Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Straus, Oscar Solomon

STRAUS, Oscar Solomon, merchant, b. in Otterberg, Rhenish Bavaria, 23 Dec., 1850. He emigrated with his parents to the United States, and settled in Talbotton, Ga. At the close of the civil war he removed to New York, where he was graduated at Columbia college in 1871 and at its law-school in 1873. He practised law until 1881, and then entered mercantile life, retaining his interest in literature. In 1887 he was appointed by Cleveland U. S. minister to Turkey, and reappointed by McKinley in 1898. Mr. Straus is a close student of American history, on which he has lectured and written articles for periodicals, and he has published “The Origin of the Republican Form of Government in the United States of America” (New York, 1886) and “Roger Williams, the Pioneer of Religious Liberty” (1894).