Heavenly handwriting, teutonic type: faith and script in German Pennsylvania, ca. 1683-1855
Date
2014
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
"All nations have something peculiar to their writing," wrote Johann Merken in a ca. 1782 German-language writing manual. The German-speaking peoples of Central Europe, for whom ideas of nation, peoplehood, and faith practice were closely intertwined, cultivated unique lettering traditions known as "Fraktur," or neo-gothic, "broken-letter" type and script. The German-speaking settlers of early Pennsylvania carried vibrant manuscript illumination traditions involving Fraktur letter forms with them to the New World. Those manuscripts comprise a rich record of Pennsylvania German religious life. This thesis explores the European antecedents of types and scripts in America, the spiritualistic heritage of Pennsylvania German settlers, and the teaching of reading and writing among two groups of Pennsylvania Germans to assess the spiritual foundations of their manuscript practices and consider the documents' utility as indicators of cultural change. The study suggests the politically and religiously charged heritage of print and manuscript Fraktur letter forms, and the extent to which Protestant spiritual practice relied on reading and writing religious texts. A quantitative methodology documents that the Vorschrift, or teacher-made manuscript writing sample, diverged from baroque European writing samples between ca. 1750 and 1850, suggesting the form's association with changes in literacy education at the national, state, and community levels.