Hermann Wellenreuther. Citizens in a Strange Land

What do the execution of runaway slave Elizabeth Moore, the popular hymn “Wo ist Jesus mein Verlangen,” and Conrad Weiser's 1741 appeal to Pennsylvania Germans to defend their liberties in the face of war have in common? They all feature in the German-language broadsides that are analyzed in remarkable detail by Hermann Wellenreuther in his magisterial study Citizens in a Strange Land. Wellenreuther's book groups the far-flung concerns of this oft-neglected mode of publication into three areas—secular, religious, and political broadsides—with sixteen accompanying color plates and thirty-seven black-and-white figures, as well as a spread of tables and graphs. The book represents the culmination of a research project at the University of Göttingen from 2000 to 2007, which involved meticulous research conducted at archives in Germany and North America and the subsequent assembly of 1,682 different broadsides printed in the mid-Atlantic from 1730 to 1830. Beyond this archival and bibliographic feat, the Göttingen project and Wellenreuther's resulting study accomplish several major achievements. Citizens in a Strange Land takes an analytical approach that goes beyond the more descriptive scholarly treatments of Pennsylvania German broadsides that have previously been published; it thus creates a deeper understanding of the connection between the needs and interests of the readership and the writers, artists, and printers who produced these fleeting publications. Indeed, Wellenreuther paints a remarkably textured picture of the ideals, concerns, and daily lives of Pennsylvania German settlers. With its rich readings, lavish illustrations, and nuanced positioning of these broadsides in the Atlantic world, the book makes German-American culture relevant to American scholars, who have long relegated it to the exclusive métier of folklorists.

Appeal · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Audience measurement · Broadside · German · Hymn · Irish · Literature · Meaning (existential) · Political science · Politics · Praise · White (mutation) · Classics · Historical Influence and Diplomacy · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy