This is an American Studies project which explores the Pennsylvania German folk art encorporated into barns and gravestones in York and Adams Counties. We are approaching this project from an observational standpoint so that you will be able to draw your own conclusions.
The History of the Pennsylvania Germans began in Europe in the late seventeenth century. During that time, the German religious groups were going through great persecution by the Roman Catholic Church. They were persecuted because of the radical nature of their beliefs at that time. The first German immigrants came to America from the Rhinelands because of the religious tolerance that America offered. They arrived by ship in 1683 and the immigration trend continued until the American Revolution at which point they comprised one third of Pennsylvania's population.
They began to settle in Germantown, a suburb of Philadelphia and then branched into the surrounding areas of Lancaster, Berks, North Hampton, Lehigh, and York counties. The Germans were attracted to the fertile land of south central Pennsylvania because a majority of them were farmers and craftsman. Agriculture was their major industry until the society became well established. Once they developed a comfortable lifestyle they began to decorate their material culture ;especially barns and gravestones. Because the Pennsylvania Germans had such strong cultural influences, they did not fully integrate into the American society until the early Twentieth Century.
© 1997
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