MθLLHAUSEN, HEINRICH BALDUIN b. January 27, 1825; Jesuitenhof by Bonn (Rhineland), Prussia d. May 28, 1905; Berlin, Prussia
German poet (known as the German James Fenimore Cooper) who wrote 150 novels and short stories in which he retold his adventures in the United States. After an unhappy childhood—his father abandoned the family and his mother died in 1837— Mollhausen emigrated to the United States in 1849.
He started as a clerk in Belleville, Illinois. In 1851 he accompanied Duke Paul Wilhelm von Wurttemberg on his trip to Fort Laramie, Wyoming. When the duke continued his journey, he left Mollhausen behind. With no means of support, Mollhausen had only a tent to survive the768 Mollhausen, Heinrich Balduin
“Bivouac, Jan 26, ” ca. 1855 drawing by H. B. Mollhausen. Several trips that Mollhausen made to the United States in the 1850s gave him the material he used to produce illustrations, diaries, and fiction for nearly 50 years. (Library of Congress)
winter. He was saved from freezing to death by members of the Otoe tribe. For some time, he lived among the Omaha and fell in love with a fourteen-year-old girl of mixed ancestry (native and European), who later became the model for many characters in his novels. In 1853 he returned to Germany and went to Berlin to meet Alexander von Humboldt, who became one of his most important patrons. Mollhausen fell in love with Karoline Seifert, the presumed daughter of Humboldt’s chamber servant, who probably was in reality an illegitimate daughter of Humboldt himself. In the same year Mollhausen went back to the United States. Humboldt had written a letter of recommendation for him, which helped Mollhausen find a position as a topographer and artist in the government-sponsored expedition under Amiel Weeks Whipples. This expedition was to determine the best route for the planned transcontinental railroad connection between Forth Smith, Arkansas, on the Arkansas River, and San Pedro in California.
The official Whipple Report became well known because of its ethnographic description of Indian tribes and its drawings by Mollhausen. The experiences of this expedition provided material for Mollhausen’s first book Tagebuch einer Reise vom Mississippi nach den Kusten der Sudsee (English edition: Diary of a Journey from the Mississippi to the Coasts of the Pacific with a United States Government Expedition, 1858). Helped by Humboldt, who wrote the introduction and publicly promoted the work, this book laid the foundation for Mollhausen’s literary fame. Responding to a request from the U.S. government, Mollhausen embarked on his third transatlantic trip in the summer of 1857. President James Buchanan asked him to accompany Lieutenant C. Joseph Ives on his expedition to the lower Colorado River. This expedition crossed into lands not seen by any European before. As the first European, Mollhausen reached the Grand Canyon and produced the first drawings of it. From Albuquerque, where the expedition ended, Mollhausen traveled back to the East Coast on the Santa Fe Trail and returned to Europe in 1858. He would never set foot on American soil again.
Back in Germany, Mollhausen settled down in Berlin and dedicated his life to literature. His second report on America and his participation in the Ives expedition, Reise in den Felsengebirgen Nord- Amerikas bis zum Hoch-Plateau von Neu- Mexico (Journey into the Rocky Mountains of North America to the High Plains of New Mexico, 1861), became a great success. His vivid description of the land and people and his captivating storytelling style attracted a wide audience. He wrote about 150 novels and short stories. His most successful works were Das Mor- monenmadchen (The Mormon’s Daughter, 1864), Die Mandanen-Waise (The Mandan Orphan, 1865), Die Kinder des Strafings (The Children of the Prisoner, 1876), Der Leuchtturm am Michigan und andere Erzahlungen (The Light House on Lake Michigan and Other Stories, 1882), Der Fahrmann am Kanadian (The Ferrymen on the Canadian River, 1890), and Der Spion (The Spy, 1893).
Mollhousen’s novels made him one of the most popular nineteenth-century authors. He attempted to combine the classic topics of the entertainment novel (love, family, and success) with the elements of the adventure and Indian novel. By adding his own experiences and adventures to the fictional contents (disrupted family life, and the adventures of his three America trips), Mollhausen captured the imagination of his readers. The structure of all his novels, however, is very similar: in the first part the main character is forced to leave Germany, in the second part this character has adventures, and in the third part he achieves happiness. Mollhausen criticized slavery, racism, and religious fanaticism and described the annihilation of America’s Indian tribes by white settlers. Harshly attacked by Friedrich Gerstacker and later overshadowed by the success of the Indian novels of Karl May who, in contrast to Mollhausen, had no firsthand information about the American Indian tribes, Mollhausen was quickly forgotten after the turn of the twentieth century.
Heinz Peter Brogiato
See also Humboldt, Alexander von; Indians in German Literature; May, Karl Friedrich; Paul Wilhelm Duke of Wurttemberg
References and Further Reading
Barba, Preston Albert. Balduin Mollhausen, the German Cooper. Philadelphia/New York: University of Pennsylvania, 1914.
Graf, Andreas. Der Tod der Wolfe. Das abenteuerliche und das burgerliche Leben des Romanschriftstellers und Amerikareisenden Balduin Mollhausen (1825—1905). Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1991.
----------. Abenteuer und Geheimnis. Die
Romane Balduin Mollhausens. Feiburg: Rombach, 1993.
Huseman, Ben Wayne. Wild River, Timeless Canyons: Balduin Mollhausens Watercolors of the Colorado. Tucson: University of Arizona, 1995.
Miller, David Henry. Balduin Mollhausen. A Prussian’s Image of the American West. PhD thesis. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 1970.