Pennsylvania German Literature: Changing Trends from 1683 to 1942 [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512818505

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Pennsylvania German Literature

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE Changing from

1683

Trends to

1942

By EARL F. ROBACKER

University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia

1943

Copyright 1943 UNIVERSITY O F PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

Manufactured

in the United.

States

of

America

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

To My Wife

PREFACE OR THOSE READERS who are more or less well informed on matters of history having to do with the so-called "Dutchland" of southeastern Pennsylvania it is hardly necessary to say once more that the term "Pennsylvania Dutch" is a misnomer of long standing, and that "Pennsylvania German" should be employed instead. Yet to the novice, particularly to the non-Pennsylvanian who has but recently been caught up in the resurgence of interest in the lore and traditions of Penn's colony, "Pennsylvania German" is often all but meaningless, whereas "Pennsylvania Dutch" strikes a chord already made partly familiar through music, radio programs, decorative motifs, moving pictures, and even contemporary drama. For the sake, then, of that reader who has but newly come to an interest in those phases of our national culture stemming from Germanic origins, and who will encounter the expression in many of the sources quoted hereafter, the term "Pennsylvania Dutch" is used occasionally in this book, somewhat in the sense of an orienting factor. T h e more accurate but less commonly heard "Pennsylvania German" is, of course, principally employed. T h e author is indebted to the kindly generosity of a considerable number of persons who have rendered assistance of one sort or another, in the preparation of the book. In particular, thanks are due the Rev. Dr. C. A. Butz, Mr. Paul Wieand, Mr. Clarence Iobst, and Mr. John Birmelin, all of whom lent or provided original manuscripts; to Mr. I. C. Keller, of the California (Pennsylvania) Teachers College for the use of his class project; to Mr. Clarence Beckel for the use of his material on E. M. Eberman; to the Library of Franklin and Marshall College for material on Harbaugh and for other favors; to Muhlenberg College for the use of its valuable dialect manuscripts; and to the Easton (Pennsylvania) Public Library for making available its files of rare newspapers. Permission to reprint selections from the works of John Birmelin, vii

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE Clarence Iobst, and C. C. Ziegler has very kindly been granted by the Pennsylvania German Folklore Society. Especial thanks are due Dr. Preston A. Barba, head of the Department of German at Muhlenberg College, for invaluable suggestions and kindly advice; to Dr. Howard R. Driggs and Dr. Daniel C. Knowlton of New York University for their patience in reading the manuscript and advice on its organization; and to Dr. Richard H. Shryock of the University of Pennsylvania for his courteous assistance in the preparation of the work. EARL F . ROBACKER White 1942

Plains,

N.

y.

CONTENTS Chapter

Page

Preface I II III

T h e Problem Itself

1

Historical Status of the Problem

5

T h e Period of Greatest Religious Significance, 1683 to 1800

IV V VI VII VIII

15

T h e Period of Transition, 1800 to 1861

38

T h e Language-Conscious Period, 1861 to 1902

72

T h e Local Color Period, 1902 to 1928

119

T h e Folk-Conscious Period, 1928-

144

T h e Scene as a Whole

170

Appendix I: Suggestions for Research 179 Appendix II: Some Specimens of Pennsylvania German Literature 182 Bibliography

189

Index

203

ix

ABBREVIATIONS Der Deutsche Pionier: Pennsylvania

D.D.P.

German Magazine:

P.G.M.

Pennsylvania German Society Proceedings:

P.G.S.

Proceedings

'S Pennsylfawnisch Deitsch Eck (from the Allcntown Call): The Eck

X

Morning

Chapter I

THE PROBLEM ITSELF H E P E N N S Y L V A N I A G E R M A N S originally were emigrants from the Rhenish Palatinate region and from Switzerland. 1 Partly at the instigation of William Penn and partly for other reasons, they came to America in three successive waves of immigration, and settled the southeastern section of Pennsylvania, beginning in 1683.2 In the course of time their descendants moved westward, and today may be found in other states as well, notably in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. "Language islands" of them exist in Iowa and in Ontario, and occasional families can be found on the West Coast, retaining vestiges of early Pennsylvania provincialisms. T h e Pennsylvania German "country," however, may be thought of as a rough triangle, the extremities of which are Stroudsburg on the north, Philadelphia on the south, and York on the west. As such it embraces part or all of the counties of Bucks, Berks, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lehigh, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton, and York. For the most part tillers of the soil, the Pennsylvania Germans moved into the limestone hinterlands and proceeded with almost fanatic singleness of purpose to wrest farms out of the wilderness. Some of the artisans and professional men remained at Philadelphia and Germantown, but in the main the immigration was to the farming lands of the counties named. So intense was their devotion to the soil that once they were established in their own places they often did not leave them for years at a time, even though a town or city might be only a few miles away. Treated with varying degrees of neglect, suspicion, or dislike by their few English neighbors because of their foreign tongue and strict devotion to their own affairs, they have remained a race apart for a longer period than any other minority in America.

i Marcus B. Lambert, A Dictionary of the Non-English Words of the Pennsylvania-German Dialect, p. vii. - Oscar Kuhns, German and Swiss Settlements of Pennsylvania, p. 31. 1

2

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

But from the years of their earliest immigration some of these German colonists were engaged in a prolific output of printed material, chiefly calculated to meet the devotional needs of a growing populace which for the first time was enjoying the experience of religious tolerance. T h e earliest works were reprinted from German originals, but as time went on indigenous writers and writings appeared. Now, two hundred and fifty years later, students, historians, and antiquarians find a welter of printed material of all sorts, written by and about the Pennsylvania Germans. T h e range is from the elementary to the scholarly, the obscene to the religious, the abusive to the adulatory. From an accumulation so miscellaneous in nature it is greatly to be doubted that an accurate understanding of even a single book on the subject can be gained by the reader unless he knows something about the author, his times, and the factors that had combined to make him write as he did. As might be expected, those who are closest to the actual facts are the Pennsylvania Germans themselves, but the reader will soon discover that an impartial picture of the situation cannot be gained alone from writers who are such ardent protagonists of their race. On the other hand, more detached observers, that is, outsiders or "outlanders," not infrequently play u p the picturesque and the unusual, with a consequent distortion of the real situation. T h e problem is further complicated by the fact that three different languages are involved: English, High German, and the Pennsylvania German dialect. Literary research workers in any one of these fields have usually tended to ignore the other two. Students of American literature have been particularly short-sighted, seemingly taking it for granted that since no foreign-language minority elsewhere in the country has produced a very extensive literature, there would be none in Pennsylvania. When for the first time the research student stumbles upon a new avenue of thought, as for example when he comes upon poetry neither German nor English, but smacking of both, in a Pennsylvania country newspaper, confusion is likely to result. Again, granting that this student is conscientious, and that he has the time and the resources necessary to pursue his investigation to the point where he feels that he has gained a

T H E PROBLEM ITSELF

3

working knowledge of the subject, he may well be hopelessly lost if he tries to apply his knowledge to a book printed forty years later, since the conditions obtaining at one time are partly or completely non-existent at another. While such a statement is undoubtedly equally true of other periods and phases of American letters, there seems to be no literary territory in which it is so easy for the student to lose his way. T h e reader who enjoyed Helen R . Martin's Tillie, a Mennonite Maid, for instance, would hardly be able to give credence to Joseph Yoder's vastly superior Rosanna of the Amish without a separate background of appreciation for each work. T h e merely casual reader is probably happier than any other, for he is prone to take what is presented to him without much question. Unfortunately he can do, and has done, a great deal of harm by passing on to his friends interesting bits of fiction which are no more than propaganda on the part of authors bent upon a commercially profitable exploitation. Clearly, not only for the sake of fairness and accuracy, but also in view of the ever-increasing emphasis on local history, folk songs, folk art, and folk verse in state courses of study, some sort of guide is needed to steer a straight course through Pennsylvania German literature. It is the province of this work, within certain bounds, to attempt to chart such a course. First of all, the term "literature" will be used rather broadly (since the items composing it are of very unequal merit) in the sense of "that body of written material in which the Pennsylvania Germans or their way of life are made a direct subject of consideration." Works of whatever authors, whether of Pennsylvania origin or not, who have treated the scene in prose or verse will be evaluated. T h e writings of Pennsylvanians of German extraction, however, who have not made their hereditary background a matter of literary consideration will not be considered. Works in the three languages in which Pennsylvania German literature is written will be included, with minor exceptions: material originating in Europe is not conceived of as falling within the scope of this study, nor purely devotional works regardless of their point of origin. Bibles, hymnals, catechisms, prayerbooks, etc., come under this classification. Political tracts and occasional pamphlets, school texts, and the bulk of the farmers' almanacs will also be excluded as having

4

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

no point here. Only such newspapers will be included as yield verse or other belletristic material in contradistinction to straight journalistic matter. Essentially, the writer will endeavor to show that the Pennsylvania German literary miscellany can be straightened out, and that, in fact, the long stretch of time from 1683 to 1942 may be subdivided into separate periods, each characterized by a definite homogeneity. Each of these periods may be thought of as an area within which certain factors, particularly the time element, combine to bring about a significant degree of unity. In turn, these areas or periods, five in number, follow one another in a logical order, because the inner relationships of each period are in themselves developmental. The result is an account of a literature which, subjected to more than ordinary vicissitudes, has undergone a remarkable and a colorful evolution. It is the story of this evolution that is of primary concern here. It would be interesting, if it were possible, to identify this regional literature with the main body of American letters; to show that the conditions which have operated elsewhere in changing the trends of American literature were also operative here. Yet, for reasons which will appear, such an identification is possible only to a limited degree. Growth and change are evident, but within circumscribed rather than broad boundaries; the development follows a pattern peculiar to the region rather than to the country as a whole. The remarkable thing is, perhaps, that there should be a literature at all; no comparable activity is to be found among other cultural minorities. 3 Side by side, then, the two literatures flourish; and, without presuming to enlarge upon the characteristics of American letters, which have been discussed ably and often, the author will concern himself with the Pennsylvania German "regional" writings, indicating the occasional points of common ground. 3 For an able summary of the various contributions made to America by various immigrant peoples see Carl Wittke's We Who Built America.

Chapter II HISTORICAL STATUS OF THE PROBLEM S U B J E C T O F RIDICULE, the mother tongue of the Pennsylvania German was not treated in a learned study until many years after the man himself had been firmly established in the Commonwealth as a stereotype. In 1872, close to two hundred years after the initial immigration under Francis Daniel Pastorius, appeared the first serious study of the South German tongues which have combined in Pennsylvania to form the Pennsylvania German dialect. Since that time important papers on the language itself and on the language as it has been employed in literary form have been written. Certain of these studies will be considered here, since to some extent they help to indicate the scope of the present subject, and the degree to which it has been explored through research. In 1872 S. S. Haldeman brought out a little volume which MG A

h e called Pennsylvania

Dutch,

A Dialect

of South

Germany

with an Infusion of English. As the name would indicate, the author for the first time pointed out that what has variously been called Pennsylvania Dutch, Pennsylvania German, Pennsylvania "Deitsch,"

a n d even "Pennsylvanish"

or

"Penn-

sylfawnisch," 1 was not a strange hybrid, as was commonly supposed, but very largely a transplantation of South German dialects, notably Frankish and Allemannic, in which English played a minor part. Haldeman's study, while essentially correct, was never widely known. In fact, so limited was its circulation that subsequent publications setting forth similar findings have been greeted as the purveyors of a new doctrine. Even today, so little is the work known that language researchers almost invariably preface their remarks by explaining the same things that Haldeman had made clear earlier. 2 1 Heinz Klosz, "Afrikaans and Pennsylvanish," " 'S Pennsylfawnisch Deitsch Eck," Allentown Morning Call, R e p r i n t , March 25, 1939. (Hereafter referred to as The Eck.) 2 Albert Buffington, "Characteristic Features of Pennsylvania German," The Eck, December 10, 1938. 5

6

PENNSYLVANIA G E R M A N L I T E R A T U R E

T h i s condition may be explained in part by the fact that u n t i l recently no phase of Pennsylvania German culture has received a great deal of attention. Haldeman's book was followed in 1875 by H o m e ' s Manual, which went through four editions, the last one in 1910. H o m e , schoolman and principal of the Kutztown State Normal School for many years, felt very keenly the need of a book which would serve the purpose of a generation which had to learn English almost as a foreign language. In the preface to his first edition he gave as one of his reasons for marketing the book the following: In pronunciation and readiness of wit [Pennsylvania Dutch children] labor under great disadvantages, inasmuch as they are required to learn a new language the moment they enter the school room. This is imperatively necessary, since Pennsylvania German has no written language, no grammar, no fixed forms of orthography, but very little literature and in all probability will always remain a colloquial rather than a written language. 3

T h i s he followed in the second edition with: T h e great problem presented for solution is how shall six to eight hundred thousand inhabitants of Eastern Pennsylvania, to say nothing of those of other parts of our own state and of other states, to whom English is as much a dead language as Latin and Greek, acquire a sufficient knowledge of English to enable them to use that language intelligently? 4

For its day the book, which contains sections on rules for pronunciation; object lessons combining pictures with English, German, and dialect titles; specimens of dialect literature; and even a very small section on grammar, was one of paramount significance. Its prime feature, however, was its vocabulary section, or dictionary, which was much more inclusive than Haldeman's sketch had been, and which established a basis for all the subsequent compilers of dictionaries. H o m e ' s Manual received considerable advance publicity while it was being written, and was the subject of much comment on the part of those who eagerly awaited this proof of Pennsylvania German literacy. Reichard reprints part of a a A. R. Home, A Pennsylvania German Manual, p. 3. * Ibid., second edition, p. 7.

HISTORICAL STATUS

7

dialect letter to the editor of the Allentown Friedensbothe, in which the anonymous writer expresses a fervent hope that H o m e will do well by the subject: Los des verhenkert English Kauderwelsch haus, wo gar net in unser Sproch g'hore dut. Ich arger mich allemol schwarz und bio, wann so dumm stoff gedrukt un in de Welt g'schickt werd wo Pennsylvanisch Deutsch sei sol.5 (Leave out the disgusting jargon-English, which does not belong to our speech at all. I become greatly incensed every time that stupid kind of thing is printed and sent into the world as Pennsylvania German.)

T h e section on literature consists of a few selections in prose and verse which will be treated later in the present study. In 1879 appeared Rauch's Hand-Book, not unlike Home's Manual in makeup. Rauch—printer, publisher, copious writer, and politician—claimed to be an authority on the Pennsylvania German language, stating flatly: "It is admitted by all, that the author of this book has had much more experience in writing Pennsylvania Dutch than any other individual living." * His avowed purpose was much like that of Home: About the year 1870, I made up my mind to publish this book, with a view of affording practical and profitable instruction, especially for business men who are located among Pennsylvania Dutch speaking people, and also for the many thousands of native Pennsylvania girls and boys who attend the English public schools, and yet almost exclusively speak the Pennsylvania Dutch language at home and in the community. 7

Unfortunately, while his intentions were of the best, he chose to reduce the dialect to writing by employing a system of English phonetics at a time when the trend in philology was toward German. T h e result was that his book never had a wide acceptance, and his very real efforts counted for all too little. Like Home, he listed a fairly extensive vocabulary, and included specimens of current dialect literature. Today his little volume is one of the rarer collector's items. »Harry Hess Reichard, Pennsylvania German Dialect Writings and Their Writers, Pennsylvania German Society Proceedings (hereafter referred to as P.G.S. Proceedings), 1915, p. 125. « E. H. Rauch, A Pennsylvania Dutch Hand-Book, p. 209. i Ibid., p. 3.

8

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

T w o more studies of the language appeared before the close of the century. One was James C. Lins's A Commonsense Pennsylvania German Dictionary, in 1887, which r a n through two editions, but with no great measure of success. Like Rauch, Lins employed a system of spelling tending toward English usage. T h e other study was Marion Dexter Learned's excellent volume, The Pennsylvania German Dialect, which came out in 1889. Learned's work in essence is not unlike Haldeman's, but is more extensive. By far the most important of the dictionaries, and the only one used to any extent by present-day students of the dialect, is A Dictionary of the Non-English Words of the Pennsylvania-German Dialect, brought out in 1924 by Marcus B. Lambert under the auspiccs of the Pennsylvania German Society. Most comprehensive of them all, it is also the most ably planned, and by its use one who is conversant with German but not the Pennsylvania dialect may acquire a workable reading knowledge of the latter without too great an expenditure of time. T h i s fortuitous circumstance comes about in part because Lambert had all the earlier works to use as a point of departure, and was able to publish a comprehensive treatment of his subject; and partly because by 1924, in the hands of the ablest writers, the spelling of the dialect tended to assume a fairly definite pattern, closely modeled after German phonetics and orthography. Lambert's work, as he himself says,8 is simply "a record of words"; but the mere fact of the inclusion of 16,438 entries indicates the magnitude of the study. On the whole, Haldeman's and Learned's works treat of the origins and derivations of the Pennsylvania German language, with a consideration of the modifications brought about by an admixture of English; Rauch's and Lins's attempt to put the oral dialect into written form by Anglicizing it; and Home's and Lambert's attempt to make a practical application by conforming closely to High German. Significant of the recent revival of interest in the language is J. William Frey's Pennsylvania Dutch Grammar of 1942. A section on pronunciation is followed by fifteen well-planned grammar lessons, a number of reading selections from impors Marcus B. L a m b e r t , A Dictionary of the Non-English Pennsylvania-German Dialect, p p . viii-ix.

Words

of

the

HISTORICAL STATUS

9

tant dialect writers, and a vocabulary limited to the immediate needs of the text itself. T h e G r a m m a r should be of considerable help to beginners. Among studies largely bibliographical in nature, Hildeburn's m o n u m e n t a l Century of Printing,9 published in 1885, is of significance to students, historians, and others who wish to gain a fair idea of the n u m b e r and n a t u r e of prayerbooks, catechisms, Bibles, and similar material t u r n e d out by the German and English presses in the dates covered by the study. Comprehensive in scope and ably documented, it is possibly most serviceable as a check list for antiquarians who wish a complete listing of early imprints for museums, historical societies, etc. Less well known, b u t of almost equal importance, is a supplemental study made at Columbia University by E. M. Metzger in 1930,10 listing a considerable n u m b e r of items that had come to light since H i l d e b u r n ' s time. T h e two studies are chiefly valuable here in that they serve to show how little was written about the Pennsylvania German in a period of thriving printing industry. I n 1893 appeared Oswald Seidensticker's The First Century of German Printing in America, 1728-1830, which serves much the same purpose as H i l d e b u r n ' s or Metzger's works, except for the difference in dates. T h i s study had first been issued serially in the Deutsche Pionier, a G e r m a n periodical in Ohio. As the title suggests, it deals only with works printed in German, and consequently is more convenient to use, within its sphere, t h a n H i l d e b u r n ' s massive volumes or the none-too-available photostated copies of Metzger's thesis. T h e editor of Deutsche Amerikaner in Kirche und Staat, in its section on Seidensticker, spoke commendingly in 1892 of his achievement: . . . wir an seiner Hand die Erlebnisse der Deutschen in Philadelphia und Pennsylvanien von der ersten Einwanderungen an bis jetzt ebenso deutlich an uns vorüber ziehen sehen, als hätten wir selbst sie mit erlebt.11

( . . . At his hands we see the experiences of the Germans in Phila9 C. R . H i l d e b u r n , A Century of Printing, 1685-1116. if Ethel M. Metzger, " S u p p l e m e n t to Hildeburn's Century of Printing, 1685-1775." Lauer u n d Mattill, Deutsche Amerikaner in Kirche und Staat, p. 209.

10

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN

LITERATURE

delphia a n d Pennsylvania f r o m the first immigration u p to the present as clearly depicted as if we ourselves had experienced them.)

I n 1931 a Pennsylvania periodical 1 2 listed editorially twentyeight additional printings that had not been known to Seidensticker, and f u r t h e r listings appeared in 1940.1' In its own special niche also should be mentioned A. M. Aurand's little publication of 1930, A Pennsylvania German Library. Essentially a catalogue of titles in Aurand's possession, it is both illuminating and informative for the beginner, since the significance of many of the items is explained in some detail. It includes both High German and Pennsylvania German works, b u t is far from being comprehensive. As suggested above, it is valuable chiefly for the novice. Helpful to beginner and advanced student alike is Emil Meynen's Bibliography on German Settlements in Colonial North America, published in Leipzig in 1937. T h i s scholarly compilation covers the whole scope of German settlement in America, but avoids for the most part a duplication of any of the research undertaken by earlier scholars. I n particular, Herr Meynen avoids the whole field of German imprints, referring the reader to Seidensticker; of dialect writings and of newspapers, referring the reader to authors whose names will appear later in this work; and of books and articles dealing with Pennsylvania German life. Of this latter point he says, I should have liked to include in the bibliography a list of the historical romances a n d novels a b o u t Pennsylvania-German life because these n u m e r o u s publications have p a i n t e d a rich picture of Pennsylvania-German land, people, homes a n d traditions, and are a most interesting focus of their sentiments a n d attitudes, although they should not be taken as scientific resource material. 1 4

So far as the writer has been able to discover, no work in the field indicated by Meynen had been done prior to the inception of this study in 1939. T o neglect a mention of James Pyle Wickersham's A History of Education in Pennsylvania would be to belittle a work 12 Editorial, Perkiomen Region, IX (April 1931), 42. is Lillian M. Evans, "Oswald Seidensticker, Bibliophile," Pennsylvania History, VII (January 1940), 8-19. Gerhard Friedrich, "A New Supplement to Seidensticker's AmericanGerman Bibliography," Pennsylvania History, VII (October 1940), 213-24. i* P. xvi.

