Making Authentic Pennsylvania Dutch Furniture: With Measured Drawings
240
Making Authentic Pennsylvania Dutch Furniture: With Measured Drawings
240eBook
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| ISBN-13: | 9780486157627 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 11/29/2012 |
| Series: | Dover Woodworking |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| File size: | 48 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
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Making Authentic Pennsylvania Dutch Furniture
With Measured Drawings of Museum Classics
By John G. Shea
Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 1980 Litton Educational Publishing Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-15762-7
CHAPTER 1
Colonization, Customs & Creeds
They came from the Palatinate (in southern Germany) and other rich and fertile regions of the Rhine Valley: Württemberg, Baden and Alsace. They also emigrated from Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, France, Silesia, Saxony and Moravia. And they settled in America in equally rich and fertile regions of southeastern Pennsylvania.
They came seeking religious freedom, economic betterment—or just adventure. Many endured incredible hardships both en route to and in their adopted land. But they arrived in such great numbers that Benjamin Franklin once worried aloud that Pennsylvania would soon become a German colony.
In America, the Pennsylvania Dutch lived apart from their Anglo neighbors—separated from them by language and customs. They were drawn to each other ethnically by their religions and ties of similar heritage. They were mainly agricultural people. But their abilities were mixed, and there were many skilled craftsmen and mechanics among them. Because of their diverse abilities, they were able to become a self-sufficient society. This tended to encourage their isolation and reinforce their ethnic independence from surrounding English-speaking settlements.
Originally, they were all called the "Deutsch" (or Germans) because among them the Germans were most numerous. But through the years, the pronunciation degenerated to "Dutch," and so the sobriquet "Pennsylvania Dutch" has endured.
CAUSES OF EUROPEAN EXODUS
The Germans and others who immigrated to America during the latter years of the 17th century were induced to make their moves because of intolerable conditions in their homelands. Seventeenth century Europe was suffering from the effects of polarizing and disastrous influences, causing wars and religious upheaval.
In the early 16th century, a Roman Catholic monk named Martin Luther, from Eisleben in the Harz Mountains, catalyzed a movement known as the Protestant Reformation. This started a chain of reactions throughout Europe which irrevocably altered the course of history.
In 1517, Luther published a list of 95 theses —a catalog of protest against alleged abuses and excesses within the Roman Catholic Church. Factions and splinter groups soon emerged in support or condemnation of the various aspects of the controversy. Eventually, religious and political considerations became confused and entangled.
Originally, there was no conscious decision to break away from the Roman Catholic Church. Those who agreed with Luther's dissatisfaction hoped that differences could be worked out within the Church. But as arguments became more heated and positions hardened, people were forced to choose sides. Eventually, those sides. succumbed to wrath and endeavored to annihilate one another.
IMPACT OF THE REFORMATION
By the 17th century, the once powerful Holy Roman Empire had dissolved into little more than a loose federation of jealously independent German states. These numbered anywhere from 200 to 3,000—depending on whether one counted the scores of knights who lived on small estates and paid homage to no one but the Emperor. States' rights were vigorously enforced, with the ruler of each state determining the religion of his subjects.
This spelled disaster for German unity. For in the meantime, England, France, the Netherlands and Spain were centralizing and establishing their own national identities while the German states were regressing into a mosaic of feudalism.
By the early 17th century, various contending forces had emerged throughout Europe. These included Catholics vs. Protestants; States' Rights vs. Autocracy; France vs. the Hapsburgs; France vs. the Dutch. These controversies finally erupted into the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). The Peace of Augsburg, which ended this war in 1648, put the finishing touches on the Holy Roman Empire, which then ceased to be an important force.
By the mid-17th century, western Europe was divided between Catholic and Protestant powers. Religious plurality had become recognized and accepted among the states, but not usually within them. Costly wars had been fought in the name of religion, but the political considerations were also substantial. The principle of States' Rights became firmly rooted in the Rhineland, as well as that of cuius regio, eius religio (whose the region, his the religion). The insecurity of the times was heightened by religious and political vacillation. Frequently, when a ruler changed, so did the religion. Those subjects who did not fall into line were either persecuted or killed.
