Architecture and Artifacts of the Pennsylvania Germans
Constructing Identity in Early America
By Cynthia G. Falk
How did a mid-eighteenth-century group, the so-called Pennsylvania Germans, build their cultural identity in the face of ethnic stereotyping, nostalgic ideals, and the views imposed by outside contemporaries? Numerous forces create a group’s identity, including the views of outsiders, insiders, and the shaping pressure of religious beliefs, but to better understand the process, we must look to clues from material culture. Then we will move toward understanding what influenced Pennsylvania German communities and Pennsylvania Germans as they constructed identities for themselves.
Cynthia Falk explores the relationship between ethnicity and the buildings, personal belongings, and other cultural artifacts of early Pennsylvania German immigrants and descendants. Such “material culture” has been the basis of stereotyping Pennsylvania Germans almost since their arrival. Falk warns us against the typical scholarly overemphasis on Pennsylvania Germans’ assimilation to an English way of life. Rather, she demonstrates that more than anything, socioeconomic status and religious affiliation influenced the character of the material culture of Pennsylvania Germans. Her work also shows how early Pennsylvania Germans defined their own identities.
Cynthia G. Falk is Assistant Professor of Material Culture at Cooperstown Graduate Program of SUNY Oneonta.
256 pages | 103 illustrations | 8.5 x 9 | July 2008ISBN 978-0-271-03338-9 | cloth: $45.00 sh
Pennsylvania German History and Culture Series
The Culture and Commerce of the Early American Novel
Reading the Atlantic World-System
By Stephen Shapiro
Taking his cue from Philadelphia-born novelist Charles Brockden Brown’s Annals of Europe and America, which contends that America is shaped most noticeably by the international struggle between Great Britain and France for control of the world trade market, Stephen Shapiro charts the advent, decline, and reinvigoration of the early American novel. That the American novel “sprang so unexpectedly into published existence during the 1790s” may be a reflection of the beginning of the end of Franco-British supremacy and of the power of a middle class riding the crest of a new world economic system.
Shapiro’s world-systems approach is a relatively new methodology for literary studies, but it brings two particularly useful features to the table. First, it refines the conceptual frameworks for analyzing cultural and social history, such as the rise in sentimentalism, in relation to a long-wave economic history of global commerce; second, it fosters a new model for a comparative American Studies across time. Rather than relying on contiguous time, a world-systems approach might compare the cultural production of one region to another at the same location within the recurring cycle in an economic reconfiguration. Shapiro offers a way of thinking about the causes for the emergence of the American novel that suggests a fresh approach to the paradigms shaping American Studies.
Stephen Shapiro is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick.
368 pages | 6 x 9 | April 2008
ISBN 978-0-271-03290-0 | cloth: $55.00 sh
Ethnographies and Exchanges
Native Americans, Moravians, and Catholics in Early North America
Edited By A. G. Roeber
Max Kade German-American Research Institute series
Early Europeans settling in America would never have survived without the help of Native American groups. Though histories of early America acknowledge this today, that has not always been the case, and even today much work needs to be done to appreciate more fully the nature of the interactions between the settlers and the “First Peoples” and to hear the impressions of, and exchanges between, these two groups. We also have much to learn about Native Americans as people—their cultures, their languages, their views of the world, and their religious beliefs—and about their impressions of the early settlers. One avenue to recovering the history of these relations examines early records that sought to understand the First Peoples scientifically. Missionaries were among those who chronicled the exchange between early settlers and Native Americans. The diaries, letters, and journals of these early ethnographers are among the most valuable resources for recovering the languages, religions, cultures, and political makeup of the First Peoples. This volume explores the interactions of two seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European settlement peoples with Native Americans: German-speaking Moravian Protestants, and French-speaking Roman Catholics. It is among these two European groups that we have some of the richest records of the exchange between early settlers and Native Americans.
Editor A. G. Roeber introduces the volume, whose chapters—by an international cast of contributors—are grouped in three parts: Texts and Interpretive Perspectives, Missions and Exchanges, and Indigenous Perspectives.
A. G. Roeber is Professor of Early Modern History and Religious Studies and Co-Director of the Max Kade German-American Research Institute at Penn State University. He is the author of Palatines, Liberty, and Property: German Lutherans and Colonial British North America (1993), which was co-winner of the American Historical Association's 1993 John H. Dunning Prize.