HISTORICAL STATUS

11

which has been a landmark in its field since its appearance in 1886. A compendious volume, it contributed more to an understanding of the Pennsylvania German temperament than any single opus that had appeared u p to that time. Although primarily it is concerned with neither the language nor the literature of Pennsylvania, it may be recommended to anyone undertaking research in either of these fields. Only two investigations of signal importance have been undertaken in the vast field represented by the activity of the German newspaper press in Pennsylvania, from earliest times to 1942. T h e earlier and more comprehensive of these is Daniel Miller's Early German American Newspapers, one of the studies presented by the Pennsylvania German Society in 1911. T h e volume represents a particular activity or hobby on the part of Mr. Miller, who achieved distinction as well in the field of publishing and of dialect writing. Many, but by no means all, of the early German papers are listed, a salient characteristic of the book being the convenient grouping of papers by the city in which they were published. No detailed analysis of the contents is made, the intention of the author being to supply historical data. The other newspaper investigation was a Master's thesis by Mildred E. Runyeon at Pennsylvania State College in 1936.15 T h i s study, seemingly limited in scope, concentrating as it does on only one paper over a period of twenty years, is, however both definitive and significant. T h e Reading Adler is one of the oldest and most widely known papers in the Commonwealth, and the dates indicated encompass a period of great importance in use of the dialect. More than that, the writer actually carries her investigation down to 1913, although in lesser detail. T h e study should serve as a point of departure for similar research in such early Pennsylvania newspapers as are still available, notably, perhaps, those in the files of the public library at Easton, Pennsylvania. One of the earliest attempts to evaluate the literary contributions of the German-speaking element in the state was that of W. K. Frick, who in 1888 had his article "Pennsylvania German Literature" published in three successive issues of the Muhlenberg Monthly. T h i s monograph is little known and almost never referred to by contemporary writers, perhaps be15 "Pennsylvania G e r m a n in t h e R e a d i n g Adler:

1837-1857."

12

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

cause its circulation in a semi-religious college monthly was necessarily rather limited. T h e writer's principal concern was to list literary works which seemed meritorious to him and which he feared would be forgotten as the use of English became more widespread. Although the article barely skims the surface of the subject, it is one of the first to take cognizance of the possibility that anything German might be a contribution to the belles lettres of America. Kuhns' German and Swiss Settlements (1900), contains a section 16 which, while very brief, is an accurate evaluation of the few literary items it mentions. Subsequent writers, not knowing of Frick's work, frequently regard Kuhns's chapter as the first on the subject. T h r e e Doctor of Philosophy theses in 1905 and 1906 provide an interesting side light on the subject of the present study, once more principally because of what they do not include. G o o d n i g h t 1 7 in 1905 and H a e r t e l 1 8 in 1906 in doctoral theses at the University of Wisconsin traced in great detail the development of H i g h G e r m a n as a literary form in America, aiming to show its characteristics in terms of parallel writings in Germany. Neither study, so complete in other ways, recognizes the existence of any original writing on this side of the Atlantic, b u t rather shows the degree to which a transplanted G e r m a n literature flourished. On the other hand, Katherine Jackson's Columbia thesis of 1906 18 concerns itself with purely American activity, leaving the great body of dialect writings out of consideration. Alleviating this situation, H a r r y Hess Reichard, writing for the Pennsylvania G e r m a n Society, brought out in 1915 the most i m p o r t a n t contribution the dialect literature had yet received: his Pennsylvania German Dialect Writings and Their Writers. Exhaustive and detailed, it is a treasure house of information within its field. Its most palpable defect, a paucity of illustrative material, was largely remedied during the sumi" Oscar K u h n s , German

and

Swiss

Settlements

of Pennsylvania,

pp.

115-52. i ' S c o t t H o l l a n d G o o d n i g h t , German Literature in American Magazines Prior to 1846. is M a r t i n H . H a e r t e l , German Literature in American Magazines, 18461880. i» K a t h e r i n e M. J a c k s o n , Outlines of the Literary History of Colonial Pennsylvania.

HISTORICAL STATUS

13

mer of 1940 by the publication by the society of a companion book by Reichard, a comprehensive anthology, Pennsylvania German Verse. T h e field of folk material, including songs, counting-out rhymes, and similar verse forms was treated in 1910 by John Baer Stoudt in his Pennsylvania German Folklore. T h e associated field of folk superstitions has been explored (1915) in Edwin M. Fogel's Beliefs and Superstitions of the Pennsylvania Germans. Leaning heavily on Reichard's work, but with interesting implications of its own, Heinz Klosz's Die pennsylvaniadeutsche Literatur, published in Munich in 1931, presented for German readers a picture of the dialect writings in much the same way that Reichard had done. Its most striking quality is perhaps its attempt to fit all the literature it mentions into arbitrary categories of Klosz's creation. Comprising only forty-two pages, it may be called the best summary extant within its admittedly limited field. Far less happy in effect is a hastily prepared and badly bungled study published by Friedrich Schon in Leipzig in 1931.20 It essays to present much the same information that Klosz gave in his publication, but is full of deliberate plagiarism from Reichard. Worse than that it confuses dates, misquotes material, attributes Tennyson's works to Longfellow, and in general betrays a lamentable lack of preparation and of scholarliness. Specific instances will be cited later in this study. These, then, are the works which have been instrumental in charting the course of the present volume. They serve to show the spots where the territory has been explored and where it has not. Within their own fields some have been complete and authoritative, others little more than casual. A summing up of their various contributions indicates (a) that the language itself has been studied, and dictionaries have been compiled; (b) that bibliographies have aimed to show the scope of early German imprints; (c) that to a limited extent the material of German-American newspapers has been evaluated; (d) that dialect writings have been studied here and abroad. 20 Die Deutschsprachige

Mundarldichtung

in

Amerika.

14

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

No one has as yet attempted a summation of the comprehensive body of literature, essentially Romantic in nature, in which the Pennsylvania German people themselves figure, nor has anyone attempted to show the whole sweep of a literature which, neither purely English nor purely German, has in the main passed unnoticed by research workers in both languages until rather recently. These matters fall within the province of the present study.

Chapter III

THE PERIOD OF GREATEST RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE: 1683 TO 1800

T

in Pennsylvania German literature is probably the Kurtze Beschreibung of Pastorius, who arrived in Philadelphia in 1683 as the head of the Frankfort Land Company. H e paints an attractive picture of the first Anglo-German relations in these words: H E STARTING P O I N T

(Wir) arrivirten gegen Abend glücklich gen Philadelphiam / allwo ich von dem Gouverneur Wiliam Penn mit Lieb-voller Freundligkeit empfangen wurde / dessen Secretarius Lehman vertreuliche Brüderschafft mit mir machte / auch lasset mich nun der Herr Gouverneur zum ößtern an seine Taffei bitten / und seiner erbaulichen Gesellschaft gemessen (Toward evening we arrived happily at Philadelphia, where I was cordially received by Governor William Penn, whose secretary Lehman also gave me welcome. Frequently I was asked to dine with the governor and enjoy his edifying society.)

Such a state of affairs would seem to augur well for the new German colony, but unfortunately Pastorius' hint at his cordial relations with Penn must be construed as an exception to the rule. Certainly neither affluence nor possessions were characteristic of many American colonists, but the conditions under which most of the Germans arrived here were not such as to lead toward intimacy with the great. Ground down for generations by the senseless religious wars and punitive expeditions of their homeland, they grasped at straws for the chance to get out of the country on any condition, even to selling themselves into bondage for long terms of years in order to pay their passage. Peter Kalm, writing in 1748, has presented an illuminating picture of this condition in his book of travels. I n the 1770 edition of this work he says: These new comers are very numerous every year: there are young and old ones, and of both sexes; some of them have fled from opi P. 25. 15

16

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

pression, under which they supposed themselves to have laboured. Others have been driven from their country by persecution o n account of religion; but most of them are poor, and have not money enough to pay their own passage. 2

Diffenderfer 3 later gives a very full account of the same situation. Inured to hardship and privation from the outset, they still found Pennsylvania a haven and refuge, and proceeded to work out a way of life in the rural sections to the north and west of Philadelphia. In the main they paid little attention either to Philadelphia or to William Penn. Before any further consideration of Germanic literature is made, there are two matters which should be mentioned, since they have operated in all times as constant factors in obscuring a fair understanding of the Pennsylvania Germans, oftener called the Pennsylvania Dutch. First there was the name "Dutch" itself, a misnomer which has been a perennial source of irritation and misunderstanding, since they were not Dutch, but German; and, as a corollary, not Pennsylvania Dutch, but Pennsylvania German. T h e people themselves were not entirely responsible for this distasteful term, which was used loosely both here and abroad for South German groups. Rather it was the fault of others who either did not know or did not bother to make a distinction between "Deutsch" and "Dutch." Sachse finds as early as 1742, in the almost purely German city of Germantown, an advertisement in Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette, reading as follows: Whereas Numbers of the Dutch People in this Province, especially of the N e w Comers, are thro mere Poverty unable to furnish themselves with Bibles in their own Language . . . Christopher Sauer of Germantown, proposes to print a High-Dutch Bible in large Quarto. 4

Another aspect of the misconception is provided by Loskiel when he uses the term "Hollandisch" instead of "Deutsch": "Auch bemühete sich der Missionarius, Indianische Kinder, Jünglinge und Männer mit der Hollandischen Sprache noch bekannter zu machen." 5 2 Travels in North A merica, p. 388. »Frank Ried Diffenderfer, The German Immigration into Pennsylvania through the Port of Philadelphia from 1700 to 1775. * J. F. Sachse, The German Sectarians of Pennsylvania, p. 14. 6 G. H. Loskiel, Geschichte der Mission der evangelischen Brüder, p. 227.

PERIOD OF RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE

17

T h e racial mis-title persisted, through lack of contradiction in many instances, through the long period when the people themselves were too busy with more important occupations to notice what they were called by the English, or whether they were called anything at all. Their principal desire was to be let alone. In 1908 A. S. Brendle of Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania spoke heatedly of the, by then, ancient misnomer: T h e question is not whether we Pennsylvanians of German extraction are better or worse than the Dutch, but whether we are Dutch. T h e Dutch are all right . . . but that does not make us Dutch, who are such neither in language nor by descent. 6

But justly or unjustly they are thought of almost universally today, at least by the laity, as "Pennsylvania Dutch," to such an extent, in fact, that to persons beyond the borders of the "Dutchland" any other designation carries but little meaning. T h e second of the constant factors mentioned as operating since earliest times is the character of "differentness," amounting often to a stereotype, which writers have assigned to German colonists. At no time do they seem to be regarded simply as people, but always as a people apart, and singled out for particular comment. Their use of a foreign language in itself would almost automatically create such a condition. With this circumstance in mind, and with a mental note that the people have not been accorded impartiality in their very name, the reader may approach the subject of their literature. There is a certain body of early works, mainly in the nature of "account" or "travel" books which tend to present the country in as attractive a light as possible, frequently for advertising purposes in Europe. These books will be mentioned here briefly; essentially to show how the Pennsylvania Germans were regarded in these times, and that they were an element of significance in what is usually thought of as an English-Quaker colony. T h e literary writings of the German colonists themselves will follow. Pastorius' Kurtze Beschreibung, published in Nürnberg in 1692, has already been mentioned. T h e only known copy of this little book, which has, however, been used as the basis for «Letter to the Editor, Pennsylvania German ferred to as P.G.M.), IX (December 1908), 573.

Magazine

(hereafter re-

18

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

at least one later work,7 is in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia. It is characterized by detailed descriptions of the land the Pennsylvania pioneers would find here, and by the information Pastorius gives as to where they might best employ their peculiar talents. Like earlier works by Budd 8 and Holme," which however did not mention the Germans, it was essentially propaganda. Pastorius' Umständige Beschreibung (written in 1700, published in 1704) gives an idea of the rate of growth in the village of Germantown, noteworthy when it is remembered that most of the Germans tended to avoid towns and seek out farming land: . . . wir auch bey 30,000 Morgen Landes um eine Hoch-teutsche Coloniam aufzurichten erkauffet haben. Inmassen in meiner neuangelegten Stadt Germanton (sie) bereits 64 Haushaltungen in Flor stehen.10

(VVe have bought 30,000 acres for a High German colony. My newly laid out city of Germantown already has 64 households flourishing there.) A Short Description of Pennsylvania, by Richard Frame,11 was a little eight-page quarto printed and sold by Andrew Bradford in Philadelphia in 1692. It has been reprinted a number of times, one of the more accurate renditions being by the Philadelphia Sunday Dispatch for August 26, 1862. The poem contains 188 lines of miscellaneous and assorted doggerel. Frame sings the praises of the new land; tells of birds and animals, of metals and Indians; tells how the Colony was settled, and ends with a discussion of industries. The quality of the poem may be gauged by the following four lines: 7 F. D. Pastorius, Geographische-statistische Beschreibung der Provinz Pennsylvanien. • Thomas Budd, Good Order Established in Pennsilvania & New Jersey. »John Holme, A True Relation of the Flourishing State of Pennsylvania. 10 P. 38. 11 Albert Cook Myers in Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West Neu Jersey and Delaware, 1630-1707, is of the opinion that the name was as sumed. Myers finds no record of the name "Frame" in his study of earl\ Philadelphia, but credits the writer of the poem with great powers of observation.

P E R I O D OF RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE

19

T h e G E R M A N T O W N , of which I spoke before, Which is, at least, in length one Mile and More, Where lives H I G H - G E R M A N People and L O W - D U T C H , Whose Trade in weaving Linnin Cloth is much. . . .

H e does not pursue his train of thought here, as is indeed the case throughout, but goes on to something else. It will be noted that he fails to make a satisfactory distinction between German and Dutch, although it is not impossible that he really meant Dutch. Gabriel Thomas, either not knowing of the earlier publications, or not thinking very highly of them, wrote in 1698 as follows: Reader, There never having been any fair or full account given to the World of Pensilvania, I thought the Curious wou'd be gratified widi an ample Description thereof; For tho' this Country has made little Noise in Story, or taken up but small room in Maps, yet . . . the Mighty Improvements, Additions, and Advantages that have lately been made there, are well worth Communicating to the Publick. 12

His qualifications as a writer on the subject were chiefly those of a fifteen-year residence in the Colony. T h e calibre of the little volume of sixty-two pages has been ably summed u p as follows: His descriptions are certainly very flattering to the existing state of the colony. He presents everything couleur de rose, and if this book had general circulation in England, it must have tended to produce an extensive emigration to the Utopian colony. 1 '

A point of greater significance might be found in the fact that he followed it in 1702 with Continuatio der Beschreibung der Landschaft Pensylvaniae, similar in scope, which by its very title would indicate that he had taken cognizance of German emigration and the German element in the country. In 1702 also appeared Daniel Falckner's Curieuse Nachricht in Nor den-America, which was a question-and-answer publication prepared under the auspices of the Frankfort Land "itAn Account of Pensilvania and of West-New-Jersey in Third page of unpaged preface. is Historical Society of Pennsylvania Memoirs, I (1826), iii.

America.

20

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

Company, of which he was a member. T h e questions and answers ("Uber vorgelegte 103 Fragen") had to d o with the social and religious conditions a m o n g the Germans in the colony. W h e t h e r because of the tremendous effectiveness of the foregoing b o o k s " or because the type of writing was a fad that had r u n its course, no more seem to have appeared u n t i l about 1750. Considerable credence may be given to the first supposition, for colonists soon arrived in Pennsylvania in such n u m b e r s that f u r t h e r p r o p a g a n d a must have been unnecessary. Not counting the steady influx of redemptioners and others who proceeded as individuals to find places for themselves in the Colony, whole groups made their appearance in about the following order: 15 I n 1694 a religious-mystic g r o u p u n d e r J o h n Kelpius settled near the Wissahickon. From 1704 to 1712 large settlements were made in Berks County, particularly near Oley. I n 1719 the Dunkers settled at Ephrata. I n 1723 the T u l p e h o c k e n settlement u n d e r Conrad Weiser was begun. I n 1734 the Schwenkfelders settled in H e r e f o r d T o w n s h i p and in Berks, Montgomery, and Lehigh counties. I n 1741 the Moravians settled in the vicinity of Bethlehem. T h e diary of George von Reck for J u n e 6, 1735, reveals that T h e city of Philadelphia is q u i t e flourishing. . . . All t h e religions a n d sects are represented, L u t h e r a n s , R e f o r m e d , Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Catholics, Quakers, D u n k a r d s , M e n n o n i t e s , Sabbatharians, Seven-day-adventists, Separatists, Moravians, Schwenkfelders, T u c h f e l d e r s , Wellwishers, Jews a n d h e a t h e n . 1 6

It would be quite possible to list the names of a dozen more, since by this time Pennsylvania had come to be known very widely as a haven for the m u l t i t u d i n o u s oppressed European sects. i* Sachse indicates that there were at least fifty-eight somewhat similar books, broadsides, and pamphlets having to do with colonial settlements. (J. F. Sachse, Daniel Falckner's Curieuse Nachricht, P.G.S. Proceedings, 1905.) is Cf. Robert Proud, A History of Pennsylvania, 1798. 1« Samuel Urlsperger, Nachricht von den Saltzburgischen Emigranten (Halle: 1735), as translated in the Allentown Morning Call, May 8, 1937, by G. A. R. Goyle.

PERIOD OF RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE

21

T h e next of the "travel" books is that of Mittelberger," who began an account of his wanderings in the year 1750. So divergent from its forerunners is it that even the casual reader can detect the difference. T h e book is fuller, more comprehensive, more detailed, and displays a sense of humor. T h e reason is at once apparent. Mittelberger is writing of a land of towns and villages, whereas the others, only a few short years before, were talking about a wilderness. He describes a "Neu erbaut prächtiges Court oder Stadt-Haus, welches sehr hoch, vier Thürn und vier Eingänge hat" 18 (a splendid, new Court- or State-House with four high doors and entrances); he says that "Die Lebensmittel in Pennsylvania sind wohlfail, hingegen aber alles, was gearbeitet und ins Land gebracht wird, ist drey bis viermal theurer als in Teutschland. Holz, Salz, und Zucker ausgenommen" 19 (Provisions in Pennsylvania are cheap, but imported articles are three or four times dearer than in Germany, with the exception of wood, salt, and sugar); and as a still further evidence of civilization, "Das Getränk in Pennsylvania ist mancherley" 20 (There are many kinds of drinks in Pennsylvania). As final and conclusive evidence in proof of this last point he mentions eight different kinds of "Getränk." Evidences of progress in the colony are noted also by Bartram, who speaks in 1751 of the wonderful growth of one of the provinces, (Pensilvania I mean) which tho' the youngest of all, yet being more particularly founded on the principles of moderation . . . is become the admiration of those who compare it with anything related to history. 21

But Beatty, 22 intent on his own subject of converting the Indians to Christianity, ignores the people and the country through which he travels in 1768. Peter Kalm's Travels into North America, mentioned earlier in this chapter, was the largest work of this type that had appeared u p to 1770. More IT Gottlieb Mittelberger, Reise nach Pennsylvanien im Jahr 1750 und Rückreise nach Teutschland im Jahr 1754. is Ibid., p. 38. i » I b i d . , p. 52. 20 Ibid., p. 55. 21 J o h n B a r t r a m , Observations Made by Mr. John Bartram in His Travels, p . iv. 22 Charles Beatty, The Journal of a Two Months Tour.

22

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

than a thousand pages in length, it gives a good general picture of the whole American scene, and because of its scope is helpful in reducing to its proper perspective the consideration of Pennsylvania, something the smaller works could not, and did not try to, do. After the Revolution fewer books of this caliber appear. Pennsylvania and its place in the nation had seemingly passed the point where general descriptions had any particular appeal. T h e three remaining ones in the non-religious category of this period are already beginning to foreshadow the coming epoch, in which the Old World has become curiously remote, sloughed off, as it were, in preparation for a different scene of action, and in which self-examination takes the place of superficial travelers' notes. T h i s was not strange for a country which had just succeeded in winning its independence from a European power, and which was also awakening to a realization of its potentialities in fields other than a military one. Thus, Rush's Account in 1789 has the advantage of being a first-hand study on the part of a distinguished American gentleman who apparently knew thoroughly what he was talking about. Busy physician and surgeon, he found time to set down what still remains as the first real and complete estimate of the Pennsylvania German. Schmauk says: "Dr. Rush has given us the earliest, and perhaps the most exact history in the English language, of the Pennsylvania-German nature and character." 23 So frequently and with such excellent added documentation has this little work been reprinted, that it is perhaps safe to say that anyone who has made the Pennsylvania Germans a subject of study has come upon it frequently. T h e work of R u p p 2 4 might be noted here. Original copies, unfortunately, are hard to come upon, most if not all of them being in the hands of private owners. T h e outstanding characteristic of the book is a frank and matterof-fact statement as to the capabilities and personal traits of the German in household economy, religious life, and community relationships. With a noteworthy economy of space, 2» Theodore E. Schmauk, An Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsylvania by Benjamin Rush, as reprinted in P.G.S. Proceedings, 1910, p. 19. 2« I. D. R u p p , An Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsylvania. Notes added by Daniel R u p p .

