Architecture and Landscape of the Pennsylvania Germans, 1720-1920

INTRODUCTION: Architecture and Landscape of the Pennsylvania Germans, 1720–1920

 Q Architecture and Landscape of the Pennsylvania Germans, – Sally McMurry and Nancy Van Dolsen The phrase ‘‘Pennsylvania German architecture’’ calls forth a certain mental image, likely conjuring up first the ‘‘Continental’’ three-room house, with its huge hearth, five-plate stoves, tiny windows, perhaps a vaulted cellar, exposed beams, and colorful decorative motifs. The huge Pennsylvania bank barn with its projecting overshoot also enters the picture. Construction techniques such as Fachwerk, the liegender Stuhl truss, and paled insulation have long been associated with antecedents from German-speaking regions of early modern Europe. These and other distinctive building qualities have prompted the interest of a wide audience, ranging from tourists and genealogists to architectural historians, antiquarians, and folklorists. Since the late nineteenth century, scholars have engaged in field measurement and drawing, photographic documentation, and careful observation; these have in turn resulted in an extended conversation about Pennsylvania German building traditions, spatial sensibilities, and aesthetic culture. What cultural patterns were being expressed in these buildings? How did shifting social, technological , and economic forces shape architectural changes? Since those early forays, our understanding has moved well beyond the three-room house and the forebay barn. This volume assembles contemporary scholarly insights about the Pennsylvania German contributions to American architectural expression. The essays draw both from previous generations’ interpretations and from current intellectual perspectives.   What do we mean by ‘‘Pennsylvania German’’? The ‘‘Pennsylvania Germans ’’ descended from those German-speaking colonists who arrived in North America from various parts of German-speaking Europe between  and the American Revolution, and whose progeny evolved a local dialect, planted institutions , and joined the fabric of American life. Beyond this widely accepted definition, the complexities are daunting. To begin with, both the terms ‘‘Pennsylvania Dutch’’ and ‘‘Pennsylvania German’’ came into usage to refer to the group. ‘‘Pennsylvania Dutch’’ probably originated as an anglicized corruption of Deutsch or Deitsch, words denoting the German language or Pennsylvania dialects of it. ‘‘Pennsylvania German’’ was also commonly used from the nineteenth century onward. Some Pennsylvania Germans were uncomfortable with the term ‘‘Dutch,’’ believing that it not only obscured their German heritage, but was too easily paired with epithets such as ‘‘dumb.’’ Pennsylvania’s German-speaking immigrants during the colonial period came from several different areas in Europe, and they came from varied religious and economic backgrounds, too. Not all settled in present-day Pennsylvania , either; some colonial-era German immigrants ended up in the upper South, and as far north as Ontario. This volume focuses on the region in Pennsylvania where German settlement and social influence were notably concentrated.1 Early small-scale migrations beginning in  brought German speakers to Germantown, Pennsylvania (near Philadelphia) from the Netherlands, Switzerland , and other parts of central Europe. But the largest migration—about ,—occurred between about  and , and originated primarily in the German-speaking states and principalities of the Rhine Valley; the Palatinate alone contributed about half. Many of these people were, in turn, only a generation or two removed from Swiss or Alsatian families. The first wave of migrants (roughly up to the French and Indian War) consisted mainly of propertied families, while thereafter the character shifted to young, poor men and women. Altogether, probably around ten percent of these immigrants were radical Protestant dissenters such as the Anabaptist Mennonites, Brethren, and Amish; the vast majority were Lutheran or German Reformed, with a sprinkling of Catholics . Most migrants came for economic betterment, leaving areas where opportunities were diminishing. By the Revolutionary War era, Pennsylvania’s population was fully one-third German-speaking. This group became the Pennsylvania Germans.2 The war in North America combined with imperial proscription of emigration in Europe to effectively cut emigration to a trickle until about , leaving the pre-Independence group a generation to form a settled society and evolve the distinctive local dialect and customs. During the antebellum period and then again after the Civil War, large new influxes of German speakers intro- duced tensions between recent arrivals and Pennsylvania natives. Indeed, the presence of the new Germans prompted the ‘‘Pennsylvania Germans’’ toward a greater self-consciousness of their own group identity. Certainly mingling took place, but in general, the differences were keenly felt: new Germans headed for the cities while Pennsylvania Germans tended to be concentrated in rural places; the two groups shared a written language, but the immigrant High German speakers often scorned the Pennsylvania German dialect. Folklorist Don Yoder writes, ‘‘by the nineteenth century most...