216 pages | 6 x 9 | 2008
ISBN 978-0-271-03346-4 | cloth: $45.00 sh
Territories of History
Humanism, Rhetoric, and the Historical Imagination in the Early Chronicles of Spanish America
By Sarah H. Beckjord
Sarah H. Beckjord’s Territories of History explores the vigorous but largely unacknowledged spirit of reflection, debate, and experimentation present in foundational Spanish American writing. In historical works by writers such as Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Bartolomé de Las Casas, and Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Beckjord argues, the authors were not only informed by the spirit of inquiry present in the humanist tradition but also drew heavily from their encounters with New World peoples. More specifically, their attempts to distinguish superstition and magic from science and religion in the New World significantly influenced the aforementioned chroniclers, who increasingly directed their insights away from the description of native peoples and toward a reflection on the nature of truth, rhetoric, and fiction in writing history.
Due to a convergence of often contradictory information from a variety of sources—eyewitness accounts, historiography, imaginative literature, as well as broader philosophical and theological influences—categorizing historical texts from this period poses no easy task, but Beckjord sifts through the information in an effective, logical manner. At the heart of Beckjord’s study, though, is a fundamental philosophical problem: the slippery nature of truth—especially when dictated by stories. Territories of History engages both a body of emerging scholarship on early modern epistemology and empiricism and recent developments in narrative theory to illuminate the importance of these colonial authors’ critical insights. In highlighting the parallels between the sixteenth-century debates and poststructuralist approaches to the study of history, Beckjord uncovers an important legacy of the Hispanic intellectual tradition and updates the study of colonial historiography in view of recent discussions of narrative theory.
Sarah H. Beckjord is Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies at Boston College.
ISBN 978-0-271-03278-8 | cloth: $39.00 sh
ISBN 978-0-271-03279-5 | paper: $25.00 sh
Penn State Romance Studies series
Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America
By Jerome David Bowers
"This beautifully and persuasively written account of the contributions of Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism to the development of liberal religious thought in nineteenth-century America offers a valuable contribution to the growing historiography on the transatlantic exchange of ideas in the early republic and on the role of religious thought in influencing political discourse on such topics as toleration and cultural identity. Professor Bowers renders complex issues of religious belief and denominational difference understandable while stressing their importance in a broader context of social, political, and intellectual history." -Mark D. McGarvie, History Department at the University of Richmond and author of One Nation under Law.
"A resolute and positive reaffirmation of Joseph Priestley's place in the heritage of American Unitarianism. J. D. Bowers reminds us of both the complexity and importance of theology in early American history." —Daniel Walker Howe, Oxford and UCLA
“In Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America, J.D. Bowers turns the historical lens and brings into focus two significant American locations where Joseph Priestley's earliest efforts to establish liberal religious congregations took root in the early national period - Philadelphia, the nation's capital and Northumberland, the frontier outpost that was Priestley's home from 1794-1804.
Readers seeking evidence of English Unitarianism's contribution to the history and development of Unitarianism in the religious landscape of America's Atlantic world will be rewarded with this volume which is well-steeped in pertinent pamphlets, tracts, letters and sermons that inform the author's position on English Unitarianism's critically influential role in the development of Unitarianism in America.” —Andrea Bashore, Director of the Joseph Priestley House Museum
Many have argued that American Unitarianism originated solely from within Congregationalism and developed independent of outside influences. William Ellery Channing’s “Unitarian Christianity” sermon in 1819 was a key moment in the history of the denomination, as Channing consciously sought to define the parameters of the faith and eliminate all vestiges of competing influences. Yet the American Unitarian tradition was far more complex than its nineteenth-century adherents were willing to admit. In Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America, J. D. Bowers reexamines its origins, course, and development and subsequently reveals the extent to which Joseph Priestley’s ideas concerning Congregational polity were recognized and established within the United States.
In contrast to studies that simply trace the history of the denomination as it flows out of New England and is controlled by Bostonians, Bowers shows that Priestley’s legacy grew in importance throughout the nineteenth century and held sway throughout many of the frontier regions of the nation. By discussing the complexity of interdenominational rivalry, lack of central control, and a continuous transatlantic exchange among religious liberals, he shows that English Unitarianism continued to serve as an essential and noteworthy foundation for subsequent developments within the American denomination as it endured the challenges of Protestant orthodoxy, unregulated liberalism, Transcendentalism, and the never-ending quest to define liberal religion in America.
This is an insightful account of an often neglected set of tenets and developments in the denomination’s history. It uniquely traces the course of continued English influence as it established a new point of reference for understanding the dynamic origins of denominational development, Unitarian thought, and liberal religion.
J. D. Bowers is Assistant Professor of History at Northern Illinois University. He has worked extensively with the Joseph Priestley House and Museum, serving as a consultant and writing a guide for docents.
296 pages | 4 illustrations | 6.125 x 9.25 | June 2007
ISBN 978-0-271-02951-1 | cloth: $50.00 sh
The Art and Science of William Bartram
Judith Magee
"This well-written, accessible, and scholarly book does a splendid job situating William Bartram in the larger context of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and the rhetoric of European and American natural history." —Randall C. Griffin, Southern Methodist University
William Bartram’s love of nature led him to explore the environs of the American Southeast between 1773 and 1777. Here he collected plants and seeds, kept a journal of his observations of nature, and made drawings of the plants and animals he encountered. The completed drawings were sent to his patron in London, and these make up the bulk of the collection held at London’s Natural History Museum.