In 1661, Louis XIV came to the throne of France. His ascension ushered in the Age of the Grand Monarch. Militarily he sought to expand his empire by attacking the Hapsburgs' holdings both in Spain and, to the east, along the Rhine. Domestically, he sought to enhance his personal comfort and image by sparing no expense in furnishing himself with extravagantly lavish surroundings. Many German states suffered grievously under the ravages of Louis' military campaigns. Homes were plundered and razed, and farmlands were burnt and destroyed. Two-thirds of the farm animals were killed or eaten by rampaging armies.
DIRECT CAUSES OF IMMIGRATION TO AMERICA
The Germans and others who immigrated to America during the latter years of the 17th century were induced to make their moves because of intolerable conditions in their homelands. As has already been noted, Germany was devastated by the Thirty Years' War. People were starving. There was constant conflict between religious factions: the followers of Luther, John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli were antagonistic to the Catholics—and to each other—vying for control of the state church.
A multitude of obscure pietistic sects and esoteric cults swarmed in the urban and rural regions, and they persisted despite constant persecutions that were caused by the rapid change of rulers. Electors of the Palatinate changed religions 4 times in 4 successive reigns—and the people were expected to change religions in conformance with the current beliefs of their political leaders.
The burden of wars, misery and devastation visited on southern Germany and neighboring regions of the Rhine Valley looms large in the history of human misery. One authority says that between 1618 and 1700, the population of the Rhine Valley was reduced to one-tenth of its original size.
Religious toleration was then an unknown quantity in most of Europe, except for the Netherlands. When religious groups considered emigrating, their choices were few. They could go to the Netherlands and try to assimilate into the already established Dutch society, or they could take the greater risk of going to North America and establishing their own -societies in the wilderness. Many of them chose the latter.
WILLIAM PENN'S "HOLY EXPERIMENT"
William Penn, an English Quaker, had been given a huge grant of land in North America by King Charles II. Here, he hoped to establish his "Holy Experiment"—a land where people of all beliefs would be welcome to live and practice their own religions in peace. Separation of church and state and religious liberty were regarded as highly radical concepts at that time. Nevertheless, Penn invited people of all beliefs, nationalities and opinions to join him in the development of his fertile colony.
Penn's Holy Experiment worked. Pennsylvania with its liberal philosophy of freedom, dedicated to the Quaker principles of pacifism and of opportunity for the oppressed, grew faster than any other colony in the 18th century.
William Penn invited a group of German Mennonites, whose beliefs were similar to the Quakers, to come to Pennsylvania. In 1683, Francis Daniel Pastorius, a German scholar, lawyer and leader, brought the first group of emigrés to Pennsylvania. Here they settled on acres of land purchased from the Penn family, in the vicinity of Philadelphia.
The strenuous journey across the Atlantic and the hardships encountered in hacking homesteads from the virgin forests were formidable. But living conditions for the first emigres had been so intolerable in their homelands that they considered the risks encountered in the New World to be worth taking.
THE VOYAGE TO AMERICA
In his own personal account, called Opportunities and Ways of Emigrating to this Country (America), Pastorius described the ordeal as follows:
The German Society commissioned myself, Francis Daniel Pastorius, as their legal agent, to go to Pennsylvania and to superintend the purchase and survey of theirs lands.
From the month of April until the fall of every year there are vessels sailing to Pennsylvania, at frequent times, from England, principally from the port of Deal, although there is no fixed time or day for sailing, and persons are therefore compelled to watch theirs opportunity. Whenever there is a company of thirty-five or forty passengers together, exclusive of the ship's crew, a vessel is despatched. Every grown-up man pays for his passage the sum of 6 pounds sterling, or 36 rix dollars. For a female or servant, 22 rix dollars....
