Austrian American News

What the American Duel Teaches Us About the Austrian Empire—and the Modern Newspaper

By Orel Beilinson, Bar-Ilan University. In 1897, the American writer Frank Norris published a story drawn from his own student days at the Académie Julian in Paris. Its hero, Buldy Jones, used to be Yale’s star varsity pitcher. Now an American art student abroad, he dominates the struggle over the scarce workspace at the studio.…
Eleanor Lansing Dulles and the Vienna Black Market

By Nathan Marcus, Ben-Gurion University. On 29 August 1945, Eleanor Lansing Dulles drove into Vienna on the backseat of Adolf Hitler’s requisitioned touring car and as part of a US convoy that further included a bullet-proof limousine formerly owned by Benito Mussolini. Eleanor, the younger sister of Allen Welsh Dulles, director of American Intelligence Operations…
Transatlantic Perspectives on Central Europe: The Botstiber Institute Series in Austrian-American Studies

This new series, in collaboration with the Central European University, is devoted to the study of the historical relationship between the United States and Austria, broadly conceived to include the Habsburg Monarchy and its successor states from the early modern period to the present day. The series brings together scholarship that treats historical Austria and…

Hugo Bettauer Imagines America

by Tres Lambert, Gettysburg College. Born in 1872 in Baden bei Wien, author, editor, and journalist Hugo Bettauer was no stranger to controversy. His knack for social critique and investigative journalism regularly placed him in direct conflict with powerful people and institutions, making him a lightning rod for cultural and political debate across Austria. His…
Latest Issue of Journal of Austrian-American History Now Available

With articles on the Vienna 1952 performance of “Porgy and Bess,” early Czech sound recordings in New York, Allied denazification in Austria, Otto Habsburg and Austrian socialists in American exile, and much more, the latest issue of the Journal of Austrian-American History is now available online, via open access, from Penn State University Press. See Latest…
Conference Workshop: Habsburg International. Austrian Consuls and Consulates in the United States and Around the World.

Consuls have long occupied an ambiguous place in the historiography of international relations. Ubiquitous in imperial infrastructures, yet largely overshadowed by ambassadors and high diplomacy, the historical role of a consular agent has often been derided as the manager of a ‘red tape factory’ or as playing second fiddle as the diplomat’s sidekick; a Watson…

Allen Ginsberg in Austria

By Thomas Antonic The European Tours Between 1979 and 1983, Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997), undoubtedly the most influential and famous American poet of the second half of the 20th century, who would celebrate his 100th birthday on June 3, 2026, toured several times through Europe. He was accompanied by his long-term partner and poet in his…
Habsburg Railroad Engineers in America

by Henry Blood. In studying the development of railroads in the Habsburg Empire, I initially had no idea there would be any link between Europe and the United States of America. However, while doing archival research, I learned that in the neighborhood of Meidling in Vienna’s twelfth district there is a bridge, the Philadelphiabrücke. It’s…
From Lienz to Jackson Hole and Back Again: the Austrian Ski Champion Josef “Pepi” Stiegler by Martin Kofler

Within the field of the Tyrolean Photo Archive‘s activities, one recent focus is Sports History. Few individuals loom larger for these activities than the Austrian skier Josef “Pepi” Stiegler from Lienz in East Tyrol. (1) Stiegler became famous when he triumphed at the Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck in 1964. Today, the estate of Stiegler…