Patti's manager, she made a tour through Holland and Russia, being received with great enthusiasm in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In 1870 she made her début in the Royal Opera House of Vienna (singing Violetta in “La Traviata"), and became a great favorite. She attracted the attention of Richard Wagner, and under him studied the rôles of Elsa in "Lohengrin" and Senta in "The Flying Dutchman." In 1874 she became the prima donna in the Royal Opera House of Berlin, and remained four years, winning fresh laurels in new parts. The German composer Goetz wrote the part of Katharine in "The Taming of the Shrew" expressly for her, and the opera was produced with great success in 1876. The Emperor William and Empress Augusta bestowed upon her the rank of court and chamber singer for life, an honor shared only by Adelina Patti and Pauline Lucca. In 1877 she created her famous part of Carmen, which she sang for the first time at Brussels, subsequently in London and New York. For more than ten years she sang in New York in winter and during the spring season at Covent Garden in Her Majesty's Opera in London. The rôles in which for a long time she seemed unapproached were those of Selika in "L'Africaine," and Carmen. She was one of the most versatile of all singers that have ever appeared, performing in about one hundred and twenty parts, from Wagner to Rossini and Auber, singing in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Russian. In 1894 she made a trip around the world, singing in Japan, China, India, Egypt, and Morocco. Her career, one of the busiest on record, marked the progress from the old to the new era of operasinging. In 1882 she married the Austrian geographer and man of letters, the Baron Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg.1

1 Cf. National Cyclopædia of American Biography, vol. viii, p. 154.

Another great singer whom America may claim is Emma Juch, born in Vienna, in 1863. She was brought to New York by her parents as an infant, and took singing-lessons from her father. She made her début in London, singing Italian opera; subsequently she was very successful in the parts of Mignon and Marguerite, and in rôles from Verdi, Meyerbeer, and Wagner. In 1889 Emma Juch courageously undertook to form an English Opera Company of her own, under the business managership of Charles E. Locke, and, though the American Opera Company with Thomas as director had failed shortly before, she successfully toured the greater part of the United States. Such an undertaking, at the time when it was accomplished, may be compared to the pioneer work of the Germania Orchestra, or, in a different class, to the battles with axe and rifle against forest and savage.

The prima donna Lillian Evans Blauvelt, born in Brooklyn in 1873, bears a name that points to German origin. She gave recitals under Seidl, Thomas, and Damrosch, sang at the Handel Festival in London given in the Crystal Palace in 1900, and is the only woman ever honored by the decoration of the Order of Saint Cecilia at Rome (1901). Her rôles are Marguerite ("Faust"), Micaela ("Carmen"), Juliette ("Roméo et Juliette"), Zerline ("Don Giovanni”).

German-Americans would gladly claim as one of their number the celebrated Wagner singer Schumann-Heink, born in 1861 near Prag, who has for many seasons interpreted Wagner in New York, and has been the leading soloist at many a German-American Sängerfest and at memorable concerts throughout the United States. The qualities of her heart, her humanity, and numerous charities, have given her a permanent place in America independent of the brilliancy of her musical genius.

Of pianists with an international reputation Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler may be called a German-American. She came from Austrian Silesia with her parents, Solomon and Bertha (Jaeger) Bloomfield, in her second year. They settled in Chicago, the city which the great pianist still names as her residence. She studied principally under Leschetizky in Vienna. She played in the principal American cities, 1883-1893, and since 1895; made a tour in Germany, 1893-1895; in England, 1898; in Germany, Austria, and France, 1902.

The number of German-American women who give excellent concerts of vocal or instrumental music throughout the land is very great. Their training has very generally been received in Germany, or latterly in American conservatories, which are so frequently supplied with German directors and instructors. As teachers of music, women of German blood are very numerous, and they are often the daughters of those patient music-masters who for the first time introduced music into American homes. The heritage of enriching American family life with the cultivation of music has been taken up by the second generation. Similarly the children of German portrait-painters and teachers of drawing have taken up the art, and of the two sexes the women are far more tenacious of the family traditions.

Teachers of the modern languages, particularly German, in our secondary schools and colleges are very frequently women of German blood. As professor of the German language and literature, Carla Wenckebach taught a generation of students at Wellesley College, instructing them in the literary excellence and ethical import of the German classics, quickening and training their mentality with linguistic scholarship, and inspiring them with the animation

and fervor of her personality. She has written a large number of text-books. Her successor, Margarethe Müller (born in Hanover), has created a beautiful memorial to her deceased friend in the book, " Carla Wenckebach, Pioneer," 1 charming in tone, plastic in description, and withal a most fascinating story of a well-spent life. Ottilie Herholz (born in Prussia) has performed a great service in the chair of German at Vassar, and similarly Professor Kapp of Smith College, who was also a native German. The work of the kindergartners, and the establishment of a seminary for teachers of the kindergarten in New York City by Maria Kraus-Boelte (born in Mecklenburg-Schwerin), have been referred to in a previous chapter.

As authors, women have contributed very largely to what in another connection has been called German-American literature. The earliest examples of note, perhaps, are the letters of the Countess of Riedesel,' the wife of the Hessian, or, more accurately speaking, the Brunswick General Baron von Riedesel. She followed her husband throughout the campaign of General Burgoyne in New York; after the surrender she accompanied him into captivity, traversing the greater length of the colonies, from Canada into Virginia and from there back and forth several times on the way to New York in the expectation of release. The letters amount to a diary, written in a direct and racy style, giving most interesting side-lights on contemporary history and social conditions. In the nineteenth century Therese Albertine Luise von Jakob wrote under the pseudonym "Talvj," formed of the initials of her name. She was born at Halle in Germany, the daughter of the eminent 1 Published by Ginn & Co., Boston, 1908.

2 Ante, Chapter v.

Briefe der Generalin von Riedesel. (Berlin, 1800.) Translated into English by Wallenstein; also by W. L. Stone.

Professor von Jakob, who accepted a call to Russia, but returned to his chair at Halle in 1816. His daughter, through her Russian travels, derived the advantage of acquaintance with the Slavic languages, which stimulated her to linguistic studies. Her first publication, "Volkslieder der Serben" (1825-1826), translations into German of Slavic folk-songs, Goethe took occasion to praise highly in a conversation with Eckermann.' In 1830 she married the American Orientalist Edward Robinson, who at the time was librarian and professor at Andover, and from 1837 to his death, in 1863, was professor of Biblical literature at Union Theological Seminary in New York. His German wife became interested in the language of the North American Indians, and sent home a description of their dialects, entitled: "Die Sprachen der Indianer Nordamerikas" (Leipzig, 1834). In 1840 she published an essay of very great influence in the republic of letters, "The Poems of Ossian not Genuine," in which she gave evidence of her linguistic attainments and broad scholarship. The titles of some of her later publications show the range of her literary work: "The Colonization of New England" (1847), "Héloïse, or the Unrevealed Secret" (1850), "An Historical View of the Slavic Languages" (1850), "Life's Discipline, a Tale of the Annals of Hungary" (1851), "The Exiles" (1853). The house of the Robinsons in New York was a "salon" where scholars and literary men of the time went in and out. There, for instance, Mrs. Bayard Taylor met William Cullen Bryant, as she tells us in her memoirs. Mrs. Taylor' was also a German woman, the daughter of the distinguished Ger

1 Eckermanns Gespräche mit Goethe, vol. i, p. 130. (January 18, 1825.) Goethe also reviewed the translations for Kunst und Altertum.

2 Bayard Taylor was twice married, the first time to Miss Mary Agnew.