A propulsive human drama that chronicles the mass exodus of Jews from Eastern Europe to America in the early years of the twentieth century, and the men who made it possible.
Meticulously researched, masterfully told, Ujifusa\'s story offers original insight into the American experience, connecting banking, shipping, politics, immigration, nativism, and war--and delivers crucial insight into the burgeoning refugee crisis of our own time..
Moving from the shtetls of Russia and the ports of Hamburg to the mansions of New York\'s Upper East Side and the picket lines outside of the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, The Last Ships from Hamburg is a history that unfolds on both an intimate and epic scale.
That is their legacy.
Descendants of these immigrants included Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Estée Lauder, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Fanny Brice, Lauren Bacall, the Marx Brothers, David Sarnoff, Al Jolson, Sam Goldwyn, Ben Shahn, Hank Greenberg, Moses Annenberg, and many more--including Ujifusa\'s great grandparents.
Though their goals were often contradictory, together they made possible a migration that spared millions from persecution.
Morgan, mastermind of the International Mercantile Marine (I.
M.
M.) trust, who tried to monopolize the lucrative steamship business.
P.
This mass exodus was facilitated by three businessmen whose involvement in the Jewish-American narrative has been largely forgotten: Jacob Schiff, the managing partner of the investment bank Kuhn, Loeb & Company, who used his immense wealth to help Jews to leave Europe
Albert Ballin, managing director of the Hamburg-American Line, who created a transportation network of trains and steamShips to carry them across continents and an ocean; and J.
Many sailed on steamShips from Hamburg.
Over thirty years, from 1890 to 1921, 2.5 million Jews, fleeing discrimination and violence in their homelands of Eastern Europe, arrived in the United States.
A propulsive human drama that chronicles the mass exodus of Jews from Eastern Europe to America in the early years of the twentieth century, and the men who made it possible
