This book has attempted to assemble personalities comprising the citizenry and their public lives into a kind of gallery. Usually biographies are worth very little if they are not treatments of singular individuals. Here this is not the case and indeed this supposition is in error. We can only get close to the truth when biographies are put in a schematic form. We're trying to approach an interpretation of local history made richer by an account of the people who lived through it.

None other than the famous Englishman Thomas Carlyle had in 1832 posited this concept concerning the significance and influence of biographies. In the article where he discusses how the reader can find biographies useful, Carlyle wrote "Man is and remains interested in man; it is appropriately perceived that he is the most interesting object of our investigation. How indescribably beneficial it is to get to know our fellow human beings, to see into them, to understand their essence, to decipher their inner secrets. Not just to merely pry into them but to examine them in the world with our own eyes so that we reconstruct them in theory and personify them back into life. What kind of a man was he and what did he consider his role in life."

We find this Carlylian interpretation in the following work in unending variety. It attempts to look into the cultural nooks for additional interpretation so that everything which passes before the reader's eye in review is a piece of evidence for German diligence, German energy and German perseverence. In most cases those chosen may serve as role models for imitation by the next generation.

Here in Buffalo the German element zealously helped to build the community. However despite the great significance of the German community to the development of the city, its place in history has not been secured. The community deserves better.

In some fashion this book should help to rectify the historical injustice and reflect the German community's true worth, providing evidence that of all the nationalities involved in the supporting of Buffalo, the Germans have every right to feel proud of its pioneer work. For posterity we gather these biographies into the hall of fame so that you can see that these men and women not only lived but acted and accomplished various things to the benefit of their people, their city, and this great nation. The German considers himself the truest of citizens and he should be counted among such.