Book excerpt: At the peak of his career in Cincinnati, Ohio, German-American Joseph A. Hemann provided details for his biographical sketch published in 1876. From this we learn of his early life as a student, his Atlantic crossing to Baltimore, his journey across the Alleghenies, his first teaching job, meeting his life-long mate, becoming a newspaper publisher and finally a banker. He was socially active in the Queen City of the West for almost forty years until a devastating sequence of events drove him out of town. This publication provides both genealogical facts and an expanded biography of Hemann’s life as a German immigrant and successful business man in Cincinnati before, during, and after the Civil War. In Section Four, the 19th century German language newspapers of Cincinnati are summarized including graphical images of the mastheads.