Culture, of New-York, $10,000; to the "Das Nationale Deutsch-Amerikanische Lehrer Seminar" corporation, of New-York, $10,000, and sets apart $25,000 to be divided among those employees of the Staats-Zeitung who give their whole time find attention to the work of the newspaper. The will is dated March 25, 1881, and the codicil March 23, 1883. The Executors are Oswald Ottendorfer, Emma Schalk, Mathilde Riedl von Riedenstein, Anna Woerishoffer, Edward Uhl, and Andrew H. Green.

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