PERIOD OF RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE

23

Rush lists his points in logical order, managing to give the impression, without being dogmatic, that his findings are authoritative. For a less attractive picture, but one equally valid in that it was sincere and born of personal experience, Theophile Cazenove's Journal for 1794 might be consulted. T h e reader should be forewarned of the fact that Cazenove was not writing for publication and that he was setting down facts essentially of rural characters, whereas Rush was able to show the Pennsylvania German scene as a whole. T h i s personal account book and diary in the French language, in the Library of Congress since 1900, was edited and published in 1922 by Haverford College. Cazenove was a gentleman of sophisticated tastes who traveled in America for a Holland banking concern at a time when it seemed advisable to have a personal representative in the field. T h e polished European contact man must have suffered a rude shock at the state of society he found in rural Pennsylvania. In one place he says: I visited several farms in the famous Lancaster County—belonging to farmers known to be worth from 10 to 15 thousand pounds. I found them having for dinner potatoes, bacon, and buckwheat cakes; tin goblets, a dirty little napkin instead of a table cloth, o n a large table—for downstairs rooms, a kitchen and a large room with the farmer's bed and the cradle, and where the whole family stays all the time; apples and pears drying o n the stove, a bad little mirror, a walnut bureau—a table—sometimes a clock; on the second door, tiny little rooms where the family sleep oil pallets, without curtains, without furniture. N o care is taken to keep the entrance to the house free of stones and mud—not one tree—not o n e flower.-5

In his journeyings back and forth from Easton to Allentown and Nazareth and Downingtown he frequently comments on the German character of the neighborhoods. He finds the people diligent and in many cases wealthy. His impressions in the main might be characterized in the following remark: " T h e German . . . farmers are thrifty to the point of avarice. They deny themselves everything costly; but when there is snow, they haunt the taverns. They are remarkably obstinate and ignorant." 28 25 Richard T . Cadbury, editor, Cazenove Journal, 28 ibid., p. 34.

1794, p. 83.

24

PENNSYLVANIA G E R M A N

LITERATURE

As the last one of its kind, Ogden's Excursion, published in 1800, gives a general account, not so much of the trip, as would have been done earlier, but of the Moravians, their church history, and way of life in the new country. A picture of contemporary Germantown is painted: T h e houses are very universally shaded with weeping willows, the Lombardy poplar, and other ornamental trees. T h e gardens are under excellent cultivation, with valuable fields in the rear. Their churches are strong, plain structures of stone, in good repair, as are the houses universally. N o obscure cottages, the retreats of poverty and misfortune, or the haunts of vice and indolence, are exhibited. T h e inhabitants are industrious, rich, and happy. 27

It appears, then, that in the earliest writings on the subject the Pennsylvania Germans appear as a group which for various reasons are not like other people. Set apart by an unfamiliar language and by an individual way of life, they were almost inevitably stereotyped at the hands of writers. T h e pattern thus formed was one which was to persist down to the present time. T h e story of the religious writings of the period is a review of the literary activity of a limited group of learned men rather than of the mass of common people. Oberholtzer characterizes them as "the flower of the Continental universities" and adds the information that (at last) Justice is being done to the memory of men like Pastorius, Kelpius, Beissel, Sower and Christopher Dock. They spoke, wrote and printed in another and a despised language. Indeed, many of them were fluent masters of several languages, Latin, Greek, French and other tongues as well as of their own German; wherefore, they were not understood by the English colonists, for the most part men of less erudition. 2 8

Expatriates from Europe almost entirely because of religious persecution there, they soon became the recognized heads of German culture in America. Even Flory, who doubts "that any of them were finished scholars," in spite of ample documentary evidence to the contrary, admits that 27 John C. Ogden, An Excursion into Bethlehem ir Nazareth in Pennsylvania in the Year 1799, p. 5. 2» Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, The Literary History of Philadelphia, p. 15.

PERIOD OF RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE

25

Many of them were men of culture and scholarship. T h e y were earnest, thoughtful, practical men, who had to face stern facts and harsh realities. . . . When they wrote they wrote because they had something to say; and the bulk of their writing is characterized by an earnest, sincere, rugged directness that gives it positive aim and directs it to some definite mark. 2 9

As for the people themselves, it is not to be wondered at that they remained utterly inarticulate through so great a period of time. For one thing they were to a great extent of peasant stock, and as such had little if any inherent tendency toward literary activity. Furthermore, engaged as they were in lowly agricultural pursuits which demanded all their time and energy, there was little impetus as yet towards the refinements of life, literary or otherwise. W h a t time they could spare from their work was largely devoted to convivial social gatherings or to church attendance. It is even to be feared that in the face of the opportunities the New W o r l d offered them in attaining an unprecedented state of affluence, many of them began to lose sight of the religious principles for which they had come to America. T h e state of affairs in Pennsylvania was indicated as follows by an early writer: Die deutschen Bauern sind entweder ganz aberglaiibisch, so dass der Prediger, wenn er mit ihnen von ihren Korne spräche, für weltlich gehalten werden wurde; oder ganz ohne Religion, so dass Einer der Andern fragte: glaubt ihr an einen Gott? und dieser antwortete: mein Misthaufen ist mein Gott, denn, wenn der meine Felder nicht fett macht, thuts gewiss kein andrer.™ ( T h e German farmers are either superstitious, so that the preacher, if he talks with them about their crops, must be held as worldly,—or entirely without religion, as in the case of one who asked another, " D o you believe in God?" and received the answer "My manure pile is my God, for if that will not make my land productive, nothing will.")

It is not unlikely, either, that the very multiplicity of sects in America, with a lack of persecution to keep religious zeal at a high peak, led to their eventual decline, and in many John S. Flory, Literary Activity of the German Baptist Brethren in the Eighteenth Century, p. 161. 30 " R , " Der Deutsche Pionier (hereafter referred to as D.DP.) XIII (April 1881), 16, quoting from an unspecified number of the Berlineschen Monatsschrift in 1785.

26

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

cases decay. As early as 1756 Mittelberger had noted something of this sort, when he intimated that there were so many sects that often the people did not really know just what it was that they believed. 31 More than that, it must not be supposed that all the Germans were religious sectarians. As Proud points out, the emigration from the Fatherland was general, albeit largely characterized in the earliest years by religious groups. As time went on, succeeding waves of immigration brought friends, relatives, and others whose temporal interests were of more immediate concern than their spiritual ones. 32 What literary activity there was, then, is to be found on the part of a mere handful of well-educated men in whose hands lay the responsibility of the religious, moral, and cultural well-being of one of the fastest-growing colonies in the world. 33 What they did in the face of the tremendous task they assumed falls only partly in the province of this study, for it is partly the story of the activity of the German religious press in America, which turned out, in prodigious quantities, Bibles, catechisms, hymnals, prayer-books, sermons, disquisitions and dogma of all sorts. Such material was at first purely European in origin, and could not be supplied fast enough to meet the needs of people who had left Europe with only the barest necessities of life in their possession. An interesting sidelight on the personal activities of the scholars is given by Jackson: F o r thirty years the colonists, busied in the practical things of life, wrote to keep themselves free from heresy and schooled in spiritual doctrines, as well as to attract immigrants and thereby enlarge their commercial opportunities. 3 4

Documentary proof of the first part of this statement might be difficult to secure, but it is not entirely an unreasonable theory, as may appear through a consideration of the body of 31 Mittelberger, op. cit., p. 20. 32 Proud, op. cit., p. 344. 33 Proud, (ibid., p. 341) writing variously from 1742 to 1770, says of the Germans, " I t is supposed near one-third part of the inhabitants of the province consisted of these people and of their descendants." This in spite of the fact that Pennsylvania was generally thought of as a Quaker statel 3 4 Katherine M. Jackson, Outlines of the Literary History of Colonial Pennsylvania, p. 25.

PERIOD OF RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE

27

work which follows, and which represents the creative literary output of the period. As may be noted by the titles, almost all this work is in the literary or " H i g h " German. Pastorius himself was the author of not only the largest but the most important of such works produced in German America: the "Hive, Beestock Melltotrophium Alvear or Rusca Apium," begun in 1696. Never printed, this thousand-page encyclopedic work was written for his sons who, he feared, might in America lose the benefits of the scholarly training he had enjoyed in Europe. 35 It is at once a history, a scientific encyclopedia, and a repository of literary views, poetry, and didactic expositions. It is written in longhand, and in eight languages, of all of which Pastorius was a master. For a number of years it was in the custody of the University of Pennsylvania, where a special case had been installed for it, but since 1933 it has been privately owned. Some of the poetry, principally the horticultural or "garden" verse, has been printed in the past, but because of the recently created inaccessibility of the volume there seems to be little chance of authenticating it. A German periodical in 1871 published editorially three pages of miscellaneous jingles in German, Latin, and French. These, it was claimed, were from "Deliciae Hortenses," another Pastorius manuscript now lost or privately owned. They show a much lighter side of the great man than would be supposed from the general nature of his works, but withal there is often a meditative tone or quality of gentleness about them. One of these is: Die Fehler meiner Sind mir zwar ganz

Brüder zuwider.

(My brother's failings are of course very objectionable to me.) Another speaks for itself: Der Hund Spricht Horticustos heiss ich, Böse Leute beiss ich Und ihr Strumpf zerreis' ich; Aber Fromme preis ich, Bettelarme speis' ich.3e

(The dog says: "My name is Horticustos; I bite bad people and tear their stockings; but I prize the innocent and give to the destitute.") 35 Unpaged preface. 3« D.DJ'., I I I (Ende August 1871), 182-84.

28

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN L I T E R A T U R E

T h e great body of Pastorius' work, the quantity and nature of which can be estimated only by oral tradition, was probably produced for personal and private reasons, as in the case of the "Rusca Apium." It was never published, and is now either in inaccessible private collections or lost. John Kelpius, like Pastorius the product of European universities, came to America in 1694 at the head of a group of forty religious mystics and settled down to a life of contemplation, study, and writing. His chosen habitat was an artificial cave on a grant of land near the Wissahickon River, and the settlement came to be known as "Das Weib in die Wiiste." An extremely modest man, Kelpius preserved almost none of his religious writings. His fame rests almost entirely on the body of oral tradition associated with his teachings, and on legendary accounts of his philosophy. Only his Latin Diarium 37 and an unpublished manuscript of hymns and verse in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania have come down to the present time. This latter manuscript contains ten poetic units which combine religious ardor and mysticism in a sense reminiscent of the Song of Solomon. Three titles will serve to indicate the scope of the work: "Bitter Sweet, a Night Ode of the dying but contented Love"; " T h e Power of Love, which conquers The World, Sin and Death"; and "A Comfortable and Incouraging (sic) Song made intentionally for two lonesome Widows." 38 The Diarium is a running account of Kelpius' ten-weeks' voyage to Pennsylvania and is devoid of interest save as it is revelatory of the religious character of the man. In 1729 Andrew Bradford printed a little pamphlet by Ceorg Weiss,39 which is at once a refinement of the question-and-answer method of propaganda writing mentioned earlier, and a weak precursor of fiction, which at this early date had made no appearance in German Pennsylvania. This "Preacher in the YVilderness," only twenty-nine pages in length, is a sketch dealing with a peculiar religious group " J . F. Sachse, translator, The Diarium of Magister Johannes Kelpius, P.G.S. Proceedings, 1914. »8 Ludwig Lewisohn, in Expression in America (pp. 20-2$), speaks commendingly of the verse of the "Germantown pietists." Besides Pastorius and Kelpius he mentions also the Ephrata community. 3» Der in der Amerikanischen Waldniisz Prediger.

PERIOD OF RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE

29

known as the "New Born." 40 In the book a minister and a "politicus" fall into conversation about the new country, so different from Germany in its religious tolerance. T h e "politicus" happens to mention the New Born, and, detecting a spark of interest, arranges for the minister to meet one of them. At the meeting a lengthy parley takes place, in which the minister completely fails to shake the serene belief of the sectarian in his own theories. Weiss was probably the Reformed minister of that name who came to Philadelphia in 1727 at the head of a "colony of four hundred Palatines," 41 and who organized congregations in the new country. T h e works of the Ephrata Brethren, a monastic group at Ephrata, Lancaster County, constitute a fair share of the entire literary activity of the period. " T h e literature of Ephrata reminds one strongly of the Mystic Kelpius and his brotherhood, of which the Ephrata Community is the logical successor," says Faust. 42 Whether or not one semi-mystic, semiascetic, and semi-monastic group can be called a logical successor to another is an open question. Whether Kelpius left enough literary work behind him to make such a comparison valid is another, but at any rate the quality of mysticism was common both to Kelpius and to the Ephrata Brethren. Conrad Beissel, a leader of the group who was known among the brotherhood as Father Friedsam, was responsible for Mystische Sprueche, "Gedruckt bey B. Franklin in Jahr 1730." No single original copy seems to be available any more, though Sachse 43 speaks of one that was sold about 1910 for five hundred and fifty dollars. However, enough fragments are available to make identification all but positive. Sachse 44 reprints photographic copies of certified original -to T h i s small religious body is referred to in a letter to the editor of the Pennsylvania German Magazine in 1912 as "an obsolete religious sect that appears to have been in existence in Pennsylvania, especially in Oley, Berks County, from 1718 to 1769." (M. A. Gruber, P.G.M., XIII (May 1912), 336. H. M. J. Klein, " T h e Church People in Colonial Pennsylvania," Pennsylvania History, IX (January 1942), 40. «2 a . B. Faust, The German Element in the United States, p. 115. is J. F. Sachse, A Unique Manuscript by Rev. Peter Miller, P.G.S. Proceedings, 1910, p. 8. 44 ¡bid., pp. 14-30.

30

PENNSYLVANIA G E R M A N

LITERATURE

pages corresponding exactly to some in the possession of the writer. T w o quotations will serve to indicate the nature of the work, which contains ninety-nine "sprueche" or proverbs: No. 17. Wer bey sich selbst weise ist der ist ein narr, dann alle weissheit ist von Gott, und die ihn liebhaben ehren dieselbige.4S (He who is wise in his own conceit is a fool, for all wisdom is from God; those who love Him also honor Him.) No. 62. Verlass nicht das weib deiner Jugend, und hüte dich mit allem fleiss, dasz dein Hertz keinem fremden weibe zufalle.*' (Forsake not the wife of your youth, and apply yourself with all diligence to keeping away from strange women.)

In the same year a compilation of sixty-two hymns, thirtyone by Beissel, appeared, under the title of Göttliche Liebesund Lobesgethöne. T h i s was also published by Franklin. T h e only reason for mentioning these hymns in a study in which hymnology as such does not figure is that they are full of mystical language in which a kind of obscure spiritual love seems mingled with material imagery. They are less like hymns than like poetry with a reverential or religious cast. T h e first book to be printed at Ephrata itself was Das Gesäng der einsamen und Verlassenen Turtel-Taube, nemlich der Christlichen Kirche, which contained purely original material, chiefly hymns, and which was distinguished by an essay on music. T h i s volume appeared in 1747. T h e greatest achievement of the Ephrata Brethren was probably the translating (from Dutch into German) and printing of van Braght's Martyr's Mirror47 in 1748, which, while not properly a part of this study, serves to throw added light on the activity of the Ephrata press. Kuhns says: Of the many books of devotional literature published in Pennsylvania, the most interesting is the translation of Van Braght's "Blutige Schauplatz oder Märtyrer Spiegel." . . . It was really a remarkable achievement for a small religious community in the heart of a new colony to translate, print, and bind the largest book published in America. It took fifteen men three years to complete the «5 Ibid., p. 14 (p. 7 in the original). «8 Ibid., p. 24 (p. 10 in the original). Tielraan Jans van Braght, Der Blutige Spiegel der Tauffs-Gesinnten oder Wehrlosen

Schau-Platz Christen.

oder

Mätyrer-

PERIOD OF RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE task, the first part b e i n g published in 1748, the second in T h e price was 20 shillings. 4 8

31 1749.

Last of the Ephrata works which might be termed literary rather than strictly devotional was the poetic collection known as Paradisisches Wunder-Spiel, which appeared in 1766. T h e most nearly complete copy known to the author is one at Moravian College, and includes 448 pages. Like most of the early poetry, the lines are printed as though they were prose, regardless of rhyme or meter. T h e first stanza of Number 362 will serve for illustration: Wann mein Ziel ist recht getroffen, habe ich ein Gut zu hoffen, das in jener Welt besteht: allhier will ich dulden, leiden, weil das Eitle dieser Zeiten plötzlich wie ein Rauch vergeht.*3 (If my goal is rightly pursued here below, I may h o p e for the blessing of the n e x t world; I will endure all the sorrows of this life, because earthly vanity will soon pass away like a mist.)

Prolific as was the press at Ephrata, it was Christopher Sauer (variously spelled "Saur" and "Sower") who disseminated the great bulk of the printed matter of Pennsylvania. His press at Germantown, according to Flory, 50 included 335 issues in the period 1738-1797. One reason for his great success was the fact that he used German type in his publications, whereas both Franklin and Bradford used Roman type for all purposes. 51 As a result, he drew to himself a great part of the German population, so far as reading was concerned. Sauer's personal contribution to literature was his Geistliches Magazien, a little publication he sent out gratis to the readers of his newspaper, the Germantown Zeitung. H e gives as a reason for embarking upon such a philanthropic undertaking the idea that many of the people were actually too poor to buy books, or were compelled to use their money for more immediate needs; therefore, if he could put a good, religious book in their hands, he would be performing a kind of spiritual service. 52 T h e periodical was issued between 1764 and 48 Oscar Kuhns, German and Swiss Settlements of Pennsylvania, p. 132. «8 Wunder-Spiel, p. 247. so Flory, op. cit., p. 325. si Ibid., p. 38. 52 Christopher Sauer, Ein Geistliches Magazien, first page of unpaged "Vorrede" to fifty collected numbers.

32

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

1772, including sixty-four numbers in all. Flory 53 estimates that about five thousand numbers went out with each issue. Each number was a religious or moral teaching of some kind, presented in more or less attractive form. Some were verse, 54 some were children's material," but all bore testimony to the sincerity of his avowed purpose. T w o issues of the Magazien, Numbers 40 and 41, have sometimes facetiously been called the "first American book of etiquette." These are the ones containing Schoolmaster Christopher Dock's "Hundert nöthige Sitten-Regeln für Kinder," and "Hundert Christliche Lebens-Regeln für Kinder," respectively. 59 They set forth what Dock considered the correct behavior for children upon rising, at meals, in school, in church, etc., and also the proper Christian attitude toward God, one's neighbor, and the child himself. For all their archaic quality the rules display a simple dignity more arresting than a more pretentious style could have elicited. Another piece of Dock's, which was written in 1750, but which he requested should not be published during his lifetime lest he be accused of immodesty, was Eine einfältige und gründliche abgefasste Schul-Ordnung, a treatise on pedagogy, far in advance of the times. Brumbaugh " notes that there was a second edition of the little publication during the same year; that is, in 1770. Dock was one of the comparatively few school men of his time who took his work seriously, and his Christian conduct in his chosen following was such that it commanded general respect. Beyond the scope of the Ephrata and the Germantown presses little more creative literature of any great worth appears, although desultory items are found until shortly before the Revolution, and then again, after a lapse of time, to the end of the century. Thus, mention is made of "an ode, written in German for the occasion by Bishop Matthew Hehl" 58 at the laying of the »3 Flory, op. cit., p. 151. 6« Sauer, op. cit., pp. 48, 49. ss Ibid., pp. 137-42. 5« Ibid., pp. 319-S4. 57 Martin G. Brumbaugh, The Life and Works of Christopher p. 16. ss William C. Reichel, Historical Sketch of Nazareth Hall, p. 15.

Dock,

PERIOD OF RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE

33

cornerstone at Nazareth Hall in 1755. T h i s may be presumed to be religious in tone. A curious poem said to have been written in 1769 by one Johannes Krauss, and entitled "Von dem grossen Cometen welcher 1769 über America gestanden," is listed by Trexler, with the explanation that although it was actually very old it had just come to light. T h e poem begins Herr, was hast du in Wo will dein Eiffer Von was vor neuen Soll uns der Himmel

SinT hin7 Plagen sagen?

58

(Master, what hast T h o u in mind? What does it portend? what new plagues do the heavens warn us?)

Of

It goes on to explain that the comet is a dreary prophet cause the people in America are no longer listening to Word of God. It briefly describes the appearance of celestial visitor, but dwells particularly on its supposed ligious significance. It concludes with a prayer:

bethe the re-

Gedenk an deine Güt, Und lass doch dein gemiith Erweichen von uns armen, Regier uns mit Erbarmen Auf dass die bösen Zeichen Ein gutes End erreichen. (Think of T h y power, and let Thy spirit be moved with pity toward us. Rule over us with mercy, and may the evil portent be turned toward good.)

Such verse could by no means be offered as evidence of the religious trend of the period on the basis of subject matter alone, since putting the burden of explaining strange natural phenomena on the divine power is hardly common to any one time. T h e poem is significant, however, in that the tone is devout, the writer manifestly being sincere and not just following a convention. Nothing worthy of the name of literature appears among the Pennsylvania Germans for the time represented by the 5» B. F. Trexler, Skizzen aus dem Lecha-Thate, p. 53. (Trexler used only the initials, "B.F.," or sometimes the expression "von Ben," in signing his work. Consequently, in some sources this book is listed under "B.F." rather than under "Trexler.")

