Hermann Raster

Hermann Raster was an American editor, abolitionist, writer, and anti-temperance political boss who served as chief editor and part-owner of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung, a widely circulated newspaper in the German language in the United States, between 1867 and 1891. Together with publisher A.C. Hesing, Raster exerted considerable control over the German vote in the Midwest and forced the Republican Party to formally adopt an anti-prohibition platform in 1872, known as the Raster Resolution. He was appointed as Collector of Internal Revenue for the First District of Illinois by President Ulysses S. Grant but resigned from this post shortly thereafter. Raster returned to Europe in 1890 when his health began to fail him and died filling a minor diplomatic role in Berlin. Today he is best remembered for his extensive correspondence with Western intellectual and political figures of the time, such as Joseph Pulitzer, Elihu Washburne, and Francis Wayland Parker, much of which is preserved at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

6 May 1827

Born on the same birth day (6 May): Anton Raaff • Ariel Dorfman • Aristide Bruant • Goran Dragić • Iván de la Peña • Joseph Brackett • Max Eyth • Prince Archie of Sussex • Ricardo Oliveira • Toots Shor

Born in the same month (May 1827): John Hanning Speke • Jules Breton • Kusumoto Ine • Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour • Pierre Cuypers • William P. Sprague