"The Last Ships from Hamburg" An Osher at Dartmouth Special Lecture

Join Osher at Dartmouth in welcoming author Steven Ujifusa, who will discuss the story and themes of his book, The Last Ships From Hamburg, 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.

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. Many sailed on steamships from Hamburg. 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. Meticulously researched, masterfully told, Ujifusa’s story offers original insight into the American experience, connecting banking, shipping, politics, immigration, nativism, anti-semitism, and war—and delivers crucial insights into American Jewish identity and the current immigration debate. 

Steven Ujifusa writes about American social and business history. His third book, The Last Ships from Hamburg: Business, Rivalry, and the Race to Save Russia's Jews on the Eve of World War I, tells the story of Eastern European Jewish immigration to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was released by HarperCollins on November 21, 2023, and named by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of the year, and is a finalist for the Athenaeum of Philadelphia's Literary Award. 
 
His second book, Barons of the Sea: And Their Race to Build the World's Fastest Clipper Ship, tells the saga of the great 19th century American clipper ships and the Yankee merchant dynasties they created. In 2012, The Wall Street Journal named his first book, A Man and His Ship: America's Greatest Naval Architect and His Quest to Build the SS United States (Simon & Schuster), as one of the 10 best nonfiction books of the year.  

Steven is the recipient of the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence from the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York, a MacDowell artist residency, and the Athenaeum of Philadelphia's Literary Award for Non-Fiction. He has appeared on National Public Radio, CBS Sunday Morning, and numerous other media outlets. A native of New York City and raised in Chappaqua, New York, Steven received his undergraduate degree in history from Harvard University and a joint masters in historic preservation and real estate development from the University of Pennsylvania.  

His fourth book, The Age of Traction: The Rise and Fall of the Electric Streetcar, will be published by Grove Press. 
 
Steven resides in Philadelphia with his wife Alexandra (an emergency room pediatrician) and two sons.