Abstract
On the morning of 15 June 1786 the mother of three children, Eberhardine Christiane Lotterer, aged 37, leaves Herrenberg in Württemberg in order to find out how her husband is doing in Charlestown, South Carolina. He had left his family behind, who refused to accompany him, and emigrated to the US a year earlier. He intended to start a new life in America, but neglected the communication with his family and did not sent money for the upkeep. So his wife decided to explore herself whether it was worthwhile to endure the hardship of crossing the Atlantic with three little girls and join her husband. At the same time she wanted to have a look at the country, the climate, the manners and moral standards, etc. In the end she decided against emigration, although her husband urged her to come with the girls and live him, and began the voyage home on 22 February 1787. She admits that the whole undertaking was a failure, but the experience had resulted in the conviction that she could live a happy life and be content with the little she had. This is in short the gist of what she had written down years after her return to Herrenberg.
The publication of this account is an important contribution to the literature on migration because it is a rare document of a female person’s experience as a woman sailing to America on her own without any permanent male protection. For some time the editors did not rule out the possibility that the text was not genuine, but made up. However, when counterchecked with archive material and the existing publications on emigration, the wealth of information on the passage, on the life of Germans in Charleston and the encounters with Americans convinced them that Eberhardine Lotterer’s account was based on true personal experiences.
The account, penned down on 117 octavo pages, is kept in the town archive in Stuttgart. The editors, both trained historians and staff members of the archive, have produced a marvellous publication that is so erudite that one can only congratulate them on such an outstanding achievement. The printed text with over 200 footnotes is followed by an afterword of more than 130 pages of additional explanations, accompanied by a further 400 footnotes. The editors have consulted 20 archives and libraries in Germany, Switzerland, Charleston, Columbia, Philadelphia and Rotterdam. They have tried to answer almost every little question which may arise, in order to help the modern reader to understand whatever may be unclear. They are à jour with the published literature and give useful references for further reading. The illustrations, some of which are in colour, are a welcome addition.