34

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

d u r a t i o n of the Revolution. T h i s would seem to be o n l y natural, since the m i n d s of all loyal patriots, very definitely including the Germans, 8 0 were taken u p with the vital a n d pressing matter of carrying a war to a satisfactory consummation. Some time between 1785 and 1792, the years she spent as a n instructor at the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies i n Bethlehem, Sister Susan E. Langaard produced a simple m o r a l dramatization called " R u r a l Life," 81 setting forth the advantages of living in the country, with now and then an appropriate religious reference. T h e same volume also presents two f u r t h e r dramatizations, but with n o hint as to authorship. 62 O n e is entitled "Dialogue—Christmas Eve, 1795," the other "Dialogue—Christmas Eve, 1799." Both are purely religious in nature. A historical review of the past religious activity of the Ephrata g r o u p appeared in 1786, after which that body ceased to be productive in literature.* 3 At the end of the period stands the Philadelphisches Magazienf* the first issue of which appeared on May 1, 1798. It was something of a miscellany, b u t u n d e r t o o k to entertain a reading public which was perhaps largely non-existent: a German constituency interested in "Weibliche Heldenthat," "Progress der Deutschen Litteratur," "Das unglückliche Mädchen," "Heyraths-Ceremonie in Massachusetts," and "Poetische Versuche," to choose at r a n d o m from the twenty-one short articles of the number. So far as the writer has been able to discover, this is the only authentic piece of literary work produced before 1800 not predominantly religious in tone. A situation not calculated either to keep alive or to refresh the dwindling literary activity of the closing years of the century is to be f o u n d in the changed n a t u r e of the later immigration. At first there had been enough land for every ambitious m a n to carve out a homestead for himself, b u t as succeeding oo Arthur D. Graeff, The Relations between the Pennsylvania Germans and the British Authorities (1750-1776), P.G.S. Proceedings, 1939. si William C. Reichel and William H. Bigler, A History of the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies, p p . 57-65. «2 Ibid., p p . 278-304. as Bros. Lamech and Agrippa, Chronichon Ephratense, 1786. «« Philadelphisches Magazien. (Philadelphia: H . & I. Kammerer) Vol. I (May 1798).

PERIOD OF RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE

35

waves of migrants came in, it was often expedient for the newcomers to go into domestic or farm service until suitable places for settlement could be found. Westward emigration in the main did not set in until after the Revolution, but by that time there had come to be almost a servant class in the eastern counties. T h e needs both of well-established German homes and of the English made the creation of this class comparatively easy. T h e Hallesche Nachrichten 65 particularly mention this circumstance, as does Kuhns, 69 later. For the age as a whole the literary output is not impressive, but it should be borne in mind that purely creative literature was only a by-product of the men who were supplying the religious and devotional material of the New World. T h e n too, it does not necessarily follow that, because research yields such a paucity of material, nothing more was written. T h e English kept records; the Germans, with few exceptions, did not. Diffenderfer makes a point fully as valid for any later time during the century as for the years he was investigating: During the period between 1683 and 1727 . . . the historiographer finds himself confronted with almost insuperable difficulties. T h e landmarks that could and should guide him are not to be found. T h e y have not been obliterated; they were never erected, and the perplexed chronicler sails to and fro over that unknown and uncharted sea of our provincial history, vainly endeavoring to pick up and preserve the flotsam which accident, rather than design, may have cast into his pathway. 6 7

After all, there is a stretch of time of well over a hundred years, and it is not inconceivable that as much may have been lost as has been preserved. On the basis of the evidence at hand, however, certain summary facts may be deduced. 1. T h e mass of literature produced in the years 1683 to 1800 falls into two general divisions: (a) the literature of travel, which treats of the Pennsylvania German only incidentally, but which indicates him as different from the Enges Evangelish-Lutherischen Gemein, Nachrichten von dem Deutschen Evangelish-Lutherischen Gemeinen in Nord-America, lich in Pennsylvanien. (Halle, 1787), I, 57. 8« Kuhns, op. cit., p. 81. e? Diffenderfer, op. cit. p. 9.

vereinigten absonder-

36

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

lish colonists; and (b) the creative output of the great religious leaders. 2. T h e productions of these leaders were of a religious tone in accordance with their position as guardians of the German faiths in the New World. 3. T h e prevailing language of the literature of the period is literary or " H i g h " German. 4. W h e n the important leaders died, literary activity died with them, whether because (a) the needs of the people had been met through the activities of the various presses, (b) the multiplicity of sects and the passing of time had a leveling effect in reducing specialized religious production, or (c) simply because the Colony and the changing character of later immigration had failed to produce anyone to take their place. 5. T h e whole tendency of the era is one of descending importance from the religious point of view. Pastorius, Kelpius, Beissel, and others represent a high point in spirituality and productivity which dwindles to a low ebb by the time of the Revolution, is held in temporary abeyance for the duration of the war, and sinks into insignificance by the close of the ccntury. Elsewhere in the country, during the years of this period, American literature had its genesis under conditions with which every student of history is familiar. T h e American pioneers first of all gave expression to the fundamental spiritual beliefs which had led them to cross the ocean. As the years passed, the early works of religion, of theology and of dogma inevitably gave way to others less concerned with the spiritual and more concerned with the practical side of life. In New England Michael Wigglesworth and Jonathan Edwards were succeeded by men of many affairs; isolation gave way to community feeling; and eventually the voices crying in the wilderness became voices heard upon platforms, for in the face of a common danger the Colonies were becoming a nation. T h e Revolution and the consequent period of reconstruction brought forth a strong, vigorous, and creative spirit in the New World, a spirit which colored and conditioned the literature which was slowly coming into being. T h e pithiness

PERIOD OF RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE

37

of Franklin; the forcefulness of Hamilton and Jefferson; the pungent nationalism of the Hartford Wits; the political satire of Philip Freneau; the pioneer fiction of Charles Brockden Brown; these were part and parcel of the new order which cut across the boundaries of provincialism in an effort to assert the rights of Americans. In all this stirring literary activity the Pennsylvania German was compelled to assume but a minor role. None knew better than he the meaning of war and of oppression; none could be more appreciative of freedom. Yet in an English-speaking land a German-speaking minority could become articulate only within pathetically narrow bounds. Under the conditions indicated in the foregoing pages it is to be marvelled at that he became articulate at all. However, the works of Pastorius are not inferior to those of Jonathan Edwards, any more than the Paradisisches Wunderspiel is inferior to the Bay Psalm Book or the Day of Doom. During the period when religion was the motivating force in literature, German Pennsylvania must be credited with a status equal to that of New England, and far in advance of that of many of the seaboard settlements. It is only when politics and temporal affairs have replaced the things of the spirit that the Pennsylvania German, clinging to his own speech and his own way of life, drops out of the procession of American letters and begins to make a path of his own.

Chapter IV

THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION: 1800 TO 1861 HAT WERE THE CIRCUMSTANCES in which the Pennsylvania Germans found themselves at the beginning of the new century, and what conditions, if any, modified the German scene in comparison with the years that had gone before? T h e answers to these questions will serve to explain the marked changes in the nature of the literature during this period and up to the Civil War. In 1800 George Logan addressed a plea to the people of Pennsylvania, and in particular the farmers of Lancaster County, stressing the fact that with a successfully fought war behind them they should bend every effort toward making their country free economically and physically, as well as politically, by producing to the utmost. Among other things he said:

W

I n a state of civil Society, m a n must be considered as a M e m b e r of a g r e a t political family. H e is c o n n e c t e d with his Fellow citizens, by ties of interest and benevolent a t t a c h m e n t ; a n d his social affections must e x t e n d to the whole C o m m u n i t y of which h e is a Member. H e should feel the Safety, and the c o m m o n W e l f a r e , intimately c o n n e c t e d with his own; and he should think n o t h i n g unimp o r t a n t to himself, which concerns the welfare of his C o u n t r y . 1

Two points of Logan's are peculiarly pertinent here. First, probably no group did more during the war than the Pennsylvania Germans to promote the safety and the common welfare of the young nation; 2 and second, probably no group w a s less connected with its fellow citizens by ties of interest, benevolent attachment, or social affection than these same Germans. 1 George Logan, A Letter to the Citizens of Pennsylvania on the Necessity of Promoting Agriculture, Manufacture, and the Useful Arts, p. 8. 2 H. M. M. Richards, The Pennsylvania German in the Revolutionary War, 17/5-1781, P.G.S. Proceedings, 1908. 38

PERIOD OF TRANSITION

39

The reasons for this paradoxical condition have been traced in some detail in the preceding chapter. T h e matter is mentioned here again to remind the reader that he is following the history of the literature of a people who have pursued their even course through vicissitudes of every sort, and who, unchanged by pioneering, prosperity, or war, need not be expected to alter very rapidly in the face of any new condition. Logan's letter was aimed primarily at a "Pennsylvania Dutch" populace which already had every intention of doing the thing he wanted, and not because he wanted it, but because it was their natural way of life.3 Had he or any other demanded something foreign to their fruitful agrarian routine, the story of the commendable part the Germans played in the building of the Commonwealth and of the nation might be far different.4 With the country appealing to their industry and encouraging them to even greater productivity, and with the prospect of a future free of foreign domination, the Pennsylvania Germans faced the new century under conditions as promising as any they were ever to encounter. The trade marts of Lancaster, Reading, and Philadelphia were easily available, and the great market wagons traveled night and day, making inland commerce both extensive and profitable. After the first hard years following the war, international relations improved to the point where the Pennsylvania Germans, at least, no longer found them a matter of any great concern. It was a time of great activity, of expansion, and, as the first few decades passed, of increased prosperity. With the lack of interference in individual thought and action in America, the fire of earlier religious zeal had by nowall but died out, although the sectarians clung to the forms of their various faiths with the steady persistence that has at all times characterized them. With the passing of the great religious teachers and leaders, moreover, ancient folk beliefs and superstitions again came to the fore, and in this age the terms hexerei, powwowing, and witchcraft assume a new significance. There is no doubt that such beliefs had been in existence before, just as they were elsewhere in the country, a W. H. Bruford, Germany in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 118, 119. < T , J . Wertenbaker, The Founding of American Civilization: The Middle Colonies, p. 291.

40

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN L I T E R A T U R E

but they became increasingly prevalent after the decline of higher spiritual beliefs. It is during this period, too, that one of the greatest influences affecting the future of the German in Pennsylvania came into being. T h i s was the school law of 1834, which required all the children of the Commonwealth to attend public (and hence English) schools. T h e law sounded the death knell of High German in Pennsylvania, although it remained inoperative in many counties for years, and was administered in unequal degree for many decades after 1834. Not that German was spoken at this time, for the dialect by 1800 had come to serve the everyday needs of spoken intercourse throughout the " D u t c h " country; but High German was the language of the Bible, of the devotional literature of the church, and of the books in the church-supported schools. In other words, it was the language of culture, which the school law was about to supplant with another. T h e Germans opposed the law stubbornly and bitterly, not because they were opposed to education, as has often been claimed, but because they felt that they were being deprived of one of their fundamental rights. YVickersham says: T h e y had proven their interest by establishing hundreds of schools in connection with their churches. In these . . . their children had long been instructed by teachers of their own appointment in the several branches of secular knowledge and in the sacred doctrines of religion. T o break up this system of schools which they had established and were willing to support, to continue it and yet be compelled to pay taxes for the support of common schools in which they had little interest, seemed to them alternatives equally objectionable. 5

T h e crux of the matter was that with English as the official language of the country, German would be pushed aside; and German was a precious and inalienable heritage from the olden times. It seemed better to offer resistance at once, and vigorously, in order to defend their rights, and action was taken accordingly. 6 So tenacious are the Germanic Pennsylvanians that certain phases of this resistance are still to be s James P. Wickersham, A History of Education s Ibid., p. 320.

in Pennsylvania,

p. 319.

PERIOD OF T R A N S I T I O N

41

found, as in the case of the consolidated school question in East Lampeter Township, Lancaster County, in 1939.T Whether or not the law had any influence on the literature of the period is a moot point. T h e strongest argument against any deleterious effect is probably the almost total lack of any such original literature up to 1834. While it is not inconceivable that creative literature in High German might have been produced after 1834 had it not been for the school law, there seems to be little if any indication historically that such would have been the case. Yet present-day writers, particularly those who are ardent Pennsylvania German protagonists, are prone to lay the burden of responsibility for this lack on the school law of 1834. A quotation from a widely circulated article by such a German writer in 1938 will illustrate the point: I think the comparative rarity of e m i n e n t poets a m o n g the nineteenth century Pennsylvania Germans may in part be ascribed to an educational procedure which, while perhaps h a r d e n i n g the mental energy and will power of the pupils, and their keenness of thought, injured their ability to express subtle feelings by subtle words. ( T h e Pennsylvania German) could n o t read nor write in the o n e language he fully knew, the German, but was taught to read and write in a tongue for which h e o f t e n had not the slightest use, which he seldom heard, and even less o f t e n used in his daily business and intercourse. Small w o n d e r that sometimes our G e r m a n farmer w o u l d forget what h e learned in school. 8

What makes the task of the student particularly difficult in the earlier years of the period is the lack of evidence of every sort. If there was a literature from 1800 to 1830, there is almost no evidence of it today, and yet it is not impossible that even this busy agricultural land might have produced something beyond a few scattered verses. Trexler speaks of the apparent carelessness of the people of the time in preserving written landmarks of any kind: Ein bis jetzt noch nie gedrucktes Manuscript, welches für unsere Lokalgeschichte von bedeutenden Werthe ist, wurde mir von meinem freunde Philip W. Flores, Postmeister zu Dillingersville, Lecha County, zugestellt. Dasselbe fand sich unter andern alten Büchern und Papieren, die er auf einer Vendu kaufte und so vor der Zerstöri "Amishmen Win Fight to Keep School House," White Plains Daily Reporter, January 4, 1940. s Heinz Klosz, "Sacrificed Generations," The Eck, June 18, 1938.

42

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN L I T E R A T U R E

ung rettete. Hunderte und Tausende solcher alten Schriftstücke gehen verloren, weil Niemand vorhanden ist, der deren Werth zu schätzen weiss* (A manuscript never before printed, and of especial significance in local history, was sent to me by my friend Philip W. Flores, postmaster in Dillingersville, Lehigh Co. It was found among other old books and papers bought at a sale and saved from destruction. Hundreds and thousands of such old writings are lost, simply because there is no one at hand who knows how to estimate their worth.)

Mombert finds the same difficulty in his investigations of early newspapers in 1869,10 when even the contemporary generation made no effort to preserve material bearing directly on the Pennsylvania Germans, to say nothing of the works of previous years. Goodnight, speaking of the period from 1800 to 1816 in his study of (European) German literature in America, finds that there was no advance in those years.11 H e comes to the conclusion that factional feeling and political struggles in the young nation did not provide a very congenial atmosphere for literary work. T h i s condition was probably less true in rural Pennsylvania than elsewhere in the nation, 12 but with little difference in actual literary output. Literature in these early years was seemingly a luxury easily dispensed with. Bausman, writing in 1868 of the period fifty years before, says: An old large Bible with heavy lid and metallic clasps, brought from the fatherland by some pious ancestor: Stark's and Zollikoffer's Prayer Books, Arndt's Wahr Christenthum; the Catechism—these were the library of the bulk of German farmers fifty years ago. 13

Runyeon even goes as far as to say that "Luther's Bible was the one constant literary possession of the Pennsylvania-German immigrant." 14 » B. F. Trexler, Skizzen aus dem Lecha-Thale, p. 45. 10 J. I. Mombert, An Authentic History of Lancaster County, p. 477. 11 Scott Holland Goodnight, German Literature in American Magazines Prior to ¡846, p. 34. 12 Oscar Kuhns, German and Swiss Settlements of Pennsylvania, pp. 83114. is B. Bausman, "In Memoriam" (Henry Harbaugh), Guardian, XIX (March 1868), 69-79. n Mildred Runyeon, "Pennsylvania German in the Reading Adler: 1837-1857," p. 49.

P E R I O D OF T R A N S I T I O N

43

And yet, out of this almost barren era it is possible to piece together, after a fashion, enough fragments not only to characterize the age itself, but to explain the very different one which follows. T h e works of the period are in High German, English, and the Pennsylvania German dialect, and will be presented in that order. As has already been indicated, after the second or third generation in America, High German had become almost a foreign language to many. It was used in the pulpit and in the devotional literature of the Church, but it was only spoken, to any extent, by the newcomers, since the dialect, increasingly modified by English, was employed for all the everyday purposes of life. Actually the Pennsylvania Germans had no real need either for pure German or pure English. Pure German could not meet their needs in a land which called for an agricultural, economic, and political terminology unknown to Europeans. And as for English, there was seemingly no more cause for the solid bloc of Germans in Pennsylvania to learn English than there was for the English to learn German. Few, if any, had the vision of a continent united by one people and one language, and there appeared to be no reason why, in the face of prosperity, anything should ever be different from what it was right then. So far as writing was concerned, why should a hard-headed farmer, who was piling up riches for himself and for the generations to come, bother his head with writing? Even if he did want to write, he had only a choice of two strange tongues, in neither of which he could feel at home. T h e Bible, the newspaper, the almanac supplied his reading needs, and where they came from and how they were made were matters of little concern to him. T h e important thing in life for him was to get ahead. By 1800 the farmer's almanac, generally popular, was pretty much of an institution in Pennsylvania. As a matter of fact, the very first work produced by Christopher Sauer, in 1738, is said to have been an almanac. Of the significance of this curious accumulation of miscellaneous lore Kuhns says: T h e inhabitants of the city in modern times can have no conception of the importance of the almanac for the farmer of a hundred

44

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

years ago. In Germany it occupied a place beside the Bible and the hymn-book. . . . These old German almanacs were the repositories of all the superstitions which still flourished in the country and which, banished from regular literature, found a refuge here.15 Phillips finds that almanacs had appeared in Philadelphia as early as 1705.18 Trexler is of the opinion that "Der erste Calender in Amerika wurde 1731 von Andreas Bradford in Philadelphia gedruckt."17 (The first calendar in America was printed in Philadelphia in 1731 by Andrew Bradford.) He mentions examples for the years 1731 to 1733. T h e earliest of these calendars or almanacs known to the writer is Jacob Taylor's Pensilvania, 1742, a thirty-two-page compilation published in Philadelphia by Andrew Bradford. Schantz 18 lists one of Christopher Sauer's for 1776, entitled Der Hoch-Deutsch Amerikanische Calender, published in Lancaster in 1779 by Francis Bailey. 19 Another Lancaster publication was Der Neue Gemeinnützige Landwirtschafts Calender, by Johan Albrecht. A copy of this almanac (or "calender") dated 1802 bears the words "Zum Funfzehntenmahl herausgegeben"; this would seem to indicate that it had been started in 1787 or 1788. These almanacs may be looked upon as the earliest forerunners of popular secular literature among the Pennsylvania Germans, as, perhaps, were similar almanacs in rural areas elsewhere. They were cheap, voluminous, and of a practical nature, containing as they did not only the conventional almanac or calendar information, but household hints, agricultural pointers, home remedies, and countless items of folklore and folk superstition transplanted from Germany. Occasionally they contained short reprints of Gerinarf verse, not improbably the only secular verse in German Pennsylvania as long as the spiritual influence of Beissel, Kelpius, and the other great religious leaders was in the ascendant.' 20 is Kuhns, op. cit., pp. 133-34. >8 Henry Phillips, Jr., Certain Old Almanacs Published in Philadelphia between 1705 and 1744 (Philadelphia: 1881). 17 Trexler, op. cit., p. 245. F. J. F. Schantz, The Domestic Life and Characteristics of the Pennsylvania German Pioneer, P.G.S. Proceedings, 1899, p. 295. 19 Barba says that Sauer's almanac probably appeared as early as 17S9. 20 T h a t the almanac as a repository for literature was not confined solely

PERIOD OF TRANSITION

45

T h e almanac, judging by the frequency with which it is mentioned in connection with almost any phase of Pennsylvania German life, must have been as popular and as widely accepted as the Bible. However, it was not until some time toward the beginning of the nineteenth century that it appeared to supplant the Bible in the minds of the people, or if not that, at least to be indicated first on all occasions when authority other than the farmer's own experience was to be consulted. These almanacs, with their remedies, riddles, jingles, aphorisms, and advice, are not to be counted as real literature any more than are almanacs of today, but they serve to show a state of mind, or condition of receptivity, which made possible the publication of the first work which indicated a definite break with the religious traditions of the past. T h i s book was John George Hohman's Long Lost Friend (Der lang verborgene Freund) in 1820. Hohman was a redemptioner who reached Philadelphia in 1799, according to Neifert, 21 although Stapleton places the date as 1802.22 Something of an opportunist, H o h m a n studied his Pennsylvania German neighbors as he wandered from Philadelphia to Hellertown, and Hellertown to Reading, apparently seeking to make a living without heavy manual labor. He illuminated birth and baptismal certificates, visiting countless homes in so doing. T h a t he was reasonably successful in this occupation is shown by the fact that he was able to pay off his passage and buy a house in Reading some time before 1819.23 Once established there, he published the work which has made his to the G e r m a n element is indicated in a study o£ the English poets of Pennsylvania in 1829: " D u r i n g the early p a r t of the 18th century, several poets flourished in Pennsylvania, whose lines merited the a p p r o b a t i o n of their contemporaries. Few of these productions are now to be discovered. . . . W e must look for them in the Almanacs—a strange place to seek for poetry—but at that early day they were the only publications to which rhymes could gain admittance." J o s h u a Francis Fisher, "Some Account of the Early Poets a n d Poetry of Pennsylvania," Historical Society of Pennsylvania Memoirs, Vol. I I (1830), Part II, 57. 21 William W. Neifert, " W i t c h c r a f t , " P.G.M., IX (March 1908), 114-21. 22 A. M. Stapleton, "Researches in the First Century of G e r m a n Printing in America, 1728-1830," P.G.M., V (April 1904), 81-89. 23 Neifert, op. cit., p. 120.

