In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Lumping or SplittingFresh Perspectives on the “German-Speaking Peoples” of Early Pennsylvania
  • John Pollack (bio)
Envisioning the Old World: Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg and Imperial Projects in Pennsylvania. University of Pennsylvania, November 29–December 1, 2012. Philadelphia

September 6, 2011, marked the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Henry Melchior Mühlenberg, who in 1742 was sent by Lutheran authorities at Halle in eastern Germany to minister to the Pennsylvania congregations of Philadelphia, New Hanover, and Providence. Mühlenberg’s place as “founder” of the Lutheran Church in America, his long tenure in the colonies, the prominence of his family in subsequent generations, and the significant documentary legacy he left behind have for decades made him a central figure of study. Yet as Patricia Bonomi (New York University) and Gregg Roeber (Pennsylvania State University) both pointed out in concluding remarks during the conference under review, it was only beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s that “mainstream” historians of colonial America began to engage seriously with sources like those left by the Mühlenbergs, previously considered the province of “historians of religion.” Today no serious scholar of early America can ignore the place of religion, whether for the German-speaking immigrants or for any of the groups they encountered in the Americas.

This anniversary has provided a welcome number of occasions for scholars and a broader public to reexamine Mühlenberg himself and the world of early Pennsylvania that he helped to shape. The Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and Muhlenberg College organized lectures and hosted a traveling exhibition on the pastor, and the Franckesche Stiftungen zu Halle (the Francke Foundations in Halle, Germany) sponsored its own [End Page 801] symposium in 2012 on Mühlenberg and his legacy. A large-scale exhibition at Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library in 2011–12 entitled Paint, Pattern, and People elegantly presented the work of German craftsmen and interpreted it in multiple social, religious, and cultural contexts (Cooper and Minardi). New scholarship, including work by conference organizer Bethany Wiggin (University of Pennsylvania) and the recent publication of Patrick Erben’s Harmony of the Spirits, promises to further increase interest in Pennsylvania’s German immigrants and the numerous communities they formed, in dialogue (and occasional conflict) with their Anglo and Native American neighbors. By way of conclusion to the events of the past year and a half, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies and the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania organized this broad-ranging symposium situating Mühlenberg in transatlantic and “imperial” perspectives, and featuring prominent scholars from multiple disciplines.

Hartmut Lehmann, director emeritus of the Max-Planck Institut für Geschichte in Göttingen and professor of medieval and modern history at the University of Kiel, delivered the opening keynote address. Professor Lehmann has pioneered new approaches to Pietistic studies over the course of his career, with emphasis on the transatlantic aspects of the Pietist movements in early modern Germany; his work remains insufficiently known to many early Americanists (see, for example, Strom, Lehmann, and Melton). Echoing recent scholarship by historians of Anglo-America who have given renewed attention to the massive, global conflict known as the Seven Years’ War, Lehmann offered a provocative interpretation of the origins of that war, one that, if Americanists take it seriously, provides a new lens through which to view colonial history. Lehmann argued that we must start our analysis with the rise to power in 1740 of the young king Frederick II, “the Great,” a leader who became a patron of the Enlightenment but also a man, Lehmann asserted, of “unbridled ambition.” Frederick’s rash decision after his accession to attempt the conquest of Silesia unleashed a devastating chain of events. Austria, under Queen Maria-Theresa, offered significant resistance, and other German states, followed by France, allied themselves with Maria-Theresa. Great Britain sided with Frederick, leading to war with France in North America. Thousands were killed and many more thousands displaced throughout the territories of the Holy Roman Empire, rupturing much of the trust between leaders [End Page 802] within it. Migrants moved in all directions in Europe; many in the German territories landed in...

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