The Schurman library
The Schurman library for American History is situated in the history department of the University of Heidelberg.
The library contains an inventory of 10.239 volumes (Status: Jan. 2019). As the department library for American History, it covers all themes of the subject, with emphasis on the following subjects:
- Foreign policy of the USA
- German-American relations
- Social and cultural history of the USA (race, gender, class)
All contents are listed in the online catalogue of the university library.
The philosophy professor Jacob Gould Schurman (1854-1942) was president of the renowned Cornell University for 28 years, before being appointed as American envoy to China in 1920. In 1925, he occupied the vacant post of the US consulate in Berlin. Schurman, who studied during the 1870s in Heidelberg, Göttingen and Berlin and who spoke fluent German used his term of office to promote and deepen German-American relations. Meanwhile, he developed great trust and a close friendship to the German foreign minister Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929).