After I had left London, where I had made my arrangements with Penn's agent, and arrived at Deal, I hired four male and two female servants, and on the 7th day of June 1683, set sail on the "Concord" with a company of eighty passengers. Our ship drew thirteen feet of water. Our fare on board was poor enough. The allowance of provision for ten persons per week was as follows: three pounds of butter; daily four cans of beer and one can of water, every noon; two dishes of peas; four times per week salt meat, and three times salt fish, which we were obliged to cook, each man for himself, and had daily to save enough from dinner to serve for our suppers also. And as these provisions were usually very poor, and the fish sometimes tainted, we were all compelled to make liberal use of liquors and other refreshments of a similar nature to preserve the health amid such hard fare. Moreover, it is the practice of the masters of these vessels to impose upon their passengers in a shameful manner by giving them very short allowances. It is therefore advisable not to pay the passage in full in England, but to withhold a part until the arriving in America, so that they are obliged to fulfill their part of the contract. Furthermore, it is advisable to endeavor to obtain passage in vessels bound to Philadelphia direct, inasmuch as those who come in such, landing at Upland, are subjected to many and grievous molestations.
PERILS OF PASSAGE
Of course, Pastorius did not dwell on the many additional hardships passengers had to endure en route to America. On one ship 100 to 150 passengers died of hunger. Ship fever was commonplace and came to be called "Palatine Fever." The journey to Philadelphia required 3 to 6 months at sea.
The sea voyage was made miserable because of the avaricious sea captains who only sought profit from their voyage at the expense and discomfort of their passengers. Ships were overcrowded and filthy. The food was scarce and was usually contaminated.
The journey of the emigrants did not begin with the sea voyage, but in their homelands in mid-Europe—many miles from England. Emigrants started out thinking they had enough money to pay for their voyage. But they were repeatedly cheated by unscrupulous operators. Their journey down the Rhine took perhaps 6 weeks during which they passed through 36 toll gates and customs houses. Every boat was subject to search at the whim of the customs officials, and spurious taxes and gratuities were extracted from the passengers.
Conditions on the emigrant ships, usually owned by English, Dutch or American operators, closely resembled those on African slave ships. The captains often starved and abused the passengers as badly as they did the slaves.
But to get back to Francis Daniel Pastorius. After their arduous sea voyage, he and his company journeyed on foot to the site of the land they had purchased from William Penn. Here they set to work laying the foundation for one of the most successful agricultural communities in the history of North America.
In his own personal account, Pastorius describes the development of Germantown as follows:
As relating to our newly laid-out town, Germanopolis, or Germantown, it is situated on deep and very fertile soil, and is blessed with an abundance of fine springs and fountains of fresh water. The main street is sixty and the cross street forty feet in width. Every family has a plot of ground for yard and garden three acres in size.
Thus prospered Pastorius and the group of Germans who joined him in colonizing the environs of Philadelphia. Thousands more soon followed. Ultimately, his tract of land between the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers was divided into four hamlets which no longer exist: Germantown, Krisheim, Krefeld and Sommerhausen.
THE FIRST SETTLERS
During the first wave of German immigration to Pennsylvania (1683—1727), people left their homelands because they were politically oppressed, economically impoverished, militarily devastated and religiously persecuted. They were honest, industrious people—agri—culturally progressive, efficient and advanced. Many of them were educated. They paid their own passage over and bought their own land when they arrived in America.
As has already been noted, the first immigrants to arrive here with Pastorius settled in Germantown (which is now part of Philadelphia). These were largely Mennonites. Because of the similarities between Mennonites and Quakers, many of them converted to Quakerism.
In addition to Mennonites, the early religious sects included Pietists, Baptist Brethren, Lutherans, Amish, Schwenkfelders, Moravians and others. The Mennonites settled in Lancaster County; the Moravians in Bethlehem, Nazareth and Letitz; the Amish (a branch of the Mennonites) settled in Berks and Lancaster Counties; and the Lutherans received 22,377 acres at Manatawny—called The New German Tract, or "Falckner's Swamp." Members of the Reformed Church bought land from Penn's grantees near Neshaminy.
