Event – Detail Past

Steven Ujifusa is a historian who chronicles the confluence of American business, social, and maritime history. His third book, The Last Ships from Hamburg: Business, Rivalry, and the Race to Save Russia's Jews on the Eve of World War I, tells the story of Eastern European Jewish immigration to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Released in November 2023,  it was named by the Publishers Weekly as one of the best nonfiction books of 2023.

Steven Ujifusa is the recipient of the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence from the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York, a MacDowell artist residency, and the Athenaeum of Philadelphia's Literary Award for Non-Fiction. He has appeared on National Public Radio, CBS Sunday Morning, and numerous other media outlets. He is a frequent contributor to the urban history website PhillyHistory.org.

A native of New York City and raised in Chappaqua, New York, Steven received his undergraduate degree in history from Harvard University and a joint masters in historic preservation and real estate development from the University of Pennsylvania.  An amateur singer, he is a long-time member of the Orpheus Club of Philadelphia.

Steven resides in Philadelphia with his wife Alexandra (an emergency room paediatrician) and two sons.