46

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

name a by-word throughout the length and breadth of the Dutchland: the little book variously called Egyptian Secrets, Albertus Magnus, and The Long Lost Friend. Just how many editions of this work have been run off it would be hard to say, but in addition to issues of 1820, 1828, 1839, 1840, 1847, 1853, 1855, 1856, 1865, 1910, 1912, 1929, and 1930 there are many others which by their format show that they were separate imprints. After 1840 many, if not most of them, appeared in English. Many bear no identifying marks as to time or place of publication. Some give Hohman's name and some do not; but within the text there is very little variation, exception being made for the idiosyncrasies of various printers in their method of setting up copy, and for numerous typographical mistakes. Aurand has it that Hohman first produced the work as his own, but upon being pressed for his authority said that he got his information "from a gypsy." T h e supposition seems to be strong enough to account for the name Egyptian Secrets, so often associated with the book. However, by 1839 the volume was appearing as Der lange verborgene Schatz und HausFreund und Getreuer und Christlicher Unterricht für Jederman, with the cautious information: "Gedruckt für den Kaufer, Pennsylvanien 1839." Here, credit was given on the cover as follows: Aus den Arabischen Schriften des weissen Aichemisten Omar Arey, Emir C.hemir Tschasmir, ins Deutsche übersetzt und mit vielen andern Künsten vermehrt. (Printed for the purchaser, Pennsylvania, 1839. . . . From the Arabian writings of the White Magician Omar Arey, etc., translated into German, and augmented with many other arts.)

T h e "vielen andern Künsten" may conceivably have given Hohman considerable leeway. All later editions which give credit to anyone other than Hohman, however, attribute the source of the wisdom to Albertus Magnus, a learned German monk of about A.D. 1225, with whose works Hohman is supposed to have been familiar. 24 Whatever the source of the little book, which is no more and no less than a book of practical witchcraft, Hohman had 24 A. M. Aurand, John Pow-wows.

George Hohman's

Long Lost Friend

or Book of

PERIOD OF TRANSITION

47

adapted it admirably to the needs of the Pennsylvania German citizenry. It tells how to cast spells upon enemies, and how to break spells cast upon oneself; how to cure many common physical ills, even including epileptic seizures; how to treat domestic animals for numerous ailments; how to bring good luck or bad in love; how to control fires; in fact, how to do all the things a simple farmer folk might like to do to bring success to themselves and confusion to their enemies. A fervently religious terminology is used throughout the book, at the same time that hidden mysteries, forbidden secrets, white magic and mild sorcery form the backbone of a work that has at all times been frowned upon by the thoughtful and denounced by the clergy. Successful practitioners passed the secrets of their skill on to others qualified to receive them, with a resultant long line of powwow doctors, great numbers of whom still practice surreptitiously all over the Dutchland. A companion volume, more feared than the Long Lost Friend, appeared also during this period. Whether or not Hohman had anything to do with it is not known, but the contents of the two are markedly similar. This work is the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, apparently used only by the various powwowers or "brauchers," and possibly by practitioners of black magic. An English reprint of this work, published in 1938 by the Empire Publishing Company of New York, contains the following information on the title page: T h e Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, or the Magical Spirit-Art, Moses': known as the Wonderful Arts of the Old Wise Hebrews, taken from the Mosaic Books of the Cabala and the Talmud, for the good of mankind. Translated from the German word for word, according to old writings.

No complete copy in the original German is known to the author, although there are undoubtedly copies in private collections. Hoover, in a work which seems at least reasonably accurate, 25 mentions similar books essential to the powwow practitioner or hex-doctor: The Life of Peter as Written by John; The Book of Nicodemus; and The Arts of Jannes and Jambres who withstood Moses before King Pharaoh. These were probably of European origin. 25 Francis T . Hoover, Enemies

iti the Rear, p. 106.

48

PENNSYLVANIA G E R M A N

LITERATURE

Whether because it was feared that the Church might take steps to suppress them, or because the law might be able to take some action, these books usually appeared as issues f r o m a private press, and minus means of identification. This very fact made them more potent in the minds of the Pennsylvania Germans, who were often credulous enough to believe that they were of supernatural origin. Likewise believed to be of divine origin were the "Himmelsbriefe," or letters from heaven, of which Stapleton says: T h e "Himmel's Brief," or the letter that fell from heaven, charms and bans against fire, pestilence, robbery, etc. were produced in ornate fashions, framed and placed o n the wall as ornaments. Almost every home had something of this kind. T h i s class of literature, once so abundant, is now quite rare.

These letters, printed as broadsides, existed prior to 1815, according to Stapleton, who also claims that H o h m a n printed one known as the "Grogardia Himmel's Brief" at Hellertown no later than that time. An editorial article on the subject, listing representative specimens, is to be found in the Pennsylvania German Magazine for May, 1908, pages 217 to 222. Considerable credence seems to have been placed in the efficacy of these charms, which were used by Pennsylvania Germans as personal amulets as late as the First World War. It is to be doubted that all of these broadsides originated in America; many were probably imported from Germany, where they enjoyed great popularity.- 8 T h e practical and prophetic lore of the almanacs, the mysterious and "forbidden" powwow books, and the letters from heaven; these seem to have constituted the popular literature of the Pennsylvania German for some decades after 1800, and have continued to enjoy a limited popularity down to the present day. They have been dwelt upon here to an extent beyond their just proportion, perhaps, because directly or indirectly they were responsible later for one of the greatest of all Pennsylvania German stereotypes: the characterization of the "Dutchman" as a creature bound to earth by a multiplicity of superstitious beliefs. Had the Church continued its powerful influence from the preceding century, superstition could 2« Stapleton, op. cit., p. 84.

PERIOD OF TRANSITION

49

probably never have gained such headway; but as it was, religious doctrine, whether of the Lutheran, the Reformed, or the sectarian, soon appeared unable to cope with the strong resurgence of age-old folk belief and practice. This recession of a dominant religious spirit is by no means peculiar to Pennsylvania; the same thing appears to have happened in New England, in Virginia, and elsewhere. In no other place, however, does the transition from the period of fervor to one of greater moderation appear to have such strongly marked characteristics or such far-reaching consequences. Other German literature of the period is negligible, consisting in the main of poetry and short prose articles which appeared in the German newspapers circulating in the Dutchland. Many papers had "poets' corners," copiously supplied by European poets, whose names, however, were not usually given. This fact makes the problem of authenticating native verse well-nigh impossible to any save an expert on German poetry. Only such items will be mentioned here as probably actually originated in Pennsylvania—a very small fraction of the whole. T h e earliest of these is the "Extempore auf dem Wagen" of Bishop George Henry Loskiel, a Moravian missionary who journeyed to Goshen, O h i o in 1803. His trip is anticipated by David Zeisberger, another missionary, in a letter to J o h n Heckewelder, dated "Goshen, 4 Januar 1803": "Es scheint also, Du glaubst zieml. feste, dass Br. Loskiel dies Jahr herkommt."27 (It appears, therefore, that you believe rather firmly that Brother Loskiel will come this year.) T h e subject matter of the long doggerel poem is the hardship of journeying to Ohio by wagon in those times. Bishop Loskiel was accompanied by his wife, and by one Sister Anna Rosa Kliest, who acted as his diarist and recorded his verses as he dictated them en route. 28 T h e original manuscript was for many years in the possession of Abraham Beck, of Lititz, Pennsylvania. In 1887 S. H. Zahm, a printer of Lancaster, found a copy of the original, and identified it as being in the hands ' DDI'.,

X I I (August 1880), 185.

28 Sister Kliest was listed as a tutoress at the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies at Bethlehem for t h e years 1788 to 1805. (William C. Reichel and William H. Bigler, A History of the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies, p. 311.)

50

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

writing of Sister Kliest. H e printed eight h u n d r e d copies of the poem, using an English translation by J. Max Hark. 2 9 T h e poem was reprinted in 1935 by Preston Barba in his column " 'S Pennsylfawnisch Deitsch Eck" in the Allentown Morning Call as evidence of early literary activity in Pennsylvania. On J a n u a r y 18, 1809 the Lebanon Morgenstern published a thresher's song ("Drescherlied") in High German, the tenor of which was the goodness of God in supplying a b o u n t i f u l harvest, and an injunction that God and the poor should not be forgotten. 3 0 T h i s may or may not have been of European origin. In 1811 and 1812 a weekly paper known as Der Volksunterrichter was published in Easton by Christian J. Hutter, and featured the appearance of the text in German at the left of the page with an English translation at the right—seemingly an indication that the German was by no means a universal language at that date. T h e content was extremely diverse, and covered curious and far-off affairs rather than events at home. T h e verse was apparently of European origin, and ran largely to love songs. T h e prose was probably Pennsylvanian, since it possessed a strong editorial tone, and pursued topics of the times. One notable article was "An Account of Some Indian Tribes," which began J u n e 3, 1812, and continued to the end of the year. Most of the items, though, were essentially journalistic rather than literary. T h e Allentown Friedensbothe as early as 1823 had frequent Dichterstelle, filled with verse partly or entirely religious in tone. O u t of the usual run, however, is the "Schlacht bey New Orleans, welcher den 8ten Janaar, 1815, gefochten wurde," which the Friedensbothe published February 21, 1823. T h e poem is a rapid-fire account of the events of the famous battle, but is of no merit save as it shows that indigenous verse could apparently be produced if there were a strong enough reason for it. T h e Pennsylvania Germans as a class thus early were not gifted imaginatively to the point where they were easily stimulated to versification. 20 George Henry Loskiel, Extempore Samuel H. Zahm, 1887).

auf

dem

so "Drescherlied," P.G.M., V (January 1904), 27.

Wagen

(Lancaster, Pa.:

PERIOD OF T R A N S I T I O N

51

A little song called "Das Deutschelied" has been pointed to as of Pennsylvania origin. This appeared in the Friedensbothe for April 16, 1824, and expresses the sentiment that the German loves best in the world those things that are German: the German language, German girls, and German places. If this is Pennsylvanian in origin it is a notable exception to the rule that almost never do bona fide Pennsylvania Germans show a longing or a desire for the Old World, or anything connected with it other than the language. Those who wrote with strong feeling of their homeland were those who had usually not been away, or those who in later years came to America as "Flüchtlinge," or political refugees, and who are not to be confused with the real Pennsylvania Germans. Frick makes a good summation of this point: T h e r e are two kinds of Germans and two kinds of Germans in Pennsylvania,—the German pure and simple, and the peculiar class d e n o m i n a t e d "Pennsylvania Dutch." T h e former are emigrants of this century and reside largely in the cities; the latter are descendants of the emigrants of tRe last century and reside chiefly in the country districts of Eastern Pennsylvania. T h e former employ the dialects current in Europe and are directly interested in the affairs of the Fatherland. T h e latter know n o other Fatherland than Pennsylvania. 3 1

T h e Easton Republikanische Presse in its first number, February 15, 1827, published a little poem called "Die Stationen des Lebens," a moral comparison between the course of the post-boy from station to station, and the course of life. Judged by the subject matter, this would seem to be American rather than European. On March 23 of the same year the Presse printed 108 lines in verse entitled " Jarret's alte Brücke über die Lecha," a narrative on the subject of hitching u p the horse and going to see Jarret's Bridge, apparently something of a landmark. An editorial note adds the information that the bridge in 1827 had long been replaced by a newer one. A poem, so-called, of only eight lines, currently accepted as the only true and proper characterization of the Pennsylvania German, appeared in the Presse for July 10, 1829, much earlier than is generally believed—so early, in fact, that it is not im31 W. K.. Frick, "Pennsylvania German Literature," Muhlenberg V (February 1888), 77.

Monthly,

52

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN

LITERATURE

probable that it was written, not about the Pennsylvanians at all, but about their European brethren. A clipping from an unidentified paper of 1831, quite probably also the Presse, credits the verses to one "Schubart." T h e poem is given in full, because, regardless of its original intention, it is an apt delineation: Der biedre Deutsche spricht nicht viel; Kurz ist sein Wort, stark sein Gefühl. Er ist ein Zögling der Natur; Ein Handschlag gilt ihm mehr als Schwur. Gott liebt er, ist den Obern treu Wie Gold—und doch kein Sklav dabey. Grad und ehrlich ist sein Brauch. So wie er spricht, so denkt er auch. ( T h e staunch German says but little; H i s word is brief, but his feelings are strong. H e is a child of nature; A hand-clasp means more to h i m than an oath. H e loves G o d and is loyal to his superiors B u t at the same time is not a slave. Forthright and h o n o r a b l e is his wont, A n d as he speaks, so he thinks.)

Another, in the Friedensbothe for March 26, 1835, "Gedichtet vor seinem Abgange aus Deutschland, im Mai 1834, von G. J. Schmid," (Composed before his departure from Germany in May, 1834) is entitled "Sehnsucht," and expresses a simple but powerful longing for the freedom of America. T h e poem may possibly be American, but there is no corroborative testimony to mark it as authentic. It is the kind of thing not infrequently found in early papers when the editors wished for some reason to strike a patriotic note. "Zimmerman's Spruch," a long poem of 163 lines, is credited to the Lancaster Adler. T h e only available copy of this interesting bit of writing seems to be a clipping pasted on an issue, in the Easton Public Library, of the Allentown Friedensbothe for December 27, 1822. with no mark of identification other than the one mentioned. What its actual date of issue was, or why it was attached to this particular copy of the Friedensbothe will probably remain a mystery unless a complete copy of the parent paper comes to light. T h e poem is

PERIOD OF TRANSITION

53

a "carpenter's speech" at the erection of a new house, and seems to be a verbal expression of the feeling which prompted so many of the G e r m a n Pennsylvanians to set a stone carved with a "house sign" or blessing in a p r o m i n e n t place in the walls of a newly-built dwelling. As such it is not far afield from the region of superstitious feeling which gave rise to so many early proverbs, 3 2 and made works like the Long Lost Friend so acceptable. T h e writer of the poem maintains that Adam was the first carpenter, and that N o a h and Solomon likewise were carpenters. H e expresses good wishes for those who will live in the new house, prays that it may be divinely protected from storm and flood, and ends with the lines Ja, alle segne Und nachmals

Gott dort

in dieser Zeit, in Ewigkeit.

(God blesses everything now And afterward in Eternity.)

"Die Tabackspfeife," in Alt Northampton for May 26, 1841, and "Klage iiber die Kleidermode" for J a n u a r y 12, 1842 may be thought of as marking the end of this type of spasmodic verse. For one thing, editors were beginning to acknowledge the authorship of the verse they borrowed, and European writers are easier to identify. For another, there was a much greater stress on the romantic, particularly the extravagant love lyric. Most important, however, was the fact that the dialect writers were beginning to find their newly-discovered medium an ideal conveyance for the light, feuilletonistic material which had struck popular fancy. T h e period of importance of G e r m a n as a literary language had all b u t passed, although scattered verses of European origin appeared until long after the Civil W a r . T h e few works of the English writers of the period are so diverse as to be lacking in any particular significance, at least as far as indicating a trend is concerned. T h u s , Alexander Graydon's lone Memoirs in 1811 proves disappointing in that the author ignores all but the political significance of the events through which he lived. He was principally concerned with the early years of the Revolution, and with recounting John Baer Stoudt, The Folklore of the Pennsylvania German, P.G.S. Proceedings, 1915. See also Edwin M. Fogel, Proverbs of the Pennsylvania Germans, P.G.S. Proceedings, 1929.

54

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN

LITERATURE

his journeys back and forth in the State. He tosses part of a single sentence to the Pennsylvania Germans: ". . . the great body of German farmers, extremely tenacious of property." *a A survival of the earlier "travel book" is found in Pearson's Notes Made in 1821, which contains perhaps the most biting commentary that had been recorded u p to that time. Referring specifically to Lancaster, he says, "This town swarms with Dutch, who are not quite so well behaved as many of our Hampshire hogs in England." 3 4 He makes no statement as to what inspired this burst of ill temper, but apparently he had some reason for not liking the German element, as he speaks forcefully later on of the inhabitants of Elizabethtown: Ran along the banks of the Susquehanna, on a good road, a n d slept a second time within one mile of Harrisburgh; the Dutch as usual not over agreeable. We then passed through Elizabethtown and slept 3 miles beyond it at a smith's, a Dutchman, a kind old man, his wife also was kind and daughters, but his sons belonged to the grunter tribe, however, the father made them mind what he said to them. 3 5

One reason for Pearson's state of disgruntlement is not far to seek. He was looking for a place for settlement, and had unwittingly stumbled upon one of the least likely regions in the new world for so doing. Graydon's modest characterization of the Germans as "extremely tenacious of property" was no understatement; in fact a Pennsylvania German who sold land instead of buying more would have been a seven days' wonder in Pennsylvania until at least 1848. A glance at the title of Pearson's book will show that his itinerary passed through or encircled almost the entire Pennsylvania German country, in which an Englishman was probably as strange to the Germans as they were to him. One poem in English during this period will serve to record that ubiquitous verse form, the ballad. Such yarns as " T h e 88 P. 106. 3« J o h n Pearson, Notes Made during a Journey in 1821 States of America from Philadelphia to the Neighborhood through Lancaster, Harrisburgh, Carlisle, ir Pittsburgh, and delphia through Louistown, Huntingdon, & New Holland, Settlement, p. 10. 3» Ibid., p. 57.

in the United of Lake Erie; back to Philain Search of a

PERIOD OF TRANSITION

55

Mournful Ballad of Susanna Cox," 30 and the tale of Etny (Edna) Bittenbender probably belong to a later period. However, the story of the Barricke Mariche seems to date from some time shortly after the death of Mary Young, who according to the marker erected for her by the Berks County Chapter of the Daughters of T h e American Revolution in 1934, died November 16, 1819, at the age of seventy. Mary Young (that is, "Barricke Mariche," or Mountain Mary) was a kindly, religious recluse who, after the disappearance of her lover at the outset of the Revolution, spent the rest of her long life on a secluded mountain-top in Berks County, doing good to her neighbors and earning the respect of all. Her story has often been told, most ably, perhaps, by Ludwig Wollenweber, whose works will be discussed in a later chapter. In 1822 in Philadelphia a volume of verse identified only as The Phantom Barge, and Other Poems, "by the author of The Limner," made its appearance. T h i s volume contained "Mary Young," four ten-line stanzas having to do with the last years of Mary's life and her lonely death on the mountain. T h e verses were florid, religious in tone, and extremely sentimental. T h e Pennsylvania German Magazine in 1902 reprinted the verses with the following note: "Copied from a newspaper clipping loaned by Mrs. Harriet deB. Keim, Dec. 1889. T h e cutting is from some Reading paper, which may have been the Times, published in the fall of 1874." 37 In 1939 Preston Barba 3 8 found the poem still of enough interest to publish a companion piece, "Mary of the Mountain," by Mrs. Charles Evans, who based her 180 lines on the earlier poem and on the tales and traditions that have accumulated about the legendary figure of Mary. T h i s effusion is even more sentimental than the earlier one, of which it is actually only an amplification. While such ballads, or pseudo-ballads, exist in considerable numbers, they can seldom be traced to a Pennsylvania German locale, as was the case here. Seldom, too, do the paths of English and of Pennsylvania German tradition cross, in literature or elsewhere. 36 Daniel Miller, Pennsylvania German, " P . G . M . , III (July 1902), 135-36. 38 The Eck, November 4, 1939.

II, 137-42.

56

PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN LITERATURE

T h e works of George Lippard, and in particular his Paul Ardenheim, stand out as the most important English prose contribution of the period. About Lippard himself there is little to say. He was born in 1822; lived a lonely and unhappy youth in and about Philadelphia, which he hated; and died in 1854 of tuberculosis after he had produced at least ten literary works. Lippard was a survival of the school of Gothic writers, who throve on the weird and the bizarre. These qualities are paramount in The Rose of the Wissahikon and in Paul Ardenheim, the only two of significance in this study. The Rose of the Wissahikon may be dismissed with a note that the scene was laid in the country of the mystics of Kelpius' time, and that it purported to give an inside story, "the secret history," of the Declaration of Independence. Like most of Lippard's works, it fails to live up to the promise of its title. It appeared first in the Semi-Annual Pictorial Saturday Courier for July 4, 1847.3" Paul Ardenheim is a book to confound even the hardened reader of Gothic novels. When Lippard himself calls it "the most improbable tale in the world" he is not likely to encounter any opposition, for it is fantastic to the point of absurdity. In an unpaged prefatory note the publisher says: T h e book of Paul Ardenheim is an embodiment of three things: First, the Legends which give interest to the dell of the Wissahikon. now grotesque, now terrible, now sublime. Second, the Secret History of the Revolution, especially that part of it which relates to the vast Masonic order, whose ramifications extended through all the branches of the army. Third, of the manners, customs, and superstitions of old-time Pennsylvania.

As a matter of fact, the publisher either had not read the volume, or was hopelessly confused by what he had read, for the book is not an embodiment of any of the three things he mentions. T h e Revolution, the secret history, the slanting reference to the Masonic Order, are merely incidental to a plot so complicated that Lippard can eventually end it only by explaining that such things cannot be explained. What 3» Joseph Jackson, "A Bibliography of the Works of George Lippard," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Reprint, April 1930, pp. 130-34.

