Bethany Wiggin - Babel of the Atlantic

Babel of the Atlantic

THE MAX KADE RESEARCH INSTITUTE SERIES:
GERMANS BEYOND EUROPE

Series Editors

A. Gregg Roeber and Daniel Purdy

The Max Kade Research Institute Series is an outlet for scholarship that examines the history and culture of German-speaking communities in America and across the globe, from the early modern period to the start of the First World War. Books in this series examine the movements of the German-speaking diaspora as influenced by forces such as migration, colonization, war, research, religious missions, or trade. This series explores the historical and cultural depictions of the international networks that connect these communities, as well as linguistic relations between German and other languages within European global networks.

This series is a project of the Max Kade German-American Research Institute located on Penn States campus. This Institute, co-directed by A. Gregg Roeber and Daniel Purdy, was founded in 1993 thanks to a grant from the Max Kade Foundation, New York.

Babel of the Atlantic

Edited by Bethany Wiggin

The Pennsylvania State University Press
University Park, Pennsylvania

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Wiggin, Bethany, 1972 editor.

Title: Babel of the Atlantic / edited by Bethany Wiggin.

Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2019] | Series: The Max Kade Research Institute series: Germans beyond Europe | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary: A collection of essays examining colonial Philadelphia and its surroundings as a zone of cultural and linguistic interchange. Documents everyday multilingualism and intercultural negotiations with special attention to themes of religion, education, race and the abolitionist movement, and material culture and architectureProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019001033 | ISBN 9780271083230 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: MultilingualismPennsylvaniaHistory18th century. | MultilingualismPennsylvaniaPhiladelphiaHistory18th century. | MultilingualismMiddle Atlantic StatesHistory18th century. | PennsylvaniaReligionHistory18th century. | Antislavery movementsPennsylvaniaHistory18th century.

Classification: LCC F152.B165 2019 | DDC 306.44/60974811dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019001033

Copyright 2019 The Pennsylvania State University

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,

University Park, PA 168021003

The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member
of the Association of University Presses.

It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use
acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Material,
ANSI Z 39.481992.

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Multilingual Soundings in the Colonial Mid-Atlantic; Differences of Manners, Languages and Extraction, Was Now No More?

Bethany Wiggin

PART 1
NEW WORLD, NEW RELIGIONS

1 / Wie ein Nimrod / Like a Nimrod: Babel, Confusion, and Coercive Bilingualism in the Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic

Patrick M. Erben

2 / The Moravian Threat to the Old World Establishment

Craig Atwood

3 / Women, Migration, and Moravian Mission: Negotiating Pennsylvanias Colonial Landscapes

Katherine Faull

PART 2
THE LANGUAGES OF EDUCATION AND ESTABLISHED RELIGIONS

4 / Benjamin Franklin, the Philadelphia Academy, Halle, and Gttingen

Jrgen Overhoff

5 / German or English? Halles Pastors in Pennsylvania and the Search for the Right Language, 17421820

Wolfgang Flgel

PART 3
THE LANGUAGES OF RACE AND (ANTI-)SLAVERY

6 / Writing Against Slavery: Germantown, Quakers, and the Ethnic Origins of Early Antislavery Thought

Katharine Gerbner

7 / Ein schrecklicher Zustand: Race, Slavery, and Gradual Emancipation in Pennsylvania

Birte Pfleger

8 / How the Quakers Worked with Moravians, Germans, the French, the British, and Enslaved and Free Africans: All in the Antislavery Cause

Maurice Jackson

PART 4
THE LANGUAGES OF WOOD AND STONE

9 / Communicating Through Wood and Stone: Building a New World Identity in Pennsylvania

Cynthia G. Falk

10 / Germans in Colonial Philadelphia: Ethnicity, Hybridity, and the Material World

Lisa Minardi

List of Contributors

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

I.1A. First page of Franklins Plain Truth (Philadelphia, 1747). Courtesy of the Curtis Collection of Franklin Imprints, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.

I.1B. First page of Franklins Plain Truth (Philadelphia, 1747). Courtesy of the Curtis Collection of Franklin Imprints, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.

I.2. German translation, by J. Crell, of Franklins Plain Truth .

1.1. Bilingual title page of Die Hoch Teutsche und Englische Zeitung / The High Dutch and English Gazette , January 1, 1752. Photograph 2019 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

1.2. Anonymous letter printed in German only. Die Hoch Teutsche und Englische Zeitung / The High Dutch and English Gazette , January 1, 1752. Photograph 2019 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

1.3. Bilingual title page of William Smith, Eine Kurtze Nachricht Von der Liebreichen Anstalt / A Brief History of the Charitable Scheme (1755). The Library Company of Philadelphia.

1.4. Bilingual double page in William Smith, Eine Kurtze Nachricht Von der Liebreichen Anstalt / A Brief History of the Charitable Scheme (1755). The Library Company of Philadelphia.

3.1. Reise Charte durch Pennsylvanie und anderer angrnzenden Provinzen, travel map of Pennsylvania, northern Maryland, and New Jersey, ca. 1750. DP f.037.6, Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pa.

3.2. Taylors map of traders at the confluence with annotations.

3.3. Detail of travel map (fig. 3.1) annotated with dates of Moravian women missionaries service. DP f.037.6, Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pa.

3.4. Visualization of strength of connections between Moravian women missionaries at the Moravian missions in the mid-Atlantic states, 174775. Rendered by author in Gephi.

7.1. Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, PM95A, September 23, 1742. Lutheran Archives Center at Philadelphia.

7.2. Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, PM95A, February 1, 1775. Lutheran Archives Center at Philadelphia.

7.3. Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, PM95A, March 8, 1778. Lutheran Archives Center at Philadelphia.

9.1. David Deshler house, Germantown, Pa., 177274. Photo: Cynthia G. Falk.

9.2. John Wister house, now known as Grumblethorpe, Germantown, Pa., 1744. Photo: Cynthia G. Falk.

9.3. Augustus Lutheran Church, Trappe, Upper Providence Township, Montgomery County, Pa., 1743. Photo: Cynthia G. Falk.

9.4. Interior, August Lutheran Church, Trappe, Upper Providence Township, Montgomery County, Pa., 1743. Photo: Cynthia G. Falk.

9.5. Detail from To the Honourable Thomas Penn and Richard Penn, Esqrs., true & absolute proprietaries & Governours of the Province of Pennsylvania & counties of New-Castle, Kent & Sussex on Delaware this map of the improved part of the Province of Pennsylvania. / Is humbly dedicated by Nicholas Scull. Engraved by Ja. Turner. Printed by John Davis (Philadelphia: Nicholas Scull, 1759). Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, G3820 1759.S3.