Who Wrote Those Letters?

In Search of Jürnjakob Swehn

by Eldon L. Knuth


Formats

Softcover
$17.50
Softcover
$17.50

Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 4/27/2005

Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 6x9
Page Count : 196
ISBN : 9781420834789

About the Book

            For seventy years after the publication in Germany in 1917 of Johannes Gillhoff’s best seller “Jürnjakob Swehn  -- der Amerikafahrer” (translated recently into English with the title “Letters of a German American Farmer”) the readers of the book debated whether It was fact or fiction – and, if fact, who wrote those immigrant letters from Iowa back to his teacher in Germany.  The present book is a factual narrative of the ten-year search which in 1988 revealed the true identity of Jürnjakob Swehn and showed that most of the book is fact.  The narrative documents how Swehn’s family fared of five previously unpublished letters to Iowa from the Gillhoff family.


About the Author

            Professor Knuth holds a Bachelor and Master degrees from Purdue University and a Ph.D. in Aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology.  He was a Professor at the University of California at Los Angeles from 1956 until his retirement in 1991.  For the researches described in this book, he was the right person at the right place at the right time.  He was born in Clayton County, Iowa where Swehn settled in 1868; has roots in Mecklenburg, Germany where Swehn was born; has a keen interest I genealogy; visits Germany frequently; and speaks and reads German.  For the researches described here, Professor Knuth received honorary membership in the Johannes Gillhoff Society, honorary citizenship from the village Glaisin in Mecklenburg, and the Fritz Reuter medal.