Famous People
It’s true we have some big names in our list of famous people. Many of those are personalities
that you see when you turn on the TV but others are not as well known. Please share with us
the history and names of Americans with German heritage who have contributed to American
culture and German American relations in a meaningful and positive way.
I only know a story that my father told me that his relitives told him, and I am wondering if anyone can help me figure out where to look to find who my ansestors were. I only know that my ansestor was royalty in germany, and that my ansestor fell in love with catholic during the time that the catholic and the royal familys were at odds on who should be in charge. I was told that they were beheading catholics at this time and that when my ansestor fell in love with a catholic that they were sent here to the united states, instead of being beheaded. the ansestors I am looking up came from my fathers, mother and her maiden last name was bowlman, although I know many people changed there last names when they came here, I am hoping maybe someone knows this story and can help me, or tell me where to get help. Thanks for your time.
Wanda
Adolphus Busch: Colonel Adolphus Busch (July 10, 1839 – October 10, 1913) was the co-founder of Anheuser-Busch with his father-in-law, Eberhard Anheuser. Anheuser-Busch is the largest brewing company in the United States in volume with a 48.8% share of beer sales. Worldwide, Anheuser-Busch’s beer sales volume was 121.9 million barrels in 2005. It is the world’s fourth largest brewing company based on revenue, after InBev, SABMiller and Heineken.
Busch was born in 1839 in Kastel, a district of Mainz in the Grand Duchy of Hesse. He was the second youngest of 22 siblings. The family worked in winery and brewery supplies. He attended the Collegiate Institute of Belgium in Brussels, and left his home in 1857 with three of his brothers for St. Louis, Missouri: Johann, who established a brewery in Washington, Missouri; Ulrich Jr, who married another daughter of Eberhard Anheuser, and lived in Chicago; and Anton, who was a hop dealer, but returned home to Mainz.
His first job in St. Louis was working as a clerk in the commission house. He was also an employee at William Hainrichshofen’s wholesale company. He became acquainted with Lilly Anheuser, whose parents had a small brewery which her father Eberhard Anheuser (1805-1880) acquired in 1860, renaming it from the Bavarian Brewery to the E. Anheuser Brewery. He married 17 year old Lilly Eberhard Anheuser on March 7, 1861 in St. Louis. They had thirteen children, including Adolphus Busch II; August Anheuser Busch I; Carl Busch; and five daughters.
During the American Civil War he served in the United States Army for 14 months. It was at this time that he learned that his father had died and that he had inherited a portion of his father’s estate. He used the money to start a wholesale brewer’s supply store, and four years later he bought a share in the Bavarian brewery from Eberhard Anheuser, his father-in-law. The company was first called “Anheuser and Company”, but at the death of Eberhard Anheuser in 1879, it was changed to “Anheuser Busch Company”.
The rapid success of the Anheuser Brewer made its owner independent and permitted him to perform philanthropic activities, such as assisting in the repair of the devastating 1882 flooding of Kastel-Mainz by the Rhine River.
In 1891 Adolphus bought from Carl Conrad the trademark and name Budweiser.
He envisioned a national beer with universal appeal. Toward this end, he created a network of rail-side ice-houses and launched the industry’s first fleet of refrigerated freight cars. Success came when Adolphus found a method to pasteurize the beer so it kept fresh. The beer could now be shipped all over the country. He was also an early adopter of bottled beer. In 1901 sales surpassed the one million barrels of beer benchmark. In 1912, Busch constructed the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, Texas, then the tallest building in the state.
He and Lilly often traveled to Germany where they had a mansion in Langenschwalbach, Germany (now Bad Schwalbach, Germany); he died there in 1913 while on vacation. He had been suffering from dropsy since 1906. His body was brought back in 1915 by ship to the United States and then a train to St. Louis and he was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.
Recently found these celebrities in a newspaper:
These actors changed their names because of the many prejudices that Germans and Austrians faced in the early 20th century:
Fred Astaire: born Fred Austerlitz
Lauren Bacall: Betty Perske
Doris Day: Doris von Kappelhoff
Douglas Fairbanks: Doug Ulman
Hedy Lamarr: Hedwig Eva Maria Kessler
Peter Lorre: Lazlo Lowenstein
Paul Muni: Meier Weisenfreund
Today’s stars with German/Austrian heritage:
Sandra Bullock
Renee Zellweger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Bruce Willis
Leonardo di Caprio
i’m doing a project for german class and we had to choose a german american and i chose Oscar Hammerstein II. His grandfather imigrated to america