Mostly Morgenthaus: A Family History

Morgenthau, Henry

ISBN 10: 0899199763 / ISBN 13: 9780899199764

Published by Ticknor & Fields, 1991

Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00088997776

Synopsis:

A member of the fourth generation of an extraordinary American family discusses his father, FDR's treasury secretary; his grandfather, a businessman and diplomat; and his immigrant great-grandfather

Reviews: Sprinkled with backroom revelations of the New Deal, this dramatic family saga focuses on three patriarchs, each driven by a sense of destiny. German cigarmaker Lazarus Morgenthau (1815-1897), financially overextended, moved to New York in 1866, where his fortunes plummeted further. His son, Henry (1856-1946), saw his mission as restoring the family to its rightful position. As Wilson's ambassador to Turkey, he supported the Jews in Palestine and heroically rescued Armenians persecuted by the Turks. Henry Jr. (1891-1967), the author's father, was loyal courtier of FDR, secretary of the Treasury and leader of U.S. efforts on behalf of Holocaust survivors. Morgenthau III casts doubt on the alleged Communist associations of his father's Treasury aide Harry Dexter White, whom Whittaker Chambers accused of being a Soviet spy and conspirator. This history of a resilient family includes closeups of FDR, Al Smith, Ike, Eleanor Roosevelt and the author's brother, Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau. Photos.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A fourth-generation Morgenthau pens a lively and engaging biography of his family of high achievers, overlaid with a fresh view of changing Jewish acculturation during the past two American centuries. The first Morgenthau of record, Moses, was required to take a family name when the Jews of Bavaria were granted citizenship in 1813. Waiting in line at city hall in the predawn, he looked at the damp ground and decided to call himself Morgen Tau (``morning dew'' in German). His son, Lazarus, after an apprenticeship as a tailor, rose from poverty by selling cravats, and to wealth by manufacturing fine cigars. His entrepreneurship carried into making nicotine-free cigars, candy from pine needles, tongue scrapers, and gum-label machines. A multimillionaire, he emigrated to Brooklyn with his ten children and plunged into an extraordinary network of German Jewish families--Strausses, Sulzbergers, Guggenheims, Schlesingers. His son, Henry, retired from a successful business career at age 50 to enter public life. Woodrow Wilson appointed him ambassador to Turkey, a position considered a crucial Jewish outpost since Palestine was then under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. From letters and family stories, the author assembles a gripping and tragic account of the 1915 Armenian massacre; Henry's grandfather attempted to get the US government to intervene and offered personally to donate $1 million to the Turkish government to fund an Armenian exodus, all to no avail. (The author's cousin, Barbara Tuchman, drew upon family memories of this period in writing The Guns of August.) Thirty years later, during WW II, the author's father, Henry, Jr.--FDR's secretary of the treasury--presented a scathing report to the President on the ``Acquiescence of the Government to the Murder of the Jews'' with equal lack of effect. Personal history that opens to a larger cultural and political account of the 20th century: fluent and passionately humane. (Thirty-two pages of b&w photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Insider family chronicles rarely offer the richness and luster with which the reader is rewarded in Mostly Morgenthaus , which is the result of Morgenthau's own voyage of discovery into his family's Bavarian-Jewish history. It follows the fortunes of three Morgenthau generations, focusing on the author's great-grandfather Lazarus, his grandfather Henry Sr., and his father Henry Jr. Previously untapped written and oral sources are used to reveal the family's "our crowd" experience and Junior's tremendous influence as a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt's cabinet. This personalized account is both moving and fascinating. As the only recent examination of the Morgenthaus' impact on American history, as an intimate portrait of prominent immigrant society during America's Gilded Age, and as a model for those tracing their cultural roots, this makes good history and is recommended for large public and academic libraries.
- Susan E. Parker, Harvard Law Sch. Lib.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Mostly Morgenthaus: A Family History
Publisher: Ticknor & Fields
Publication Date: 1991
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Good