The Pennsylvania German Society is a non-profit, educational organization dedicated to studying the Pennsylvania German people and their 330-year history in the United States and Canada. The Society works to preserve and promote the history, culture, religion, and dialect of the Pennsylvania Germans (also commonly known as the "Pennsylvania Dutch"). It was founded in 1891 and became a founding member of the Pennsylvania Federation of Historical Societies.
Regular efforts and activities of the Society include:
The Pennsylvania German Society was organized in a series of four meetings from February to April, 1891. The delegates present at the organizational meetings shared a number of characteristics. They were Pennsylvania German in family background, city dwellers, upper middle class professionals, and business men. They were older men having been born largely in the 1830s and 1840s, and they were well established in their careers. A large number were college graduates. It is likely that all knew and on occasion spoke the Pennsylvania German dialect and that most could read and speak standard High German.
Among the concerns of the founders was that railroad, factory, city, and public school would erode quickly most evidence of their culture, present in the United States and centered in Pennsylvania for over two hundred years. It was a distinctive culture, largely based in an agrarian society of an earlier age, and they were determined to preserve the knowledge about it from obliteration. In their minds, the time was ripe for an organized effort to preserve the culture which they were proud of.
Another concern motivated the founders. They were proud of their forefathers who had contributed significantly to the development of Pennsylvania and the nation, and they were convinced that their contribution had been neglected by the New England and Virginia historians who had written most American histories to that date They were determined to repair the omission and to give to the Pennsylvania Germans proper credit for the winning of independence during the Revolutionary War and for the preservation of the Union during the Civil War.
The founders of the Society wanted their people to develop pride in their culture. This purpose was stated clearly in the call for the convention:
The founders wrote of German and Swiss ancestors of the Pennsylvania Germans rather than only of German ancestors. The Germanic ancestors that arrived in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries arrived primarily from the Swiss Federation and the counties and kingdoms that would later unite into the German Empire in 1871. Furthermore, it is notable that their concern was only with the 17th and 18th century settlers of Pennsylvania. They were not interested in German and Swiss settlers of the 19th century and later.
During December, 1890 and January, 1891 articles appeared in several newspapers, such as the Lebanon Daily Report, the Lancaster New Era, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, suggesting an organization of descendants of the German and Swiss settlers of colonial Pennsylvania. Frank R. Diffenderffer, an editor of the New Era, corresponded with William Henry Egle, State Librarian, about this matter. This led to a meeting hosted by Diffenderffer in his office on February 14, 1891, which was attended by Egle, John Stahr, J. Max Hark, R. K. Buehrle and E. O. Lyte. The attendees decided to call a meeting of “...representative men in the German counties of Eastern Pennsylvania to an informal conference in the City of Lancaster on the 26th of February.”
On February 26, 1891 a meeting was held in the study of the Rev. Dr. J. Max Hark in the Moravian parsonage in Lancaster. lt was attended by fifteen men representing nine counties: Carbon, Chester, Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne, Northampton and York. Egle presided at the meeting, and Diffenderffer served as secretary. The outcome of the meeting was a unanimous decision to set up an organization “…having for its aim the collection and preservation of all landmarks and records relating to the early German and Swiss immigrants to Pennsylvania, and the development of a friendly and fraternal spirit among all united by the ties of a common ancestry.” The emphasis upon the “development of a friendly and fraternal spirit” is quite strong in statements of the founders, suggesting that such a spirit may not have existed in the past. After much discussion, the committee agreed to name the proposed society the Pennsylvania-German Society rather than the Pennsylvania-Dutch Society. The call for the April 15 convocation was adopted in a meeting held on March 9, 1891 and was printed widely in Pennsylvania.
Frank R. Diffenderffer was a central figure in the organization of the Pennsylvania-German Society and assumed a leading role in the lead-up to the convocation. He has been called the founder of the Pennsylvania-German Society, although no such designation has been officially made.
The organizing convention was held in the Lancaster County Courthouse on April 15, 1891. There were 126 delegates, all male, from the City of Philadelphia and 15 counties – Berks, Carbon, Chester, Clearfield, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne, Montgomery, Northampton, Westmoreland, and York. Lancaster County was represented by 63 delegates, the most of any county. The convention was conducted in a manner similar to that of a state political convention: The delegates were seated according to the counties they represented. George F. Baer, resident of Reading, Pennsylvania and later president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company from 1901 to 1913, was elected the temporary chairman of the convention.
The most important issue decided at the convention was the adoption of the Society’s constitution, which provided that the name of the society was to be the Pennsylvania-German Society and that its purposes were:
One issue which resulted in lengthy debate was that of qualification for regular membership in the Society. The proposed constitution provided for three classes of members: regular, associate and honorary. It defined the qualifications for regular membership as being “…of full age, of good moral character, and a direct descendant of early German or Swiss emigrants to Pennsylvania.” In effect, this provision denied regular membership to persons who were born in Germany or who were born of nineteenth-century or later German immigrants.
The two delegates from Philadelphia who also represented the German Society of Pennsylvania, General Louis Wagner and Professor Oswald Seidensticker of the University of Pennsylvania, had been born in Germany. To those supporting the proposal regarding regular membership, only persons born in Pennsylvania or an adjacent state of early German descent were truly Pennsylvania German, and they alone should be eligible for regular membership. Persons born in Germany or born to nineteenth-century immigrants would be most welcome as associate members. Those opposing the proposal argued that “…many foreign-born Germans…had done more for the interests of the Pennsylvania-Germans, in studying and recording their history who had shown a truer interest in their cause, and were more truly in sympathy with the purpose and end of this Society, than any Pennsylvania-born Germans.” After much debate, the delegates adopted the original proposal. At that point Wagner and Seidensticker withdrew as delegates and joined the other spectators, though Wagner reiterated an early declaration of fraternal support of the new organization by the German Society of Pennsylvania. While this issue seemed to be decided at this point in history, it was not settled completely.
The session concluded with the election of the first permanent officers of the organization:
An Executive committee and a Publications committee were appointed, and members were invited to pay their initiation fees before leaving for home. Later the president appointed sub-committees of finance, genealogy, history, and tradition in addition to one devoted to printing and publishing.
No formal action was taken as to the place, if any, of the Pennsylvania German dialect in the life and work of the Society. However, the fact that all the materials for calling the convocation were printed in English, that all the preliminary sessions were conducted in English and the records of-these proceedings were kept in English, that the governing documents were prepared in English, and that-the proceedings of the convention were conducted and recorded in English leads one to the conclusion that the Pennsylvania-German Society was to be composed of English-speaking descendants of the early German and Swiss immigrants to Pennsylvania and that its work was to be done in English. Many members might speak, read, and even write in the dialect they might regard as their mother tongue, but in the proceedings of the Society they would use English.
The place of the dialect in the lives of Pennsylvania-German people was dealt with directly by only one speaker on April 15. He was Col. Thomas C. Zimmerman of Reading, who described enduring achievements of representative Pennsylvania Germans in various fields of human endeavor. However, he expressed the opinion that:
He concluded by stating that the dialect “…should take its place as a purely secondary lingual accomplishment.” Col. Zimmerman’s view, however, was not sanctioned by the Society at the convocation and did not become the Society’s position.
The Pennsylvania-German Society conducted its business after its foundation primarily through an annual meeting held in southeastern and south-central Pennsylvania. At this meeting, members of the Society read papers that they submitted to the Society. The affairs of each annual meeting as well as the papers that were read were published in Proceedings documenting the annual meeting.
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