Soon the many Pennsylvania Dutch sects occupied lands in Dauphin, Northampton, York, Lebanon, Lancaster, Lehigh and Berks Counties. By 1730, they had made the land 100 miles east of the Susquehanna their domain.
Most of the early German immigrants were commoners, but a few aristocrats were mixed among them. They were primarily farmers, although artisans, craftsmen, teachers, doctors, preachers and other professions were represented. There were no court cavaliers or military men. These were the same Germans who had borne the burden of so many unhappy years in their homelands and who now dreamed of building an entirely new life in Pennsylvania.
THE SECOND WAVE OF SETTLERS
After 1727 most Germans arrived here in extreme poverty as indentured servants. For the most part, they lacked the education and cultural backgrounds of their predecessors. They were called Redemptioners and were recruited by ship owners and land agents who went through the Rhineland persuading the peasantry—often by misrepresentation and with false promises—to embark for Pennsylvania.
Usually the Redemptioners had to pledge from 2 to 7 years of their lives to serve out their indentures. Thus, they virtually became slaves to the ship owners and agents who provided their passage and, as such, they were sold to the highest bidders.
Fortunately, after the Redemptioners had served out their indentures in America, they were given a small plot of land and tools to work it, and thus became free citizens.
During the heaviest period of immigration (between 1749 and 1754), about 5,000 people per year immigrated to Pennsylvania. As has been pointed out, most of these were farmers, although many were experts in the mechanical arts. These skilled workers assisted substantially in the development of colonial manufacturing industries. The first census in 1790 revealed that 120,000 people—or one-third of the population of Pennsylvania—was of Germanic origin.
FIRST HOMES IN AMERICA
The first Germans arriving in Pennsylvania found a land very similar in terrain and climate—and in its potential for agricultural development—to their native Rhineland. The entire country was filled with dense forests sprinkled by fresh water streams and areas of rich mineral deposits. Woods and streams were alive with game and fish. Of course, much preliminary work was required to clear the land for farming.
Nothing was more important to the newly arrived immigrants than the character of the soil. They had learned that the richest soil lay beneath the densest forests. And the limestone valleys of eastern Pennsylvania were fabulously fertile.
So they toiled from dawn to dusk to clear the woodlands. By wielding their saws and axes to bring down the trees, the pioneers also provided logs for their primitive cabins, fuel for heat and clearance of the land on which to sow their crops.
The immigrant's first home in America was apt to be a cave dug in the side of a hill, whose front opening was protected by overhanging branches. Or, a pit was dug by the river bank, deep enough for a man to lie down and tall enough for him to stand erect.
Soon, however, the dwellings in Pennsylvania imitated the half-timbered houses of northern Europe. Log cabins and "block houses" were built with whole trees squared into timber from rough logs and then laid in the form of a rectangle, one upon the other. The squared timbers were stacked high enough to provide head room. Tips of the timbers were notched into each other about one foot from the ends. Usually a peaked roof was raftered to receive a covering of split logs called shooks. All chinks and openings were stuffed with mud, clay and moss. Thus, a tight and warm little house was constructed and was heated by a great, open fireplace.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Making Authentic Pennsylvania Dutch Furniture by John G. Shea. Copyright © 1980 Litton Educational Publishing Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
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Table of Contents
Contents
DOVER BOOKS ON WOODWORKING AND CARVING,Title Page,
Copyright Page,
Acknowledgments,
Preface,
Chapter 1 - Colonization, Customs & Creeds,
Chapter 2 - Occupations: Arts, Crafts & Industries,
Chapter 3 - Furniture Design,
Chapter 4 - Furniture Construction,
Chapter 5 - Furniture Painting & Decorating,
Chapter 6 - Furniture Measurements,
Selected Bibliography,
Index,