P E R I O D OF T R A N S I T I O N

57

counts is the fact that here, half a century in advance of other writers, there is an impartial characterization of two distinct Pennsylvania G e r m a n types set against a background which reveals them sharply and distinctly. Peter Dorfner, the redfaced, prosperous G e r m a n farmer, is, u p to a certain point, as good a character as any Elsie Singmaster has d r a w n ; a n d Paul A r d e n h e i m is an excellent delineation of what Kelpius must have been like at his age. A reason for the success of these two seems to lie in the fact that L i p p a r d treated them naturally and simply instead of laboring his point. D o r f n e r is clear-cut a n d authentic only because L i p p a r d was so concerned with figures more important to him that he did not bother to elaborate the country " D u t c h m a n " ; and Paul emerges as n a t u r a l only because Lippard was struggling so hard to create difficulties for the h e r o that he lost himself in the tangles of the plot. T h e young libertine, Reginald Lyndulfe; the wizard's daughter, Leola; and the innocent heroine, Madeline, are creatures of crosspurposes hopelessly confused by the Wissahickon forest, which becomes in L i p p a r d ' s hands a maze of e n c h a n t m e n t . W h i l e practically u n k n o w n today, the book is still readable, if not to the layman, at least to the specialist in things Pennsylvania German. If the reader can overlook what L i p p a r d struggled so hard to do, and can concentrate on the simpler characters instead of Lippard's favorites a n d on the plot, he will find himself repaid for his pains. A n o t h e r book, mentioned only by way of a d m o n i t i o n to the novice, is Frederick Gerstaecker's The Wanderings and Fortunes of Some German Emigrants. T h i s volume deals with Germans of the political émigré class a n d not with the Pennsylvania Germans at all. As such it need not be given consideration here, at least by students concerned purely with Pennsylvania G e r m a n activities. In 1858 Charlotte B. Mortimer produced Bethlehem and Bethlehem School, a series of reminiscences reflecting experiences of the writer while a student at the Moravian Female Seminary at Bethlehem. In a prefatory note she says: T h e author deems it proper to state that it is no work of fiction, written to amuse and while away a passing hour, but altogether what it professes to be—simple narrations of facts of the different individual characters mentioned, leaflets of memory from the pages of

58

PENNSYLVANIA G E R M A N

LITERATURE

childhood. Most of them are of Teachers and Scholars, contemporaries of mine at school. 40

T h e book is lacking in forcefulness, and is so general that were it not for distinctive names (Mommy Schindler, Pappy Heckewelder, the T w i n Single Sisters, and others) the uninitiated reader might not realize that he was reading about Pennsylvania German characters. With this unimpressive total the period of English works closes. T h e Dutchland itself could not or did not yet write in English, and it was still too solidly integrated for outsiders to have found it easily penetrable. Even Lippard went back to an earlier day for his settings, and drew more upon his imagination and reading than on actual knowledge, except in the case of Peter Dorfner, previously mentioned. It is probably safe to say that in the main during these years the Pennsylvania Germans were of interest chiefly to themselves, a generalization equally true of any other non-English group. T h e use of the Pennsylvania German dialect has been a cause of concern to language purists since the first admixture of German with English. As early as 1784 came the complaint that the people "ihr Deutsch vergessen, ohne englisch zu lernen" 41 (forget their German without learning English). T h e occasion that prompted this particular remark was the contemplated founding of Dickinson College at Carlisle, and the Germans were the farmers of the countryside. Fifty years later there was the same cause for complaint, when a letter to the editor of the Reading Adler said in part: Es ist ein grosser Unterschied zwischen dem reinen vaterländischen Deutsch, und dem alletag kauderwelchen Deutsch, wie es von Deutschen im Innern von l'ennsylvanien geplappert wird.1(There is a great difference between the pure German and the every-day jargon chattered by the Germans in the interior of Pennsylvania.)

After another fifty years the same complaint could have been made, and even today the original condition is partly true. ., IV (1872-73), 7 , 50, 95, 132, 170, 203, 236, 258, 298 , 344, 373,

402. «a "Pennsylvania D u t c h , " D.D.P., o* Schon, op. cit., p. 35.

X I V (May 1882), 70.

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of "Danny Kratzer," and for the Friedensbothe as "Dintenfass." "His newspaper writing was along semi-humorous lines, and facetiousness was his forte," said D. J . Godshalk in 1903. "His Danny Kratzer contributions, many of them, were gems in their way." 95 Rauch in 1879 had already noted a similar characteristic: Some years ago Mr. E. M. Eberman wrote a number of humerous (sic) articles for a paper published at South Bethlehem, but his orthography was a mixture of English and German, and he therefore lacked uniformity, though his productions were very humerous. 66

A curious statement given as a reason for the first appearance of his work, and one without either grounds or corroboration, appeared in an obituary article of 1903: Mr. Eberman was one of the first writers in the familiar dialect known as the Pennsylvania German. T h e Breitman ballads, which appeared upwards of 40 years ago . . . inspired writers familiar with the Pennsylvania dialect to reproduce phonetically the words spoken by the people. 67

The best refutation of this argument is the body of dialect material in existence before the appearance of the first Breitmann ballad in 1857.68 Eberman's letters seem less dated than many, for although he mirrored the passing procession of current events, he did it in such a way that the reader is hardly aware that he is reading of something that happened perhaps seventy years ago. Typical of his work is a series of twelve Christmas letters, appearing from 1891 to 1902 in the Bethlehem Bulletin, a Christmas publication made up and distributed by the thousand each year as a philanthropic enterprise by one O. B. Desh. These letters were humorous reviews of the events of the year just past, and contained philosophical remarks, quips, and prophecies for the year to come. Thus, on December 20, 1891 he sits down to write "en fertel dawler werd Pennsylvania Deitsch poetry" as he does every year. He reminds his readers of the prophecies he made in «5 Obituary Notice, Bethlehem Globe, February 19, 1903. 6 6 Rauch, op. cit., p. 208. «7 Bethlehem Times, February 19, 1903. 6 8 Leland, op. cit., p. 13.

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1890, and talks about what will happen in 1892. He names local places and people, including his wife Sally Ann. He concludes with a P.S., and then an N.B., a double P.S., an N.B. & P.S., a double P.S. & N.B., a "two-and-two" N.B. 8c P.S., and a final N.B. Two outstanding letters outside the scope of the Christmas items are one to the Bethlehem Times, dated April 15, 1881, giving a timeless picture of spring garden making, and another on October 4, 1887, on the subject of hurrying. Another versatile newspaper figure was H. A. Shuler ("Oily Hess"), long-time editor of the Allentown Friedensbothe and later of the Weltbote. He also edited the Pennsylvania German Magazine for two years before his death in 1908, and contributed occasional articles to his own and to other publications.69 His Unser Pennsylvanisch Deitscher Kalenner in a later period was an embodiment of one of his popular themes, the widespread superstitious dependence of the Pennsylvania German farmer on signs and omens, especially as they persisted in the calendars and almanacs to be found in every home. T h e third edition of Home's Manual has preserved a single letter, "Zeichaglawa un Braucherei," on this subject. It is an adept enumeration of such matters as the proper zodiacal sign in which to plant, when to set fence posts, when to pick apples, when to make cider, what indicates the presence of witches, what the cries of barnyard fowls portend, and others of like nature. 70 Reichard notes that Shuler has contributed to the perennial question as to just how the dialect ought to be spelled, an engaging subject on which no wide unity of thought prevailed until after the First World War: Mer schwetza Deitsch wie Trier's vun der Mammi un vum Dadi gelernt hen, un mer schreiwa 'a ah Deitsch, dass mer's arndlich lesa kann, des heest; mer schpella's uf de deitscha Weg, wie sich's gheert.« (I speak the dialect as I learned it from my parents; when I write it I spell it for the sake of understanding it,—that is, in the German way.) «9 Editorial, P.G.M., IX (March 1908), 99. TO Pp. 178-81. Reichard, op. cit., p. 157.

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Existing in far greater number than the pen products of Shuler, or of most of the newspaper contributors for that matter, are the "Boonastiel" letters of T h o m a s Hess Harter. From these letters it is possible to reconstruct the life and thought of the Dutchland of the 1880's and 1890's rather completely. T h e author is indebted to a detailed study of Harter made at the Pennsylvania State College with Harter's own assistance in the year preceding his death, 1933.72 Harter, so rooted in the Pennsylvania German tradition that at the age of twelve he had not yet learned either to read or to write in English, received a better-than-average education, and, following his graduation from normal school, learned the printer's trade. After some preliminary experience he bought the Middleburg Post in 1882. His first letters appeared in this enterprise, and their subsequent popularity rescued it from its insolvent condition and made it flourishing and prosperous. T h e first Boonastiel letter appeared in 1888. T h e inception of this monumental series, as related to Musser by Harter himself, is at once curious and significant. Shortly after he had taken over the all but defunct Post, he paid a visit with his brother to an old tin peddler, Gottlieb Boonastiel, lying at the point of death. Musser, his biographer, continues: Listening to the old man's tales of injustice and political corruption, Mr. Harter was seized with an idea, an idea which was destined to make him famous. He returned to his officc and wrote a letter in "Pennsylvania Dutch," addressing himself as "Liever Kernal Harder," and signing the name "Boonastiel." T h e letter appeared in the July 19, 1888 issue of the Post, and it attracted so much attention that the letters were continued almost every week under the

title Brief futn Hawsa Barrick.

The series adhered firmly to the

doctrine of reform dirough mild ridicule and burlesque. 78

T h e fundamental serious purpose behind the light front of the Boonastiel material was expressed by Harter in the preface to the 1904 edition of his collected works, when he stated that he wished to perpetuate the memory of the Pennsylvania Germans, and correct the wrong, strengthen the right, and stimulate noble thought and action through a combination of f u n and philosophy. « Dorothy Musser, "The Life and Works of Thomas Hess Harter."

73 ibid., p. 5.

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His range of subjects is almost as broad as h u m a n experience itself. He discusses political parties, social science, hypocrisy, woman suffrage, fashions, and even Christian Science. At various times he indulges in satire, humor, and moralizing, but always in a tone fitted to the capacities and abilities of his readers,—just such letters as might actually have come from the old tin peddler, had that character possessed an unusually facile pen. Some of his topics cover the progression of the seasons: "Der Fiert July," "De Hoonde-Dawga," "On der Teachers' Institute," "Der Butcher-Dawg." Others are reflections of outdoor experiences: "We Mer Gaid Fisha," "Are un de Betsy Wetzel Gaena Fisha," "Are Gaed Hawsa Hoonda." Sometimes he retells old stories: "Der Bush Hoond un der City Hoond," " R i p Van Winkle—De Shtory." Again, he is just concerned with human foibles: "Der Asel un der Mensch," "Der Schmart Boo," "De Maid Sin We Glaena Fish." So copious was the outpouring that at length he felt that he must desist, through sheer lack of further subject matter, but so many of his readers threatened to cancel their subscriptions that his paper would have been ruined had he persisted in his intention. In 1893 his first collected edition of fifteen hundred copies appeared, containing one hundred seventeen letters of his own choice. 74 This was followed in 1904 by a second edition of fifteen hundred copies, and in 1906 by two thousand more. In 1928 five thousand copies of the 1893 edition, with omissions and additions, were printed by the Schneider Printing Company, of Palmyra, Pennsylvania. Musser in addition in 1933 listed thirty-one items that had never before been reprinted. A new edition with an introduction and a biographical sketch by A. M. Aurand appeared in 1942. Joseph H. Light, "Der Alt Schulmeshter," is another writer whose works are available chiefly because popular demand caused their subsequent printing. Even as late as 1896 and 1897, the years in which he did most of his work, it was not considered necessary in many country newspaper offices to preserve files beyond a few years. Light was editor and part proprietor of the Lebanon Daily News and the Lebanon Semi-Weekly News, and the letters he '•» Boonastiel.

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wrote for them during 1896 and 1897 were collected and republished in 1928 by his son, Frank G. Light, under the title Der Alt Schulmeshter. There are forty-four letters in all, most of them characterized by mild humor, pathos, or satire. T h e subject matter is that which by this time had become pretty well stereotyped, as indicated in the titles "En Leckshun Yubelfescht," "Xeie Sort Humbug Duckter," "An der Mt. Gretna Fair," "Trip Nuch Harrisbarrick," and "Pennsilfanisch Deitsche." "De Nacht for Chrisdawg," dated "Hickerniss Valley, uf der annere Seit em Berg, December 22, 1896," is a letter in praise of Colonel T h o m a s C. Zimmerman's translation into the dialect of Clement Moore's " T h e Night Before Christmas." "Piskatz om Letza Platz," for December 30 is a discursive bit on fair play. It pictures a scene of rural skullduggery in which a jilted swain, to get the better of his successful rival, threw a skunk in at the window of his beloved. T h e skunk hit the girl instead of the rival. T h e skunk-thrower was caught by an infuriated posse, and the skunk tied under his nose. . . . "En Pahr Alte Sunflowers," for January 7, 1897 is a whimsical effusion inspired by his reading of a wedding in which the principals were aged ninety-eight and ninety. "Pennsilfanisch Deitsch" is a vitriolic indictment of the newer generation which affects not to understand the good old mother tongue. His point, which comes with startling force, is that these same people, puffed up in their own conceit, flatter themselves by thinking that the bastard medley they really do speak could be called English. T h e work of Light was carried on for a number of years after his death by Ezra Grumbine, previously mentioned, who used the pseudonym of "Hon. Wendell Kitzmiller." In the main he followed the pattern set by his predecessor. Reichard says of his work: I n these letters he has been engaged for the most p a r t in laughing out of existence the follies a n d foibles of his fellow men, laughingly telling t h e m the t r u t h . A n d although his laughter is generally that of the genial satirist, he can occasionally be s h a r p a n d cutting when he thinks there is sufficient provocation. 7 5 " 5 Reichard, op. cit., p. 196.

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So far as the writer has been able to discover, his letters were never collected. Other names, too, are heard from the lips of oldsters w h o remember the pseudonym of the writer long after his real identity or the name of his paper has slipped f r o m their memories. O n e hears of "Dory Delp," whom Klosz has identified as T i l g h m a n Laufer; "Sally Besemstiel," supposedly C o n r a d Gehring; "Meik Fuchs" (Michael Lochemes, whose column was headed "Dreiguds un Noschens"); a n d "John Schumacher," who was probably Dr. Frank Brunner. 7 6 Graeff, in a little article entitled "Feder Naame" in 1940 listed several others. 77 T h e newspaper letter is a phase of the native literature that persists into the present day with almost unabated vigor, although with changes in emphasis which will be discussed in their proper place. Marked impetus was given to circulation by Joseph H . Light d u r i n g his incumbency with the L e b a n o n papers already mentioned, through the establishing of the "Press Syndicate Dialect Letter," which operated, according to Klosz, to serve the towns of Lancaster, Lititz, L e b a n o n , Fredericksburg, Manheim, and perhaps others. 78 T h e works of more recent letter writers, or "columnists," as they are called nowadays, will be mentioned in succeeding chapters, and their changing tendencies discussed there. T h e whole dialect letter field is of importance because it shows a developmental tendency closely paralleling that of verse. In the comparatively short time the letters have been in existence they have sloughed off their cruder aspects and gone over from the field of journalism to that of belles lettres. Such a condition seems not to be true outside the Dutchland, where newspaper letters also appeared, of course, b u t the scarcity of other manifestations of the dialect operated here to give scope and importance to this novel literary form. I n comparison with the accomplishment in the field of verse and of the letter, other literary activity in the dialect was extremely negligible. W i t h the easy medium of publication available for short items there was little incentive for »« Klosz, op. cit., pp. 259-60. " Arthur D. Graeff, The Eck, April 20, 1940. 78 Klosz, op. cit., p. 262.

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anything calling for greater effort. Few, if any, of the writers thought that their efforts were worth more than a passing consideration, with the result that anything beyond a few h u n d r e d words in scope was an exception to the rule. When something c a m e u p that called for sustained effort, or for development beyond a single simple point, writers usually resorted to English. T h e e x p l a n a t i o n for this latter condition probably lies in the fact that the dialect is ill-suited to long units becausc of the meagreness of its vocabulary. Hermany, whose verse indicates a word mastery far above the average, might have attempted a novel if a fluent command of words were the only r e q u i r e m e n t , though much of his vocabulary is decidedly archaic; and the unusually gifted Charles M o r e in a later age produced both novels and short stories. B u t the simple, everyday words of the dialect, charming as they were in verse, by their very paucity made sustained flights of fancy impractical for most writers. T h e steady march of English into the D u t c h l a n d , too, made the possibility of longer works more r e m o t e with every passing year. T w o publications, however, merit consideration. T h e first, paradoxically enough, is at the hands of a man who was not a Pennsylvania G e r m a n at all, though he liked to be thought of as one, and even expressed that sentiment in a little verse: Ich bin e Pennsylvanier, Druff bin ich stolz und froh."s T h i s was L u d w i g A. Wollenweber, whose Gemälde aus dem PennsyIvanischen Volksleben appeared in 1869. I n the Introduction to this little series of short sketches he tells at some length how the b o o k came to be written. Briefly, as he sat u p o n a hill one day, busily engaged in admiring the landscape, a n old m a n appeared, and they fell into conversation. The old m a n r e m a r k e d on the popularity enjoyed by the miscellaneous bits of h u m o r that appeared in Pennsylvania G e r m a n in the newspapers, and suggested that there ought to be a b o o k in the language. H e proposed that W o l l e n w e b e r undertake such a project, and W o l l e n w e b e r agreed to place the proposition b e f o r e the publishers Schaefer and Koradi in P h i l a d e l p h i a . T h e publishers assented, and the book ulti7» Letter to the Editor, D.D.P., I (May 1869), 87.

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mately made its appearance. T h e story of the old man seems a little too pat not to be apocryphal, but Wollenweber may have felt that he needed someone to share the responsibility for a project so unusual. The Gemälde are genre pictures actually differing little from the verse or the letters of that early date. T h e language employed leans more toward High German than was usual, but reads fluently for all that. "Im Frühjohr," "Im Sommer," and "Der Herbst" are verses of mediocre quality. A few of the sketches were presumably done as letters, in particular one headed "Pit Kommnoch," which informs the printer that Pit is now the father of a boy and a girl, and hopes that all who have been plaguing him about the size of his family since his recent marriage are now satisfied.80 Other short prose sketches are "Der Winter," "Farmleben," "Vum Ueberhitze un Sunnestich," "Im Frühjohr," and "Die Fäschens." "Die Berg Maria" deals with the story of Mountain Mary, mentioned earlier in this study. "Wie mer sei Fraw browiert" is a bizarre piecing together of fragments telling the story of a young farmer, "Henn," who was doubtful about marrying. When his Margaret finally said "Now or never," they went to the parson. After the ceremony, instead of the usual fee the minister received a little folded note, reading "Warm's gut geht, kumm ich's naechst Yohr widder." Apparently all did go well, for the next year the parson re ceived a barrel of flour and a two-and-a-half-dollar gold piece. Every year after that, until his death, he received a barrel of flour and five dollars. "Die Gschicht vun de zwee Säufer" leans slightly toward the mystery story, and tells how one drunkard was presumably beaten and mangled by his erstwhile friend after the death and burial of the latter. By and large, the dialect work of Wollenweber, who was, incidentally, a copious writer in German as well, matches the tone of the preceding period rather better than the one in which he wrote. The Pennsylvania German Magazine said of the popularity of the Gemälde: "It has had a wide sale, but the new interest awakened in this class of literature by this magazine and the publications and doings of the PennsylvaniaGerman Society will give books like this a new demand." 81 sop. 35. si Book Notice, III (October 1902), 192.

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T h e second literary attempt for the period was Rauch's Pennsylvania Dutchman, a periodical which apparently did not survive the first three issues. So rare is this little publication that few persons have seen it or know of its existence. Its salient feature is the fact that the framework of the entire publication is written in Pennsylvania German, a circumstance which was not to be repeated until 1913, when a similar venture met with a similar lack of success.82 T h e magazine is curiously compiled and badly proof-read. T h e "prospectus" 83 contains the following information on subscription rates: Ea copy, ea yohr $ 1.50 5 copies, ea yohr 7.00 T s e a copies, ea yohr 13.00 Ehntzelly copies 20c, un sin tsu ferkawfa bei oily News Dealers. E. H. R a u c h , Lancaster, Pa.

In the main, the impression the reader gathers from a study of the three copies 84 is a sense of Rauch's manifold social, literary, civic, and political activities—and a feeling that no reading public would long stand for his supreme egotism. T h e purpose of the magazine was meritorious enough, for Rauch believed that the dialect was passing away, and that the best thing that could be done was for the populace to learn to read and to think in English. T o do that, it was necessary to teach the people, and teaching them implied the use of both dialect and English. His Hand-Book later attempted to do the same thing, but with little more success. Some of the selections printed include familiar sayings in the dialect, with correlative English equivalents; book reviews; reflections of current events; extracts from poems; a few letters; jokes; select readings; editorials; temperance notes; scandal in Congress; moral and philosophical advice, etc. "Answers to Correspondence" contains a few startling revelations, as for instance in the case of a gratulatory letter from Tobias Witmer, dated Buffalo, N. Y., January 6, 1872, saying "No. 1 82 Sim Schmalzgsicht's Own Magazine. s 3 Pennsylvania Dutchman, I (January 1873), I. T h e writer was privileged to use those in the possession of Muhlenberg College.

