Book Synopsis
In the year 1862, at age 17, John Hildesheim completed his apprenticeship as a clerk with N.H. Bernhard & Co., a textile manufacturer in Hamburg, Germany. That year, he began a diary (titled Notizen, or “Notes”) and kept it until July, 1927, less than a year before his death at 83. The 65-year journal includes his first employment in Germany and France; his travels in Cuba, Mexico, Haiti, South America, Central America, and California; his marriage to Pauline Meyer in 1869; his career as a merchant in Glasgow and Hamburg; travel through Scotland and Europe; and dramatic technological change.