Amos trades up -- Eilenshpiggel and his shenanigans -- John the blacksmith visits the devil -- Tales tall and taller -- Graven images & the legends that grow around them -- Pennsylvania German humor -- A true ghost story.
Publications of the Pennsylvania German Society ; ser. 2, v. 46
Notes
Illustrated lining papers.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 285) and indexes.
Contents
Berks County: the center of it all -- Daniel Schumacher: a Fraktur artist of some note -- Henrich Otto, 1784 -- Friederich Krebs, August 4, 1790 -- Johann Valentin Schuller -- The greatest development of Fraktur writing, 1800-1835 -- Johann Ritter: a century of influence -- Conclusion: The last flickering -- Appendix 1. Fraktur artist who routinely made Taussscheine for Berks County families -- Appendix 2. Scriveners who routinely infilled Taussscheine for Berks County families -- Appendix 3. Berks Couny printers of Taussscheine in order by active dates -- Appendix 4. Translations.
In Part 1, Goodling writes a concise history with illustrations from the township's earliest days to the end of the 19th century. It lists churches and schools, post offices, trades and businesses and the military. Part II is a genealogical and biographical record of all families living in the township and nearby areas at the time of the 1860 U.S. Census. Supplement Part 1 describes the churches of the township and appendices. Supplement Part 2 contiues the appendices.
xv, 400 p., [8] p. of plates : ill. (some col.) ; 27 cm.
Series
Early American studies
Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. [335]-377) and index.
Contents
Painters and patrons -- The village enlightenment -- Cosmopolitan communities -- Itinerants and inventors -- A tale of two chairmaking towns -- Provincial portraits -- Daguerreotypes : the industrial image.
Summary
In the middle of the nineteenth century, middle-class Americans embraced a new culture of domestic consumption, one that centered on chairs and clocks as well as family portraits and books. How did that new world of goods, represented by Victorian parlors filled with overstuffed furniture and daguerreotype portraits, come into being? This work highlights the significant role of provincial artisans in four crafts in the northeastern United States, chairmaking, clockmaking, portrait painting, and book publishing, to explain the shift from preindustrial society to an entirely new configuration of work, commodities, and culture. As a whole, the book proposes an innovative analysis of early nineteenth century industrialization and the development of a middle class consumer culture. It relies on many of the objects beloved by decorative arts scholars and collectors to evoke the vitality of village craft production and culture in the decades after the War of Independence. It grounds its broad narrative of cultural change in case studies of artisans, consumers, and specific artifacts. Each chapter opens with an "object lesson" and weaves an object-based analysis together with the richness of individual lives. The path that such craftspeople and consumers took was not inevitable; on the contrary, as the author, a historian demonstrates, it was strewn with alternative outcomes, such as decentralized production with specialized makers. The book offers a collective biography of the post-Revolutionary generation, gathering together the case studies of producers and consumers who embraced these changes, those who opposed them, or, most significantly, those who fashioned the myriad small changes that coalesced into a new Victorian cultural order that none of them had envisioned or entirely appreciated.
Prologue: the Kutztown Folk Festival -- Reading and the Oley Valley -- Fingers of guilt -- Middling stiff -- When law and humanity had but faint connection -- Twelve honest men -- A distraction from grim tidings -- As innocent as a child -- The last melancholy resource -- Ten o'clock to two o'clock and fifty minutes -- Slinking off anonymously -- A last hope -- Seduced by the devil -- Confession -- I poor wretch -- A final jolt -- Peace be to her -- The printers of Exeter Township -- The sad, sad song of Susanna Cox -- Advice from the dead to the living -- Her exit--infamy -- Epilogue: back to the festival.
Summary
The unfortunate Susanna Cox gained notoriety for killing her illegitimate infant son. The fatal episode led to her hanging in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1809, the last public execution of a woman in the commonwealth. But was Susanna really the culprit? The legend of her fate, repeated in Pennsylvania German broadsides by the generations that followed, suggests she herself was a victim. Now, in this first full-length investigation into the tragedy, new evidence reveals some startling facts about how indifference, an undeveloped court system, and the inexact science of nineteenth-century forensics combined to determine Susanna's tragic fate. A full look at how Susanna's "sad song" became romanticized through broadside ballads follows, complete with illustrations.
"Pastor Croll was an accomplished historian and obviously made use of the best available sources for his text...he discovered, in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania,...the first history of Oley, the lengthy manuscript entitled 'Fragment of the past history of Oley', by Dr. Peter G. Bertolet...This was based largely on interviews with Oley Valley residents, many of whom were born in the 18th century....After several competent historical chapters on the settlement and early religious patterns and conflicts in the Valley, Pastor Croll concentrates on some of the major families of Oley." [forward]
108 p. : ill. (chiefly col.), coat of arms, maps ; 28 cm.
Notes
Sequel to: The path of faith, a 300 year heritage, 2002.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 108) and index.
Contents
Present-day Shenk heritage listings -- Early history of the Shenk family and name -- The "Shenk" name in early European history before 1500: Religious reform beginnings in Europe, 1450-1550 ; Early Shenk Swiss ancestors -- The Shenks in America: Basis of the research ; The Shenk descendants arrive in American ; The immigrants settle in Pennsylvania ; Life in the new world -- An organized look at Michael Shenk's descendants in America: Christian Shenk's descendants ; Hans Shenk's descendants ; Barbara Shenk's descendants ; Michael Shenk's descendants -- The first four generations in America: location of the Shenk ancestors -- A summary of the Shenk families at the end of the fourth generation -- Display of Shenk homes built or lived in after the first four generations.
Summary
"This book covers the first 4 generations of the Shenk family as it moved out from the Pequea settlement in 1717. It includes pictures of over 20 Shenk historical houses built by their descendants along with present day Shenk families and their stories"--Cover, p. [1].