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LITERATURE

of the Pennsylvania Dutchman is received." 85 T h i s was a full year before the Dutchman was published. Perhaps it is a mere typographical error, but regrettably enough in the March issue he prints Witmer's "Deer Himml uft Erda" with the date February 20, 1874. These are but two instances of the haste or carelessness with which the numbers were prepared. T h e first issue contains verse of his own, "Unser Olty Hehmet." Similarly, the second number prints his "De Pennsylvania Millitz," which begins Ich glawb ich geh now drah un schrieb amohl Fun olty tseita, we mer yungy buhwa wahra. ( N o w I believe I'll g o and write a p i e c e About the old times, w h e n I was a lad.)

an

shtick

"De Deitscha Baura," which was signed simply "Namesake," but which matches his own productions in tone, is a panegyric to the industry and importance of the German farmer. Most unfortunate is his editing of Eli Keller's "Meaha Mit Der Deitscha Sens," to conform to his own notions of presentability: "Awer doh is es shtickly g'shrixwa beim 'E. K.' un reconstruct un ufg^fixed in real Pennsylvania Deitsch beim 'Pennsylvania Dutchman.' " 86 T h e reconstruction, sadly enough, is much less intelligible, even to the layman, than the original. T h e English literature of the era adds little that is new, for, with the single exception of Phebe Gibbons' "Pennsylvania Dutch" in 1869, it is a literature that looks back to a time its authors regard as vanishing or already out of existence. Charlotte B. Mortimer, who had written earlier of her school days,87 followed her series of Moravian reminiscences with Marrying by Lot in 1868. T h e luster of the work is dimmed by the fact that, as she openly confesses, she has supplied details of her own where actual circumstances were not so colorful as she might have wished: T h e imagination and the p e n could find ample material to draw upon, to elucidate this peculiar custom of the Primitive Moravians; 86 I (February 1873), 59. 8« I (March 1873), 6. 8" Bethlehem and Bethlehem

School.

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a n d many a story of thrilling interest could doubtless be written thereon—no marvel, therefore, if a thin veil of fiction has been woven in the tale to invest its characters with the romantic interest inspired by their fervent piety a n d self devotion. T h a t I have d o n e this I candidly admit; b u t while a part of the story is apocryphal, most of it is perfectly authentic, a n d f o u n d e d u p o n actual occurrences. 88

Consequently, while the reader is following a work which has a definite historical cast, he is pursued by the uneasy feeling that at no time can he place either credence or confidence in his author. T h e custom referred to in the title is a very early one, in which the governing board of the Moravian Society allowed a lottery to decide upon marriage partners for young people, regardless of what individual preferences might be entertained by the contracting parties. T h e author has used this custom as her central motif, surrounding it with other interesting but half-forgotten customs, manners, and observances of the middle 1700's. Phebe Earle Gibbons must be regarded as the first of the long line of later writers who, looking on from the outside, found the Pennsylvania Germans a curious race, and, with only an empirical knowledge of facts, proceeded to set their findings before the rest of the world. As such she was many years in advance of her age, for the school of deliberate Pennsylvania German exploitation may be thought of as beginning with Helen R. Martin in 1902. Mrs. Gibbons' article, entitled simply "Pennsylvania Dutch," first appeared in the Atlantic Monthly.*9 T h e reaction to it in the Dutchland must have been tremendous, judging by the criticisms it evoked,—criticisms aimed at Mrs. Gibbons herself, her subject, her knowledge of the subject, her use of the language, her sincerity, etc.90 Specifically, she was accused of being a woman, which in an age of male writers seemed in itself to be an indictment: "Wir haben es in diesem Werke, wie wir vermutheten, mit einer Verfasserin zu thun, welche leider an ihrem Subjekte herumtastet";91 of saying that the Penn88 p. xi. 88 XXIV (October 1869), 475-87. so William Beidelman, The Story of the Pennsylvania Germans, p. vi. Review, D.D.P., IV (August 1872), 272.

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sylvania Dutch were properly German; 8 2 of not knowing her facts; 8 3 and of corrupting the language she put into the mouths of her characters: It makes no attempt to produce the language except here and there a mere sentence and in these efforts the writer utterly fails. For instance, "buggy fawra" (buggy riding) she writes "Buggy fawry," and "wait a bit" she translates "halty bissel" instead of "halt a bissel" as it should be written.84 T h i s last, from the writer of possibly the most garbled version of the dialect extant, is interesting indeed. Encouraged by the general success of her story outside the Dutchland, she enlarged upon it, adding a number of related chapters, and published the volume, newly entitled Pennsylvania Dutch and Other Essays, in 1872. T h e first edition appeared without the name of the author, the preface simply being signed " G . " T h e second, in 1873, bore the author's name as P. E. Gibbons, 95 which led to frequent confusion, by those who had not heard of the Atlantic article, as to her sex. Frederick 96 mistakenly lists 1860 as the year of publication of her volume. Of Mrs. Gibbons herself little is known, save that she was a resident of Bird-in-Hand, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 87 and seemed to have been interested in civic affairs.98 Her book, read now at a time when Pennsylvania German exploitation has come to be almost a commonplace, seems very mild, and hardly worth the furor it created. In its day, however, with its frank description of the Dutchman's dress, personal habits, clothing, manner of speech, religious characteristics, food, games, and manners on festal occasions, it is not surprising that it aroused resentment and distaste. T h e next item is listed here simply for the sake of the record, and not because it possessed any peculiar significance. T h i s was John Greenleaf Whittier's The Pennsylvania Pilgrim »2 Review, Ibid., p. 218. »3 Review, Ibid., p. 249. 0« Rauch, op. cit., p. 209. »5 Frick, op. cit., p. 107. o® J . George Frederick, The Pennsylvania Dutch and Their Cookery, p. 85. »' Frick, loc. cit. os j . i. Mombert, An Authentic History of Lancaster County, p. 475.

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of 1872, dealing with the life and habits of Francis Daniel Pastorius, the "founder" of Germantown. Florid and sentimental in character, it is said to have been inspired by Pastorius' stand against h u m a n slavery.®9 Whittier was himself an ardent abolitionist, and feeling still ran strong as late as 1872. Whittier seems to have been the only poet of rank outside the Dutchland who as yet concerned himself with anything that went on within it. T h e year of 1878 saw the appearance of Two Years Behind the Plough, the authorship of which has remained persistently anonymous. T h e central figure of the book, which is concerned with the country not far from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, is Henry Sellers. Henry, who tells his story in first person, says of his purpose in writing: Since the period at which [the book] dates, many of the habits and customs of Bucks County farmers have changed with the other changes going on in the world. . . . Their big, white-topped wagons are no longer to be seen lumbering along the roads to and from the city, and crowding the inn-yards on market days, as in old times. . . . The patient, plodding oxen are no longer there, and a yoke of them would excite as much curiosity as an old-fashioned stage-coach, or one of the big Conestoga wagons formerly in such general favor. It has thus seemed to me that a story from real life, giving a description of men and things as they were at the time of which I write, might be worth reading.

T h e story has to do with the "adventure" of Henry, a city boy in his early teens, on a Bucks County farm. T h e miserly farmer, Caleb Thomas, to whom Henry is bound, is represented as not typical of the Pennsylvania Germans as a whole, but as an especially unlikeable type. Henry follows the daily procession of farm chores and hard work, with too little to eat and wear, and no recreation. He eventually goes back to Philadelphia and achieves success away from the farm. T h e book is not conspicuously successful. It falls short of the promise conveyed by the preface, and while it does to a certain extent mirror the life of a by-gone day, it hardly rises above the dead level of monotony in tone or quality. "B Editorial, T r i b u t e to Pastorius, 250th Anniversary of the Settlement of Germantown (Germantown, Pa.: T h e G e r m a n t o w n Historical Society, 1933), p p . 34, 35.

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Another book dealing with the early Moravians was Wolcott Balestier's romance of 1886, entitled A Victorious Defeat. Sentimental and affected, in the Victorian manner, it is still a better presentation than Mortimer's Marrying by Lot, largely because the author was less concerned with the picturesque. Balestier, precocious child genius and brother-in-law of Rudyard Kipling, departed from his usual subjects in this work, for no reason that seems apparent. He died of typhoid in Germany in 1891. 100 T h e plot of the book concerns the romantic relations between Owen March, a young Englishman, and Constance Van Cleef, who is partly bound to the Moravian Church by her loyalty to her father. John Keator, the minister, is also in love with Constance, and the resultant situation comes to a deadlock. Eventually a solution comes about by means of the "lot," which decrees that Keator shall marry Constance. For the sake of her happiness he renounces her, whereupon she marries March, and Keator leaves for a mission in the West Indies. Although in the main the attempt is to reconstruct the life of the Moravians in the good old days, the work is well integrated, with a neat balancing of both background and plot. Outstanding in subject matter and in tone in this period is Francis T . Hoover's Enemies in the Rear; or, a Golden Circle Squared. Hoover was a Pennsylvania German Congregational minister, an expatriate to New York, who kept in constant touch with the doings of his native county of Berks. 101 His work, judged on the basis of internal evidence alone, is an attempt to present the Pennsylvania German in as many phases as possible, both favorable and unfavorable. An undated letter in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and attached to the Society's copy of Enemies in the Rear gives the following as the locale of the story: It may interest you to know that the Haltjest of the book is Wernersville, 9 miles W . of Reading. T h e old mill was operated by my father, but long before the war, and in the house belonging to it I was born. Sharp Billy, T o m Hartnagel, Ad Sparger, and J a b e z Chetwynde are creations; Lovina, Dr. Heifer, the witch, ioo/l Dictionary of American Sons, 1928), pp. 549, 550. ioi Reichard, op. cit., p. 148.

Biography

(New York, Charles Scribner's

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Bradley Leonine, Ortho Dox, real personages. T h e march of the Copton Brigade and the repulse in Reading are historic. Sincerely yours FRANCIS T . HOOVER

T h e scene of Enemies in the Rear is laid in Berks County, the stronghold of the Democrats in Pennsylvania at the time of the draft law of 1862. Fundamentally the story displays the two reactions, in German Pennsylvania, to the Civil War: that of the Democrats who opposed Lincoln, the Republican regime, and emancipation; and that of the fewer Democrats and Republicans who were loyal to the administration. If Hoover aligns his most attractive characters on the side of the Union, as he seems to do, it is no more than poetic justice that he paint his strongest word pictures of the less likeable personalities. T h e exceedingly slender plot is so attenuated as to seem almost accidental, or a mere gesture to satisfy a conventional demand. T h e book is especially strong in background, as might, perhaps, be expected of one who was writing of scenes so familiar to him. Many of the characters emerge as vigorous types: Frederick Ruthvon, the dogged, persistent, but intelligent and prosperous farmer; Charles, his college-bred son, with the ideas of the younger generation; Katrina Galsch, the local powwow artist, or witch; and Pete Prantman and Jake Zellon, stupid, loutish bullies of the kind Helen R. Martin later presented in her novels as typical of the whole Pennsylvania German group. T h e strongest episode of the book is the unforgettable march of the Copton Brigade to Reading, and its ignominious repulse there upon the demand of the Copton boys for the release of two of their imprisoned members. One might hazard the guess that Hoover had anticipated this coup from the very beginning, so carefully has he paved the way for it. As nearly impartial as a novel can be, the work discriminates nicely between the better and the inferior Germanic types, showing them against a background of simple country life, the secret activities of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a funeral, the church, the saloon, and the draft law. A number of the men usually thought of only as dialect writers have also made contributions to the English literature of the period. Among those whose works possess a degree of distinction are Henry Lee Fisher, Lee L. Grumbine, Matthias Sheeleigh, Thomas J. B. Rhoads, and Ezra Grumbine.

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Of these Henry Lee Fisher in his Olden Times presents an excellent picture for readers whose lack of knowledge of the dialect prevents their reading his other works. In content the work differs little from either 'S Alt Marik Haus, or Kurzweil un Zeitfertreib, both of which have already been mentioned. It is a little less localized, perhaps, than the others, but duplicates their fluent, melodious style and choice of topics. T h e old house, haying, the old mill and the miller, corn husking, quilting, threshing, barring out the schoolmaster, the singing school, the old apple tree—these are typical themes. "Wagoning," which runs to 238 lines, is a nostalgic reminiscence of the days when the Conestoga wagon was in its heyday, and is one of the best in the collection. While there is no evidence to prove the point, it is not inconceivable that this late work of Fisher's may have been created to enable readers who had heard of his earlier poems, but could not read the dialect, to enjoy his works. Lee Grumbine, the polished lawyer and orator, has contributed The Marriage of the Muse to the body of English works tending to further the Pennsylvania German tradition in what was felt to be its period of imminent decline. It contains twenty-one stanzas of twelve lines each, and although mechanically capable in places is both bombastic and dreary. Its subject is the marriage of Euterpe to the "Pennsylvania Dutch Society," and was read at the second annual meeting of the Pennsylvania German Society in 1892.102 A brief quotation will serve to establish its tone. Speaking of the term "Pennsylvania Dutch," Grumbine says: Dear name! In harsh reproach 'twas once applied. But now a term of honor and of pride; N o more a mere derisive appellation, Or narrow territorial limitation, It now denotes with meaning more euphonic Aught under the generic name Teutonic.

A shorter poem much in the same vein was produced under the same circumstances the following year by the Rev. Mr. Matthias Sheeleigh.103 102 P.G.S. Proceedings, 1892, pp. 55-63. 103 The Pennsylvania Germans, P.G.S. Proceedings, 1893, pp. 51-60.

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I n 1899 Ezra Grumbine's " T h e Ghost: a Legend of the Swatara" appeared. Its chief merit was that it preserved in written form a local story concerned with the spirit of an Indian chief, mysterious wails in the neighborhood of the Swatara Creek, and the crossed limbs of an oak and a pine tree. 104 Thomas J. B. Rhoads in 1904 published a volume of ninetyseven poems so similar in subject matter to the topics of the whole dialect school that merely to repeat the titles would be tedious. 105 Like those in Fisher's Olden Times, their chief virtue is in their presentation of genre pictures for readers not conversant with the dialect. T h e poems of the collection are variously dated from 1891 to 1904. Such are the English writings having to do with the Pennsylvania Germans. They follow closely the thought and feeling of the works in the dialect because almost all the writers are themselves of the Dutchland. Of them all, Gibbons' Atlantic Monthly article was to be most far-reaching in its significance. It represented the first attempt of the curious outsider to portray what was going on in the Dutchland,—an attempt that years later was to take on such proportions as to throw the works of the dialect writers entirely into the shade. High German, once practically the universal language of the southeastern counties, made its final appearance in Pennsylvania in this age. Supplanted both by English and by the dialect as a medium for belles-lettres, it lingered on in the newspapers and in foreign importations, but with everdiminishing emphasis. W i t h English the language of the public schools, with English gradually appearing in business places and in the church, and with only the recent immigrant able to carry on a conversation in the German, 1 0 6 there was little hope that it could last much longer. In 1875 the Cincinnati Volksblatt offered a first prize of two hundred dollars and a second of one hundred for the best original novel dealing with German life in America: io< Lebanon County Historical Society Publications, Vol. I (December 15, 1899), No. 10. pp. 182-86. 105 Onkel Jeff's Reminiscences of Youth and Other Poems. loo W. F. Hodman, "Folk-lore of the Pennsylvania Germans," Journal of American Folk-lore, I (July-September 1888), 126.

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Der Inhalt dieser Novellen muss dem deutsch-amerikanischen Leben entnommen sein, oder wenigstens deutsch-amerikanische Stoffe, Karaktere oder Schicksale behandeln,107 ( T h e content must treat of German-American life, or some phase of it.)

No great activity in the Pennsylvania German country appears to have been inspired by this announcement, and there seems to be no record that the prize went to a Pennsylvanian. " R " was probably right when he said, Nun aber ist unsere deutsch-amerikanische Roman- und Novellenliteratur noch gar zu mager und dürftig vertreten.108 (Our German-American romantic literature appears entirely too thin and lean.)

A simple solution to the question of why there were no more than the merest handful of German authors may be offered in the fact that those who wanted to write and could write, in Pennsylvania, at least, were doing so in the language the people could read,—Pennsylvania German or English. Still, three men, from the beginning of the period to 1886, made noteworthy contributions. Ludwig Wollenweber, whose dialect selections appeared in Gemälde in 1869, was more successful in his native than in his adoptive tongue. Most of his subjects were historical in nature, and purported to be written by "Der Alte vom Berge." In January, 1870, his General Peter Muhlenberg began to appear serially in Der Deutsche Pionier, and ran to April, 1871. 109 It is a practical and entertaining work on the subject of this scion of one of Pennsylvania's oldest and most distinguished families. Schön lists it as a play, and ascribes it to 1891. 110 If there ever was a play by that name it would seem to have been a work or adaptation by someone else, for Wollenweber died in 1888. Aus Berks County's Schwerer Zeit is a series of short historical sketches, integrated only in that they all had to do with Berks County. Among the titles are "Conrad Weiser's Heirn107 "R " "£ine deutsch-amerikanische Preis-Novelle," DJ).P., vember 1875), 381. « a jbid., p. 382. ios General Peter Muhlenberg und seine deutschen Soldaten kanischen Freiheitskampf, eine historische Novelle für den Pionier bearbeitet von L. A. Wollenweber. no Schön, op. cit., p. 31.

VII (Noin ameriDeutschen

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ath," "Brave deutsche Männer," "Die Geraubte," "Schreckliche Erlebnisse," and "Das Wiedersehen." Zwei Treue Kameraden in 1880 was an artless tale of two young men who came from Germany in the earliest days of the Colony, and made homes for themselves before the arrival of William Penn. Technically speaking, so early a date would have been before the Pennsylvania German era. T h e two comrades, Heinrich Frey and Joseph Plattenbach, in Wollenweber's hands seem to take on a strange, elusive character not typical of any country, although they speak German. T h e story was translated into English in 1935 by Preston A. Barba. 1 1 1 Treu bis in der Tod in 1880 is yet one more account of Mountain Mary, whose story was apparently a favorite theme of Wollenweber's. An English translation of this was made by Luther A. Pflueger in 1940. 112 Other works, according to hearsay, and possibly existing in collections abroad, are Die erste Muehle am Muehlbach, Freuden und Leiden in Amerika, oder die Lateinen am Schuylkill Canal, and Sprache, Sitten und Gebräuche der Deutsch Pennsylvanier. After Wollenweber, Dr. William Julius Mann is in this period the most important figure in German literature about the Pennsylvanians. His Die Gute Alte Zeit in Pennsylvanien, published in 1880 in Philadelphia, evoked this comment by a reviewer: Der Verfasser zeigt uns unsere Landsleute in jenem Staate nach ihrem allgemeinen charakter, ihrer Lebensweise; ihr Kommen und ihren Antheil an der Verwaltung des Landes und der Politik; ihr geistiges Leben, kurz in allen Phasen ihrer Wirksamkeit.11' ( T h e author shows us his countrymen according to their general character and way of life, their arrival and their concern with government and politics; their spiritual life and other phases of their existence.)

As the reviewer suggests, the book deals with the earliest history of Pennsylvania, but the title seems almost satirical in the face of the lack of harmony represented as existing in religious, political, and social circles. i n The Eck, August 10, 1935 to September 7, 1935. u s Ibid., June 1, 1940 to June 29, 1940. na D.D.P., XIII (October 1881), 283.

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Mann's idea was to bring the past closer to the present by something rather more than a mere historical outline. As he says, Nicht eine Geschichte von Pennsylvanien bieten wir hiermit dem lesenden Publicum, vielmehr ist es uns drum zu thun, zu schildern, nicht was geschehen, sondern wie es gewesen.11* (This is not a history of Pennsylvania presented to the reading public; rather it is an attempt to picture things as they were, not just things that happened.)

Finally, B. F. Trexler, whose identity was never very effectively obscured under his chosen nom de plume of "Ben," collected eighty-two sketches which had appeared during his editorship of the Allentown Friedensbothe. These he dated "1880-1886," and reprinted under the title Skizzen aus dem Lecha-Thale. While they were historically important, and were reprinted principally because of that fact, and because Trexler believed that their content would make them valuable in years to come, 115 they possess a pleasing, distinctive style, the same quality which made the Friedensbothe superior to many of the other German papers of Pennsylvania. T h e "von Ben" of the title page presumably means that the sketches came from his own pen, since the authorship of several units of dialect which were included in the volume, and which have been mentioned elsewhere, was carefully indicated. Representative titles are "Emmaus—ein historischer Bericht von dessen Entstehung"; "Saueon—'Sakunk' Townschip und Coopersburg"; "Das Insche-Land—Lecha Townschip"; "Reisen vor 140 Jahren"; and "Die erste Druckerei in dieser Gegend." On the basis of the writings that have persisted to the present time, whether in manuscript or in printed form, certain generalizations may be drawn which set the period apart as an entity, beginning with the first poem by Henry Harbaugh in 1861, and extending to the time of Helen R. Martin's first work in 1902. 1. I n the long interim between the gradual decline of High German and the equally slow advent of the English language, Pennsylvania German dialect writings emerge, and combine to constitute a literature. ii Ibid., p. xiv. 1» Ibid., p. xv. 2« Unpaged prefatory note to first edition.

