Schurz, << shurtz or shoorts, >> Carl (1829-1906), was an American editor, soldier, and political leader. He became one of the most famous United States citizens of German birth. Schurz was born on March 2, 1829, at Liblar, Prussia, near what is now Cologne, Germany, and attended the University of Bonn. He fought in the revolution of 1848-1849 against the autocratic rulers of the German states. After the revolution failed, he escaped to Switzerland. Schurz made his way to the United States in the early 1850’s.
Schurz settled in Wisconsin and became a leader in the antislavery fight. He campaigned for Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1860. Lincoln named him minister to Spain. During the early years of the American Civil War, Schurz was in Madrid safeguarding the Union cause. Later, he became a brigadier general in the Union Army.
After the Civil War ended in 1865, Schurz became co-owner of the Westliche Post, a German-language newspaper, in St. Louis, Missouri. The paper soon became a powerful influence in the West. In 1869, he was elected a Republican U.S. senator from Missouri, and soon became a leader of the opposition to President Ulysses S. Grant. He helped form the Liberal Republican Party, which nominated publisher Horace Greeley to run against Grant in 1872.
President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Schurz secretary of the interior in 1877, a post he held until 1881. As secretary, he argued for fair treatment of American Indians and installed a civil service merit system in his department (see Civil service ). Later, he became editor of the New York Evening Post. He was chief editorial writer for Harper’s Weekly from 1892 to 1898. He died on May 14, 1906. Schurz’s wife, Margaretha Meyer Schurz, founded the first kindergarten in the United States. She established the school in Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1856.
