Robert Alston Jones

With degrees in German Language and Literature from Duke University (B.A. 1960) and the University of Texas-Austin (M.A. 1962, Ph.D. 1966), Charleston-born Robert Alston Jones has extensively researched Charleston's nineteenth-century German immigrant community and has authored three books that focus on the development and nature of that ethnic community and the role it and its German-American descendants played in the history of America's "most historic city."

His long career as Professor of German at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has facilitated his study of Charleston's German history. His latest book, Charleston's Germans: An Enduring Legacy, reveals how and why the ethnic community's character over the years was diluted, how and why its ethnicity was forced into the background, denied, and disclaimed. He argues that the legacy of Charleston's once-vibrant German ethnic community, while rarely acknowledged as integral to the city's history, lingers as a critical aspect of its cultural history.

Now retired, Robert Alston Jones lives in Milwaukee, where he has been resident for over fifty years.