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as perhaps it should be, it is both well-integrated and entertaining. A second novel of Miss Jordan's, Apple in the Attic, made its appearance in 1942. While it is very readable, Apple in the Attic tends toward a prejudicial view of the Pennsylvania Germans in that the author, perhaps unintentionally, represents as typical, persons and circumstances that seem to be exceptional. In 1942 also Henry Bellamann in his novel Floods of Spring utilized a Pennsylvania German setting. A late manifestation of the period of resurgence of interest is to be found in five works for children, which, however, like Singmaster's When Sarah Saved the Day, are of equal interest to adults. Henner's Lydia (1937) is a distinctively illustrated, rather idealized presentation of the life of certain Amish children on a farm near Lancaster. Skippack School (1939) is a story of the time of Christopher Dock, about 1750; told from a child's point of view, it has been based on sound research and an adequate knowledge of facts. Both volumes were written and illustrated by Marguerite de Angeli. Ella Maie Seyfert's Little Amish Schoolhouse (1939) and Katherine Milhous's Lovina (1940) are other idealized presentations of the picturesque and attractive qualities of the Amish, as is Miss Seyfert's Amish Moving Day of 1942. Joseph Yoder's Rosanna of the Amish in 1940 possesses a sheer distinction of style unattained by any writer after Weygandt in this period. One of the tenets of the Amish religion is a wholesome regard for the truth, a characteristic so widely recognized in Pennsylvania that written agreements, contracts, or binding indentures among the Amish are all but unknown: an Amishman's word has been proved to be as good as his bond. Something of this quality of integrity is to be found in Yoder's book. He himself is an Amishman; therefore what he says is said with sincerity, simplicity, and the conviction born of fundamental honesty. Rosanna, then, is not a novel because it is not fiction, but a record of facts reading like fiction. There is not even a fictitious place name or surname in the volume. T h e net result is a simple story, simply told, privately printed, and published without benefit of professional reviewing or advertising of any kind. T h e story itself is a progressive narrative depicting the life history of a little Irish girl, Rosanna McGonegal, who is adopted by an Amish woman, Elizabeth

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Yoder. Rosanna grows u p u n d e r the tutelage of Elizabeth, marries, and becomes an important part of the Amish comm u n i t y in which she lives. Better than any fictional work has done, the book gives an inside account of Amish life by one who is interested fundamentally in a straightforward presentation of facts. As for local color, what has been said earlier of the works of H e l e n R. Martin and of Elsie Singmaster holds true in this period as in the preceding era. Alone of the local color writers they continued to produce through the time of the First W o r l d W a r and the years following, popular d e m a n d taking little if any notice of the fact that their characters had been of G e r m a n origin long ago. Indeed, Mrs. Martin's characters are so peculiarly of her own creation that they are hardly recognizable in the light of actual historic fact. I n 1928 Mrs. Martin's The Lie appeared; in 1929 Wings of Healing; in 1930 Tender Talons, and a collection of ten early short stories u n d e r the title Yoked with a Lamb. Porcelain and Clay was her offering for 1931; Lucy Anderson for 1932; From Pillar to Post for 1933; The Whip Hand for 1934. In 1936 she published The House on the Marsh, which contains two of her most unpleasant characters, Matilda Hoggentogler and Weezy Leiter. Emmy Untamed followed in 1937; Son and Daughter in 1938; and her final The Ordeal of Minnie Schultz in 1939—but very little different in plot, characterization, atmosphere, or skill of execution from Tillie: a Mennonite Maid in 1904. W i t h Elsie Singmaster the story is somewhat different. W h i l e her short stories continued without abatement, her versatility was such that she was able to depart from her narratives of Millerstown folks and contribute extensively to other fields, of no concern in this study. Her most notable opus in this period, and perhaps in all her writing, was The Magic Mirror of 1934. H i t h e r t o most novelists who had made the Pennsylvania Germans a subject of immediate concern, with the exception of Helen R. Martin, had utilized them as minor figures or in a minor capacity, b u t in The Magic Mirror Miss Singmaster departs from this procedure and subordinates outsiders to the Pennsylvania Germans. If there is a weakness in the book as

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a whole, it is that its characters remain flat or static, and do not show the evidences of growth which are conducive to good plot development. Perhaps the author was too accustomed to the usages demanded of short story writing fully to test the capacities of a novel peopled with her short story types. An interesting evidence of her thorough familiarity with the place of which she writes is her occasional presentation of the various language levels to be found. This is a point of discrimination seldom made by other writers, to whom Pennsylvania Dutch is Pennsylvania Dutch pure and simple. In The Magic Mirror, for instance, she says of the appearance of a substitute teacher at the high school: Suddenly everyone halted. From an open window o n the second floor of the school building issued howls and groans. Instantly o n the pavements clattered Allentown's four tongues. "Wir haben einen Studenten," cried Franz Huber. "Ach, mir hen en student!" John Lichty laughed; he pronounced "student" with the accent on the first syllable. "I bet it gives a student again," scolded Jesse. "Hark!" said Ida Conrad. "We have a college student." 21

T h e four languages of which the author takes note are, of course, High German, the Pennsylvania German dialect, the English-dialect jargon, and English, respectively. Throughout the novel she displays a similar keen understanding and knowledge of her subject matter. In A High Wind Rising (1942) Miss Singmaster goes back to the time of the French and Indian War and presents a chronicle of events which shows evidence of considerable historical research. It is a stimulating and readable account of the early days of the Pennsylvania Germans. In sharp contrast to the work of Elsie Singmaster stands the single novel of Raube Walters, The Hex Woman, of 1931. Walters, of Pennsylvania German descent, was reared among the people of whom he writes, 22 and tells a morbid tale of degeneration in a family of triplet-spinsters near Easton, Pennsylvania. It is essentially a character study, and background and plot are subordinated to a close delineation of the major figures: Elizabeth Marson, the "hex" woman; Mary, who " P. 32. -2 Note, Book Review Section, New York Times, May S, 1931.

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shared her supposed powers; and Anne, most nearly normal of the abnormal three. Elizabeth's downfall comes when at mature years she is seduced by a handsome village boy. Significant of the dubious reception of the book in its home neighborhood is the fact that the single copy of the Easton Public Library is uncatalogued, and is issued only to scholars or others immediately concerned with problems of research. Unpleasantly morbid also is T h a m e s Williamson's D Is for Dutch of 1934, almost entirely in the manner of Helen R. Martin in plot and characterization. T h e insipid heroine (Anna Bauer), the heavy, phlegmatic wife (Katy), the grasping husband (Herman), the attractive outsider (Carl Schlegel) are immediately recognizable to Martin readers. Williamson surpasses his predecessor, however, by adding insane jealousy, apoplectic rage, attempted suicide, and murder to the Martin agenda of unpleasantnesses. A unique manifestation in this period is Elmer Greensfelder's play, Broomsticks, Amen!, written in 1931 and presented on Broadway in 1934 after it had been successfully tried out in Baltimore. 23 Prize winner in a competition conducted by the Longmans, Green publishing house in New York, it purported to "record the fast-disappearing native qualities that gave our country uniqueness when it was founded." 24 Regardless of the accolade of the contest judges, and of the fact that from the point of play-mechanics it appears to be well-integrated and sound, it is a wholesale exploitation of the people. T h e scene is that of the home of Emil Hofnagel, a "powwow doctor" of Pennshimmel, an imaginary farming village somewhere near Allentown. T h e characters are Emil, his family and neighbors, and another powwow doctor, one Adolph Gansdilliger. T h e language employed by most of the characters is garbled English at its worst, and the persistent feeling of the reader (the writer has not seen the stage presentation) is that the entire opus is no more than a framework on which to display hundreds of astounding instances of inverted English. T h e plot centers about Emil, a faith-healer and well-intentioned charlatan, who is the immediate cause of the death of 23 Review, Baltimore Sun, F e b r u a r y 14, 1931. 24 H a r o l d A. Ehrensperger, Broomsticks, A men'., p. v.

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his baby grand-daughter. O u t of respect for the sincerity of the old man, the family, in what purports to be typical Pennsylvania German fashion, rally about him when the authorities bring a charge of murder. As to its final merits as a play, the writer feels incompetent to judge; b u t as to its literary nature it is exploitation at its most virulent. T h e Broadway season of 1941-1942 also saw the staging of Patterson Greene's comedy, Papa Is All, by the T h e a t r e Guild. T h e theme of the play is the joyous release of the A u k a m p family, Mennonites in Lancaster County, when suddenly freed from the heavy tyranny of "Papa." T h e play was well written, well cast and well acted, although the stage version of the dialect now and then left something to be desired. T h e average outlander would find it delightful; the habitual dweller in the Dutchland would find it authentic, b u t with the reservation that the picture would probably have been truer to life ten or twenty years ago than it is today. T h e year of 1941 also saw the cinematic production of Come Live with Me. A n u m b e r of the settings were laid in Lancaster County, interiors in some cases utilizing fine specimens of authentic Pennsylvania " D u t c h " f u r n i t u r e and art objects. T h e J u n e 1941 issue of the periodical House and Garden devoted a complete n u m b e r to the Pennsylvania Germans, reproducing in color several of the settings of Come Live with Me. T h e theme of the picture itself had nothing to d o with the Pennsylvania Germans, who, as a matter of fact, were not even named. It would have been a source of esthetic satisfaction h a d this romantic environment been given a definite locale, but such was not the case. Included among popular local color writers of this period is "Brooke H a n l o n , " in private life Mrs. L. T . Brumbaugh. Mrs. B r u m b a u g h is of Irish descent, and her interest in the Pennsylvania Germans is hardly more than a casual one, although she was reared in eastern Pennsylvania, and regards it as home. 25 H e r stories differ from those of Elsie Singmaster, which in many ways they suggest, in that they usually picture the younger, m o d e r n generation in conflict with their elders. Typical instances are found in "Darmstaetter vs. Beames2.« "Who's W h o and W h y , " Saturday 1936), 134.

Evening

Post, CCVIII (April 11,

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dorfer," " T h e Smell of W i l d Grape," and " T h i s Way in J u n e , " all of which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. " T h i s W a y in J u n e " 28 includes another favorite theme as well, the prowess of Pennsylvania German women in cookery, a n d in a sense reflects the interest aroused by the earlier works of Johaneson a n d Frederick. Concluding the list of those who have concentrated to any extent on local scenes are Walter E. Baum, newspaper m a n of Sellersville, Pennsylvania, who has written a series of m i n o r essays tending to glorify the early Pennsylvania German; 27 Horace G. Fetterolf, whose " T h e Village Preacher" and "Ministerial H a p p e n i n g s " appeared in '"S Pennsylfawnisch Deitsch Eck," 28 a n d Flo V. Menninger, whose autobiography Days of My Life was published in 1940. These are of little consequence here. Fundamentally, then, the English literature about the Pennsylvania G e r m a n is contradictory in nature. T h e people are belittled (Martin, Williamson, Keller, Greensfelder); treated impartially (Weygandt, Yoder, Hark, Hanlon); and idealized (de Angeli, Baum, Milhous, Seyfert). Both from the point of view of the n u m b e r of authors and of individual works, it appears that the tendency, for all the interest that is being shown, is not one that aims to exalt the Pennsylvania German, any more t h a n it was two decades or two centuries ago. T h e German, in the m i n d of the "outlander," is still distasteful or different rather t h a n ideal. As has already been indicated, most of the authors habitually employing the dialect as a literary medium in an earlier period had ceased their efforts by the time of, or because of, the First W o r l d W a r . A few of the old names, however, are to be f o u n d again in this age when interest is centered upon the Pennsylvania G e r m a n way of life. One such is Louisa Weitzel, who continued her small lyrics u p to the time of her death in 1934. H . H. Romig, who had had at least one poem in the old Pennsylvania German Magazine as early as 1911,29 contributes occa?« Saturday Evening Post, CCX (June 4, 1938), 8, 9. 27 Two Hundred Years. 28 Allentown Morning Call, May 11 and May 18, 1935. 2«"Die Schpeckmaus" P.G.M., XII (October 1911), 631.

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sionally to the Allentown Morning Call.30 K l o p p lists two u n p u b l i s h e d poems of Michael G r u b e r for 1928 and 1933.31 J . J. Reitz, also an occasional contributor to the Call, although not listed by Reichard, 3 2 is spoken of as one of the older school. William H . E r b ("Der Gus")33 of Norristown was for years a columnist before his death in 1940.34 T h e i r works with almost no exception seem to follow the p a t t e r n established in earlier times, and what has already been said of them and their contemporaries would apply here with equal force. New characteristics a p p e a r with the post-war generation. T h e strongest evidence that dialect writing is once more coming into prominence seems to be the plays written within the last few years. T h e Pinafore of Moss and N e w h a r d in 1882 and the Rip Van Winkle of R a u c h in 1883 a p p e a r to be the earliest forerunners in this field, but at best they were adaptations. Ezra Grumbine's u n d a t e d Die Inshurance Business at a later time was original and in advance of its age. It has been revived recently, and was presented by an a m a t e u r g r o u p at Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania, in the winter of 1930-1931. 35 Numerous short home-talent efforts, some of them not actually committed to writing, betoken the awakening interest in this form as early as 1927 or 1928. Frequently they were family or Sunday School class efforts, and included singing and games. Most of them have already been forgotten, a n d not i n f r e q u e n t l y the participants disclaim remembrance of them, or speak of them as of no significance. Impetus to the budding interest in this creative form was given by Clarence F. Iobst's En Quart Millich un En Halb Beint Raahm, first produced in 1928, at the E m m a u s (Pennsylvania) H i g h School. It was an instantaneous success, and after its premiere at Emmaus played at Bethlehem, Lancaster, Manheim, Reading, Pennsburg, and many smaller towns and so Letter to the Editor, The Eck, April 27, 1935. si Donald Sellers Klopp, " T h e Life and Works of Michael A. Gruber." 32 Harry Hess Reichard, The Pennsylvania German Dialect Writings and Their Writers, P.G.S. Proceedings, 1915, p. 155. 33 Barba, letter to the author, July 15, 1940. 34 A letter to the author by Dr. Russell C. Erb, under date of February 16, 1942, states that his father's first dialect work appeared about 1897 in the Perkiomen Ledger of East Greenville, Pa. 35 Heinz Klosz, Die pennsylvaniadeutsche Literatur, p. 247.

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villages, and often had to be repeated because of popular demand. T h e author says that the play was never deliberately conceived and executed, but that it grew out of a favorite stunt at local entertainments, that of telling stories about familyalbum characters by means of a series of tableaux.3® These character presentations in Iobst's hands became especially popular, and eventually he set out to combine them in dramatic form, in the play mentioned. A printer in Allentown, Iobst prefers to think of himself as an entertainer rather than an author. En Quart Millich, long after its initial successes, appeared in 1939 as part of the fourth volume of the annual publications of the Pennsylvania German Folklore Society, and it is to that version that reference will be made here. Essentially the drama is one of character portrayal. Abbie Dauwespeck, matron who longs for romance; Quintus, her matter-of-fact husband; Maggie Rothrock, a gossip; Calline Hoppesack, "en Schtaedtelrutsch" or small-town busybody; Citronella Flitterlicht, the local widow; and Polly Zettlemoyer, who "doesn't never gossip," move through the three acts of the play as they would in the daily life of the village. T h e plot, briefly, tells what follows when Abbie, idly sitting at the kitchen table after Quintus has supposedly gone to work, says "A quart of milk and a half pint of cream" to the person who approaches from behind and places his hands over her eyes. It is, of course, not the milkman, but Quintus, who has returned unexpectedly. Added zest to local presentations was given by the fact that at first all the character parts were portrayed by men. Other plays of Iobst's are still in manuscript. "De Calline Browierts," in 1930, repeated the earlier success of En Quart Millich. Fundamentally similar to its predecessor, it utilizes Calline Hoppesack in the leading role. "Salz" in 1933 was based on a theme suggested by Charles C. More's story "Der Hexedokter," previously mentioned, and by Edwin M. Fogel's work, Beliefs and Superstitions of the Pennsylvania Germans. Another theme of More's was used in the undated "Es Hellers Chrischdag," which is as successful in this medium as it had been in More's own. Conversation with the author, August 25, 1940.

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I n the wake of Iobst's triumphs appeared a host of other amateur efforts, some of good quality and some of poor. T h e complete history of this phase of folk-interest and folkliterature has still to be written, but such names as Mrs. Edgar Fink, Mrs. George Laubach, Clarence Egolf and Minnie Fogel are heard occasionally, as well as groups like the Milford Square Players, the Schulzenheimer Players, amateur groups in Hamilton Township (Monroe County), and still others. 81 While in the main it is chiefly in rural sections that these offerings are being produced, the Deutscher Verein, a student group at Muhlenberg College, in 1933 presented a dramatization of More's Die Verrechelte Rechler by Preston A. Barba. I n 1934 T h o m a s R. Brendle's "Die Mutter" was given at the forty-fourth annual meeting of the Pennsylvania German Society at Hershey. This play, like Brendle's "Die Hoffning" of 1936, and all of those except Iobst's first one, is still in manuscript at this writing. T h e works of Paul Wieand are in a class by themselves, a distinguishing feature being the inclusion of popular songs translated into the dialect. T h u s a Wieand play often takes on the nature of a musical evening. His works, some of the manuscripts of which were loaned for this study, include his first, "Der Kreitz-Waig Schtore," 1933, "Der Pap is net Ferlanged," "Der Porra Kumpt," "War Sucht der Find," "So en Gemaul," and "So en G'fecht." These are all short, and as the titles indicate, rather broadly humorous. "Fer Narra Halda," "De Huchzich um Kreutz Waig," and "De Maid Hens Gedu" are longer works. Probably "De Maid Hens Gedu" is most representative. Here Silas Fuderschncider, a farmer who is pressed for money, is prevailed u p o n by his daughter to take summer boarders. T h e doings of the boarders, an ill-assorted lot, provide the comedy of the play. T h e lines are good, the dialect ably handled, and the interpolated songs aptly translated. Also to be mentioned as variants in this indigenous drama are the efforts of President Ralph W. Schlosser of Elizabeth87 "S'is Erbermlich," by "Baumgartner," was produced in Lehigh and Bucks County towns in 1928; Claude B. Faust's "Om Boarding Haus" at Macungie in 1930. The North Jackson Dramatic Club (Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania) produced "Geb Acht, Lizzie" in 1936, and "Wos en Willa," a translation from J. Wilbur Fitzpatrick's "The Strange Bequest," in 1937.

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town College in the field of Shakespearean translation, 38 and of the poet John Birmelin, who has made (unpublished) translations and adaptations from various sources, including two he has entitled "Der Gnop" and '"M Dokter Fogel Sei Office Schtunn." C. A. Butz, a minister of Bethlehem, in 1938 wrote "Der Jim Will Parra Warra," in four acts, intended for church presentation. Another play by the same author is now in preparation. 39 As they now exist, these Pennsylvania German plays are more a vehicle for the dialect than for the ideas they convey. They are designed first of all for entertainment, and the language is a major part of the entertainment. Whether a deeper drama is to emerge from the fun and frolic of these light offerings remains to be seen. Although the play is steadily increasing in importance in these years, the same thing does not seem to be true of the dialect letter. With a satisfactory command of English the rule rather than the exception in the Dutchland, and a high school education all but a commonplace, the dialect, while persisting widely, does so as an oral rather than a written tongue. T h e drama, which profits by this condition, does so at the expense of the printed word, which fewer and fewer people can read. More than that, the current lack of standardization in spelling creates a difficulty for the student, who actually finds, in the writings of different dialect authors, several foreign languages instead of one. In earlier years, varied and even miscellaneous orthography mattered less, because the reader was usually familiar with German, and could solve his language problem easily by a kind of German vs. dialect comparison. Nowadays, however, with the competition of French, Spanish, and Italian in high schools, comparatively few students receive instruction in German. As a result, not many are able to read both English and German, the prerequisites for an understanding of the written dialect. T h e writers themselves have, in many cases, not recognized, or not been able to meet, this demand; for by and large the bi lingual reader is also one who is well-educated, and not 38 The Court Scene from The Merchant of 3» Letter to the author, January 10, 1941.

Venice.

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greatly interested in the local small talk, personal gossip, and banter of the old-time letter writer. T h e r e are exceptions to t h e rule, of course, but fundamentally the condition is as indicated. T h e revival of interest in Pennsylvania German cult u r e may breed a new generation of columnists, but as yet there is no marked indication of such a trend. William S. Troxell, the "Pumpernickle Bill" of T h e Allentown Morning Call, is outstanding among contemporary feature writers. Since 1925, when he succeeded Solomon De Long ("Obadiah Grouthomel") on the staff of the Call, he has gained an extensive following for his daily output of humorous a n d racy anecdote, banter, and gossip. Not the least significant angle of his success is his well-organized system of regular correspondents, through whose services he is able to keep u p a perennial flow of purely local incident, in which he names people by name. Since the feature, called simply "Pumpernickle Bill," is a daily one, this reportorial system in a year's time can cover much of the entire area served by the Call. Unfortunately, the system of spelling devised by Troxell is not the one slowly coming into favor among the colleges, and the newcomer to the dialect can follow it only with difficulty. Yet to change it would be to lose some of the present readers in favor of a potential college group who would almost certainly not be interested in the subject matter. T h u s nothing would be gained in the long run. Other columns, including those of the late William H. Erb ("Der Gus")40 and Victor Dieffenbach ("Der Oldt Bauer")41 also gained followings in this period, but were mainly in the traditional vein of earlier writings. Erb's public, though, was more than merely local, his writings appearing in the Boyertown Times, the H a m b u r g Item, the Kutztowa Patriot, the Middletown Press, the Nazareth Item, the Orwigsburg News, and the Quakertown Free Press. Again, Steckel's Dumhete in 1930,42 a set of ten short, humorous anecdotes reprinted from unspecified sources, adds nothing new. Henry Landis's weekly feature in the Lancaster Sunday News,*3 however, as the author *o "Die Buva am Shtor," Nazareth Item. "Horrich Amohl, Boova," Lebanon Semi-Weekly News. «2 A. D. Steckel, Dumhete, En Gleh Buch Mit Tseeh Shtories in Pennsylvania Deutsch.