The Art and Science of William Bartram brings together, for the first time, all sixty-eight drawings by Bartram held at the Natural History Museum, along with works by some of the most well-known natural history artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The volume explores Bartram’s writings and artwork and reveals how influential he was in American science of the period.
Bartram was an inspiration to a whole generation of young scientists and field naturalists. He was an authority on the birds of North America and on the lifestyle, culture, and language of the indigenous people of the regions through which he traveled. His work influenced Wordsworth, Coleridge, and other writers and poets throughout the past two hundred years, and his drawings reveal an ecological understanding of nature that only truly developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Judith Magee is Collections Development Manager in the Library of the Natural History Museum, London. She has acted as picture researcher for several publications and has contributed to Plant Discoveries: A Botanist’s Voyage Through Plant Exploration (2003) and Great Naturalists (forthcoming).
April | 2007 | 9 x 12 | 276 pages
Hardback: $45.00 tr | 978-0-271-02914-6Souls for Sale:
Two German Redemptioners Come to Revolutionary America: The Life Stories of John Frederick Whitehead and Johann Carl Büttner
Edited By Susan E. Klepp, Farley Grubb, and Anne Pfaelzer de Ortiz
In 1773, John Frederick Whitehead and Johann Carl Büttner, two adolescent Germans, were placed on board the same ship headed to colonial America. With few options in Germany, each had been recruited by the labor contractors known popularly as soulsellers--men who traded in human cargo. On arrival in America they were sold to different masters, and, years later, each wrote a memoir of his experiences. These two autobiographies are valuable historical records of immigrant attitudes, perceptions, and goals. Despite their shared voyage to America and similar condition as servants, their backgrounds and personalities differed. Their divergent interpretations of their experiences provide rich firsthand insights into the transatlantic migration process, work and opportunity in colonial America, and the fates of former bound servants.
Souls for Sale presents these parallel accounts--Whitehead's published for the first time--to illustrate the condition of German redemptioners and to examine the religious, economic, familial and literary contexts that shaped their memoirs. The editors provide helpful introductions to the works as well as notes to guide the reader.
Susan E. Klepp is Professor of History at Temple University and Affiliated Professor of Women’s Studies and African American Studies.
Farley Grubb is Professor of Economics and History at the University of Delaware.
Anne Pfaelzer de Ortiz is an independent researcher and freelance writer.
Max Kade German-American Research Institute Series
September | 2006 | 6.125 x 9.25
288 pages | 5 illustrations/1 map
Hardback: $70.00 SH
ISBN-10: 0-271-02881-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-271-02881-1
ISBN: 0-271-02882-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-271-02882-8
The Economy of Early America
Historical Perspectives and New Directions
Edited By Cathy Matson
Co-published with the Library Company of Philadelphia
In recent years, scholars in a number of disciplines have focused their attention on understanding the early American economy. The result has been an outpouring of scholarship, some of it dramatically revising older methodologies and findings, and some of it charting entirely new territory—new subjects, new places, and new arenas of study that might not have been considered “economic” in the past.
The Economy of Early America enters this resurgent discussion of the early American economy by showcasing the work of leading scholars who represent a spectrum of historiographical and methodological viewpoints. Contributors include David Hancock, Russell Menard, Lorena Walsh, Christopher Tomlins, David Waldstreicher, Terry Bouton, Brooke Hunter, Daniel Dupre, John Majewski, Donna Rilling, and Seth Rockman as well as Cathy Matson.
The chapters in this volume challenge traditional views of what “economic history” encompasses by incorporating cultural and intellectual studies, political economy, and social history. Topics include the Atlantic economy, comparative regions of colonial and early national development, new economic institutions in America’s rapid ascent in the global economy, the nature of population and migration patterns, popular perceptions of credit and debt, age and gender roles within households, new labor and production relations, and servitude and slavery in comparative regional perspective.
The Economy of Early America is an important volume for the field of economic history, demonstrating the vitality of recent scholarship and charting new directions for future study.
Cathy Matson is Professor of History at the University of Delaware and Director of the Program in Early American Economy and Society at the Library Company of Philadelphia. She is the author of Merchants and Empire: Commerce in Colonial New York (1998; ppb. 2003) and, with Peter Onuf, A Union of Interests: Economic and Political Thought in Revolutionary America (1990; ppb. 2002).
January 2006 | 6.125 x 9.25
376 pages | 1 illustration
History
May 13, 2008