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Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Authors

Leo Schelbert

Keywords

Swiss American Historical Society, book review

Abstract

The seven essays assembled in this book present excellent examples of the great value of local history for the professional historian. Eugen Halter, now a retired schoolteacher, had gathered a wealth of material that highlighted aspects of the 19th century economic and social history of the town of Rapperswil. Thus he offers in one chapter a sketch of the region's economic situation about 1850; in another he descries the stormy career of the liberal clergyman Felix Helbling (1802-1873). who had been greatly influenced by Ignaz Vital Troxler (1780-1866) and Heinrich Zschokke (1771-1848), two leaders of the liberal movement which after 1830 led to a transformation also of Switzerland. In a third essay Halter describes the sequence of railroad stations of the town which had still in the early 19th century a rather self-contained and medieval appearance.

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