Social Conditions among the Pennsylvania Germans in the Eighteenth Century, as Revealed in German Newspapers Published in America

227 Pages·1922·4.256 MB·English

by  James Owen Knauss

n.
Social Conditions among the Penn-
sylvania Germans in the Eighteenth
Century, as Revealed in German
Newspapers Published in
America
ft
A THESIS
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School
OF Cornell University for the degree of
DOCTOR OF'PHILOSOPHY
BY
JAMES OWEN KNAUSS
ReprintedfromProceedingsofthe Fennsjlvknia-GermanSociety, Vol. XXIX.

Social Conditions among the Penn-
sylvania Germans in the Eighteenth
Century, as Revealed in German
Newspapers Published in
America
A THESIS
Presented to the Faculty'of the Graduate School
OF Cornell University for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
BY
JAMES OWEN KNAUSS
Reprintedfrom Proceedingsofthe Pennsylvania-German Fociety, Vol, XXIX.
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Copyrighted 1922
BYTHE
(iennssIfanlasiSetmanSsciett.
PRESSOF
THENEWERAPRINTINGCOMPANY
LANCASTER,PA.
CONTENTS.
Chapter Page
I The Newspapers and their Publishers I
II The Religion and the Religious Denominations of the
Pennsylvania Germans 37
III Charities and Humanitarian Organizations 58
IV The Education and the Educational Facilities of the
Pennsylvania Germans 73
V
Language 104
VI Pennsylvania German Traits 119
VII The Vocations of the Pennsylvania Germans 127
VIII Political Ideals 141
Conclusion 168
Bibliography 212
;
ABBREVIATIONS.
A =Der
Unpartheyische Reading Adler (1796-1800).
AS =Der Americanische Staatsbothe (1800).
Ba =Ba.iley's Das Pennsylvanische Zeitungsblat (1778).
CW =Die
Chesnuthiller Wochenschrift (1790-1794).
DP <=Der Deutsche Porcupein (1798-1799).
GP ^=Der General Post-Bothe (1790).
GZ ^Die Germantauner Zeitung (1785—1790).
GZj =Die Germantauner Zeitung (i790-1793).
H
=Hutter's Der Lancaster Correspondent (1799—1800).
M
=Miller's Staatsbote (1762-1779).
=Neue
Nl^UXiRlj= Unpartheyische Lancaster Zeitung (1787-1797).
iVeKe Unpartheyische Readinger Zeitung (1789—1800).
PC =Philadelphische Correspondenz (1781-1790).
PCj =Philadelphische Correspondenz (1790-1797).
PC, =Philadelphische Correspondenz (1798-1800).
PC4 ==Philadelphische Correspondenz (1800).
PS =Philadelphisches Staatsregister (1779-1780).
PZ ^^Philadelphische Zeitung (i755-1757).
S =Saur's paper (1739-1777).
UH =Die
Unpartheyische Harrisburg Zeitung (1799-1800).
VI
PREFACE.
'^'WO
considerations have rendered this subject espe-
^^
cially attractive to me. In the first place, none of
the historians of the Germans in America has given it the
attention which it deserved. Kuhns in his " German and
Swiss Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania " devotes one
page to the subject of newspapers and mentions only one
by name, Saur's colonial paper. Faust in his " German
Element in the United States" discusses the German news-
papers of the eighteenth century somewhat more in detail,
although he does not mention half of them. In fact, it
was Professor Faust himself who suggested the topic to
me, because he knew what an imperfect knowledge his-
torians possessed of this subject. Needless to say, neither
Professor Faust nor Professor Kuhns derived the material
for their accurate works from the periodical publications.
Professor Oswald Seidensticker, the pioneer historian of
the period, obtained much of his material from the old
vili The Pennsylvania-German Society.
Pennsylvania German papers, but he drew almost all of it
from Saur's and Miller's colonial papers, and did not by
any means exhaust even these papers as a source of histori-
cal information. As to bibliographies of these news-
papers, there are only two that deserve serious considera-
tion. Seidensticfcer in his " First Century of German
Printing in America " names about five sixths of the peri-
odical publications, although his usual reliability is not
apparent in his statements concerning the papers published
in the last two decades of the century. Moreover, he
often does not tell us where the files are located and never
describes the state of their completeness. The second
bibliography was compiled by Daniel Miller about twenty-
