Sándor Tonelli

Born in 1882, Sándor Tonelli was a Hungarian writer best known for economic and local-history writing. A 2024 newsletter from the Vasváry Collection describes him as an economic writer, a secretary in the Szeged chamber of commerce and in a national industrial association, and notes that he was known especially as a local historian.

One of the most striking episodes connected with his work came in 1907, when he reportedly boarded the emigrant ship Ultonia in disguise as a photographer's assistant to carry out sociological observation during the voyage to New York. That experience later became his 1929 book Ultonia: egy kivándorló hajó története, a firsthand look at emigration and shipboard life.

He died in 1950. Interest in his writing has continued long after his death: the same 2024 source notes renewed attention to his unpublished manuscript Az ostrom története, which reflects on the siege of Budapest and the years around 1944–1949.