Rudolf Cronau
Rudolf Daniel Ludwig Cronau (21 January 1855 – 27 October 1939) was a German-American painter, illustrator and journalist. Well known in Germany for his illustrations, articles and books about the American West.
Also recorded as Rudolf Daniel Ludwig Cronau
Rudolf Cronau

Daniel Guggisberg · private album and archives · Public domain
- Name
- Rudolf Cronau
- Birth Name
- Rudolf Daniel Ludwig Cronau
- Born
- 21 January 1855
- Birthplace
- Solingen, Prussia (Nordrhein-Westfalen), Germany
- Died
- 27 October 1939
- Place of death
- Philipse Manor, New York, United States
- Occupation
- illustrator, journalist, author
- Spouse
- Margarethe Tänzler (1865-1944)
- Nationality
- German Reich
- Fields
- visual arts · journalism
- Education
- Gymnasium Schwertstraße
- Languages
- German · English
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Documentary summary
Rudolf Daniel Ludwig Cronau (21 January 1855 – 27 October 1939) was a German-American painter, illustrator and journalist. Well known in Germany for his illustrations, articles and books about the American West.
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wikidata · Q1644763 · wikipedia · Rudolf Cronau
In this article
Biography
Biography
Rudolf Cronau studied at Gymnasium Schwertstraße. the recorded working language is German and English. The field of work recorded is visual arts and journalism. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait. Work by Rudolf Cronau is recorded in the collections of Tucson Museum of Art and Gilcrease Museum.

"Kanu der Indianer" von Rudolf Cronau, aus "Amerika", Leipzig 1892
Rudolf Cronau · From: Hans Plischke, "Die Entdeckung Amerikas - Nach Zeitgenössischen Quellen", zweite Auflage, 1926, scanned by Dr. Schorsch (talk)
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Rudolf Cronau • Birth Name — Rudolf Daniel Ludwig Cronau • Born — 21 January 1855 • Birthplace — Solingen, Prussia (Nordrhein-Westfalen), Germany • Died — 27 October 1939 • Place of death — Philipse Manor, New York, United States • Occupation — illustrator, journalist, author • Notable Works — * portrait of Sitting Bull • Von Wunderland zu Wunderland (1886) • Im Wilden Westen (1890) • Spouse — Margarethe Tänzler (1865-1944) • Children — 3
Early life
Early life
Rudolf Daniel Ludwig Cronau was born in Solingen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Prussia (Germany) on 21 January 1855, the only son of Rudolf Cronau, tax official by Helene Wilhelmine, née Waldeck. He attended between 1866 and 1869 the public school (höhere Bürgerschule) at Solingen. In 1870 Cronau was accepted into the Royal Academy of Art in Düsseldorf receiving formal art training, among others from renowned Andreas Achenbach. For a time he maintained an art studio at Düsseldorf. In 1877 he relocated to Leipzig and began working for Die Gartenlaube, an illustrated magazine. Cronau landed the job as their correspondent to the United States and sailed on the vessel "Oder" from Bremen, Germany reaching New York City on 17 January 1881.
Career
Career
• Illustration — Die Gartenlaube (1882) b 277 • Illustration — Im wilden Westen - eine Künstlerfahrt durch die Prairien und Felsengebirge der Union (1890) (14785919953) Cronau contributed a series of articles and illustrations on the subject of life in the United States. In the fall of 1881 he journeyed to Fort Randall in Dakota Territory where he would meet and befriend Sitting Bull, then a prisoner of war at that post. Cronau was sympathetic to the Indian's plight, causing him to remain nearly half a year in the territory documenting and illustrating the Sioux. Most of Rudolf Cronau's artistic work from that period is in pencil, some in pen, and there are a few watercolors. Some of his drawings were transferred into collotypes, a photo printing process using gelatin. After Cronau returned to Germany in 1883, he published 50 collotypes in a book about his American visit entitled "Von Wunderland zu Wunderland".
Family and later life
Family and later life
Rudolf Cronau was married in Leipzig, Germany on 8 February 1888 to Margarethe Tänzler of Chemnitz. Their daughter Margarethe Hildegard was born at Leipzig on 8 February 1892. Two years later, in 1894 Cronau returned to the United States bringing his wife and daughter settling in Washington DC, where their second daughter, Elisabeth was born on 20 January 1896. By the turn of the century Cronau relocated to New York where he would reside the remainder of his life. His only son, Rudolph was born in New York on 6 March 1900. Rudolf Cronau became a naturalized U.S. citizen on 21 December 1901. He died in Philipse Manor, New York, on 27 October 1939.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1855
Rudolf Cronau born at Solingen.
1939
Rudolf Cronau died at New York City.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Solingen.
Birth place
Sleepy Hollow.
