Pennsylvania Germans An Interpretative Encyclopedia Edited by
Pennsylvania Germans are profoundly known for their unicity and this encyclopedia wants to put together all the most important facts of this ethnic and sunny group.
Pennsylvanian Germans once arrived in the South of the State centuries ago decided also for historical reasons of staying all together.
No dispersion, no research of other stories if not the own created and lived in their internal social tissue; not the research of the unknwon now that they were in the new world.
This behavior, under many ways pretty radical and distant meant the preservation of their language, not intacted by english; the creation of their American dreams have been a chant with their personal faith (see at the voice Amish); Pennsylvania Germans created in the rural areas occupied by them big and warm houses thanks to exceptional stoves; they had oversized barns, a rural life pretty rich of animals, veggies, every sorta of fruit you can think at; often these rural houses had also extra buildings; great and robust food the German one, ladies researched from the beginning their own unicity in the expression and the creation of warm objects for the house. The biggest symbol of their domestic work during the long winter-nights are quilts. Less or more elaborated, they became the flag of the warmth of Pennsylvanian Germans although it would be reductive writing that these women just created and create quilts.
Men are great wooden-workers, leather workers, (and not only: name a creative activity where the use of hands is implied and I am sure it's in this book) but also great clockmasters.
People of strong opinion, only during the XX century a part of them tried an assimilation thanks to the education, with the common culture.
For the rest, Pennsylvania Germans are an ethnic group pretty strong in terms of opinions and personal beliefs and nothing, nothing, changed a destiny that they wanted to preserve; they didn't experience the intrusion of other communities from the rest of the world afforded to the Usa; they didn't search for these intruders. They stayed compact, all together, and they created their own world in the new world.
This book, accompanied by a lot of pictures is divided in two parts.
In the first one the story of the Pennsylvania Germans, the second part is dedicated to culture and society.
So you will find literature close with religion; a chapter is dedicated to the Amish; Agriculture and industries, Food and Cooking, Medicine, Floklore and Folklife, and much more.
Who should read this book? Everyone, because it is written with extreme clarity.
If you are in love for Amish or other Germans minority of the USA, this one could be the good occasion for discovering much more in terms of history and curious anecdots.
I thank Johns Hopkins University Press for the physical copy of this book.
Anna Maria Polidori
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