five years after the appearance of Seidensticker's work in
Der deutsche Pionier. He usually followed his prede-
cessor very closely, often making the same mistakes, even
minor ones such as a wrong initial or a wrong date.
The second reason for my interest in the subject is a
purely personal one. As a descendant of one of these
early German immigrants, Ludwig Knauss, who arrived
in this country as early as 1723, I have always felt a keen
personal interest in that extraordinary group of Ameri-
cans, the so-called Pennsylvania " Dutch." Reared in a
rural communitywhere the patois isstill extensively spoken,
I know their weakness and their strength. I have always
felt the injustice done to them by those who have not been
able to penetrate behind their stolid reserve. As an ex-
ample of this injustice, we may well take the novels of
Helen Reimensnyder Martin. I make no objection to
her works as fiction and, as such, I have read several with
much pleasure; but when she leads people to believe that
her novels give an accurate picture of the ordinary
:
Preface. ix
Pennsylvania-German community, it seems to me time to
disagree. Desiring to investigate first-hand records con-
cerning the ancestors of these people, who are American
to the core, I gladly availed myself of a source of informa-
tion which has thus far scarcely been discovered.
In writing down the results of my investigations, I have
tried to be fair in giving an account of both the good and
the bad qualities of the Pennsylvania Germans. News-
papers present pitfalls as well as advantages in the search
for truth. There is great danger for the historian if he
does not strive for an unbiased viewpoint. He must not
expect to gain an accurate idea of the social conditions in
a community exclusively from newspapers, since the de-
mand for reports of unusual events, or, in other words, for
news, causes the papers to give us a much distorted view
of existing conditions.
My
thanks are due to the librarians of the various
libraries mentioned in my newspaper bibliography for the
courteous treatment they accorded to me in my researches,
and especially to the following library officers, whom I
may have tried sorely with my unrelenting correspondence
Mr. Clarence S. Brigham, of the American Antiquarian
Society, Worcester, Massachusetts; Mr. Ernest Spofford,
of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia;
Mr. Thomas Lynch Montgomery, of the State Library,
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Dr. I. M. Hays, of the Ameri-
can Philosophical Society, Philadelphia; Mr. Andrew
Shaaber, of the Berks County Historical Society, Reading,
Pennsylvania; Miss Lottie Bausman, of the Lancaster
County Historical Society, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and
Miss Lina Hertzog, of the Deutsche Gesellschaft, Phila-
delphia. I want to give my thanks to Dr. Albert Cook
X The Pennsylvania-German Society.
Myers, of Moylan, Pennsylvania, for especially valuable
suggestions concerning repositories of German American
newspapers of the eighteenth century; to Mr. M. A.
Gruber, of Washington, D. C. Mr. Ethan Allen Weaver,
;
of Germantown, Pennsylvania; Reverend Dr. William J.
Hinke, of Auburn, New York, and Mr. A. K. Hostetter,
of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for givingme important infor-
mation about some of the early newspapers and their edi-
tors, and to Dr. George C. Keidel, of Washington, D. C,
for helpful suggestions about the arrangement of various
parts of the monograph. I owe a special debt of gratitude
to Dr. Albert Bernhardt Faust, of Cornell University,
who, as mentioned above, first suggested this subject to
me, for his inspiring guidance and sympathetic criticism.
Prof. Carl Becker, of Cornell University, gave me the
benefit of his searching and constructive criticism. Prof.
Paul R. Pope, of Cornell, carefully reviewed the manu-
script and gave me many valuable criticisms while I was
revising thefirst draft. Finally, I want to thank themany
friends, unnamed but unforgettable, who have kindly an-
swered my letters of inquiry.
James O. Knauss.
Cornell University,
February 23, 1918.