Death place
Publications (all in German)
Publications (all in German)
• Die Geschichte der Solinger Klingenindustrie (1885) • Fahrten im Lande der Sioux (1886) • Von Wunderland zu Wunderland (1886/87) • Das Buch der Reklame. Geschichte, Wesen und Praxis der Reklame (1887–1889) • Im Wilden Westen (1890) • Amerika: Die Geschichte seiner Entdeckung (1892) • Drei Jahrhunderte deutschen Lebens in Amerika (1909) • Die Deutschen als Gründer von Neu-Amsterdam/New York und als Urheber und Träger der amerikanischen Freiheitsbestrebungen (1926)
Publications in English
Publications in English
• Illustrative Cloud Forms for the Guidance of Observers in the Classification of Clouds (1897) • Our Wasteful Nation. The Story of American Prodigality and the Abuse of Our National Resources (1908) • Do We Need a Third War of Independence (1914) • The British Black Book (1915) • England, a Destroyer of Nations (1915) • Our Hyphenated Citizens: Are They Right or Wrong? (1916) • Woman Triumphant. The Story of Her Struggles for Freedom, Education, and Political Rights (1919) • The Army of the American Revolution and its Organizer (1923) • Prohibition and the Destruction of the American Brewing Industry (1926)
Criticism
In Cronau's earlier writings in the 1880s and those just following the Plains Wars, he described an affinity with Indigenous people – the Sioux in particular. However, during WWI his opinions of Indigenous peoples changed dramatically casting Indigenous peoples as a "hindrance of progress and territorial expansion." The historian H. Glenn Penny describes this type of German settler colonialism in Minnesota, in his book Kindred by Choice: Germans and American Indians since 1800. The historian Christoph Strobel goes on to point out that Cronau was exemplary of "the rise and fall of German America, the transnational world and interactions of Native American performers and artists, post–World War II Native American and German activists, reservation tourism, German hobbyists “playing” Indians." Cronau was aligned with the beliefs of Social Darwinism; he "argued that the key to progress was the annihilation of the "lower races," who stood in the way of advanced culture and civilization." Some social Darwinists of his time believed that violent racial extermination "would result in moral progress for humanity."
Context
Primary material
Context
The circumstances in which Rudolf Cronau stands.
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
scholarly publication
- Cronau, Rudolf Daniel Ludwig, Benezit Dictionary of Artists, 2011
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 2011
Institutional database
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q1644763: Rudolf Cronau
Scholarly · Wikimedia Foundation
reference work
- “Rudolf Cronau”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Rudolf Cronau Papers [MSS081]: http://digitallibrary.hsp.org/index.php/Detail/Collection/Show/collection_id/612
- 2.Marriage certificate No. 57, City Hall of Solingen, Germany, 30 October 1851, Stadt Solingen Stadtarchiv, Gasstrasse 22 B, 42657 Solingen, Germany
- 3.Glazier, Ira A. and Filby, William P., "Germans to America: Lists of Passengers Arriving at US Ports 1850-1897" Scarecrow Press 1994, volume 37; Cronau’s arrival record on the vessel "Oder" on 17 January 1881 at New York
- 4.Penny, H. Glenn. The German Love Affair with American Indians - Rudolf Cronau's Epiphany. Common-Place. July 2011.
- 5.Stadtarchiv Solingen, Record Group Na047 Rudolf Cronau:http://www.archive.nrw.de/LAV_NRW/jsp/findbuch.jsp?archivNr=147&tektid=278&id=033
- 6.Museum of Nebraska Art: https://mona.unk.edu/artexplr/cronau.shtml
- 7.Social Networks and Archival Contexts: http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/ark:/99166/w68k9t3v
- 8.Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Rudolf Cronau Papers [MSS081]: http://www2.hsp.org/collections/Balch%20manuscript_guide/html/cronau.html
- 9.Watzke, Petra. Reviewed Work(s): Kindred by Choice: Germans and American Indians since 1800 by H. Glenn Penny. German Studies Review. 38. 2. 418–420. May 2015.
- 10.Penny, H. Glenn. Kindred by Choice Germans and American Indians since 1800. University of North Carolina Press. 2015. 978-1-4696-2644-4.
- 11.Strobel, Christoph. Book Review: Kindred by Choice: Germans and American Indians since 1800. Western Historical Quarterly. 46. 2. 252–253. Summer 2015.
- 12.Weikart, Richard. Progress through Racial Extermination: Social Darwinism, Eugenics, and Pacifism in Germany, 1860-1918. German Studies Review. 26. 2. May 2003.
- 13.United States Passport, 1924, certificate No. 377608, detailing birth dates, date of marriage, date of immigration and naturalization for Rudolf Cronau and his wife, Margarethe Tänzler Cronau
- 14.New York City marriage records, 19 July 1913 for Margaret Hildegard Cronau to Hermann Wunderlich, detailing birth dates/places of bride and groom, as well as full names of parents
- 15.Obituary of Hermann Wunderlich, Rudolf Cronau’s son-in-law detailing family relationships, New York Times, 29 September 1951
- 16.United States Social Security Death Index Rudolph Cronau * 6 March 1900; † April 1978
- 17.Obituary of Rudolf Cronau, New York Times, Obituary, 28 October 1939, page 15
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
scholarly publication
Cronau, Rudolf Daniel Ludwig, Benezit Dictionary of Artists, 2011Crossref registry
Institutional witnessInstitutional database
Wikidata, structured authority record Q1644763: Rudolf CronauWikimedia Foundation
Institutional witnessreference work
Secondary witness
Further particulars
Held on the record
Further particulars
Open the remaining particulars
The authorities additionally record the heading Rudolf Daniel Ludwig Cronau. His recorded languages were German and English. Recorded as journalist, painter, illustrator, artist and draftsperson. Works and catalogued output.
Identity and origins
Giant Cacti in Southern Arizona
1882 · Tucson Museum of Art
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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