The Moravian Springplace Mission to the Cherokees, Abridged Edition

The Moravian Springplace Mission to the Cherokees, Abridged Edition
Author: Rowena McClinton
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2010-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0803234392

In 1801 the Moravians, a Pietist German-speaking group from Central Europe, founded the Springplace Mission at a site in present-day northwestern Georgia. The Moravians remained among the Cherokees for more than thirty years, longer than any other Christian group. John and Anna Rosina Gambold served at the mission from 1805 until Anna's death in 1821. Anna, the principal author of the diaries, chronicles the intimate details of Cherokee daily life for seventeen years. Anna describes mission life and what she heard and saw at Springplace: food preparation and consumption, transactions pertaining to land, Cherokee body ornaments, conjuring, Cherokee law and punishment, Green Corn ceremonies, ball play, and matriarchal and marriage traditions. She similarly recounts stories she heard about rainmaking, the origins of the Cherokee people, and how she herself conversed with curious Cherokees about Christian images and fixtures. She also recalls earthquakes, conversions, notable visitors, annuity distributions, and illnesses. This abridged edition offers selected excerpts from the definitive edition of the Springplace diary, enabling significant themes and events of Cherokee culture and history to emerge. Anna's carefully recorded observations reveal the Cherokees' worldview and allow readers a glimpse into a time of change and upheaval for the tribe.

The Moravian Church in England, 1728-1760

The Moravian Church in England, 1728-1760
Author: Colin Podmore
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 358
Release: 1998
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780198207252

The effects of the great Evangelical Revival in 18th-century England were felt throughout the world, not least in America. Colin Podmore examines the role and importance of the Moravian Church in this process.

The Music of the Moravian Church in America

The Music of the Moravian Church in America
Author: Nola Reed Knouse
Publisher: University Rochester Press
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2008
Genre: Music
ISBN: 158046260X

The Moravians, or Bohemian Brethren, early Protestants who settled in Pennsylvania and North Carolina in the eighteenth century, brought a musical repertoire that included hymns, sacred vocal works accompanied by chamber orchestra, and instrumental music by the best-known European composers of the day. Moravian composers -- mostly pastors and teachers trained in the styles and genres of the Haydn-Mozart era -- crafted thousands of compositions for worship, and copied and collected thousands of instrumental works for recreation and instruction. The book's chapters examine sacred and secular works, both for instruments -- including piano solo -- and for voices. The Music of the Moravian Church demonstrates the varied roles that music played in one of America's most distinctive ethno-cultural populations, and presents many distinctive pieces that performers and audiences continue to find rewarding. Contributors: Alice M. Caldwell, C. Daniel Crews, Lou Carol Fix, Pauline M. Fox, Albert H. Frank, Nola Reed Knouse, Laurence Libin, Paul M. Peucker, and Jewel A. Smith. Nola Reed Knouse, director of the Moravian Music Foundation since 1994, is active as a flautist, composer, and arranger. She is the editor of The Collected Wind Music of David Moritz Michael.

The Transformation of Moravian Bethlehem

The Transformation of Moravian Bethlehem
Author: Beverly Prior Smaby
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2016-11-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1512807494

The Moravians who settled Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1742 were committed to a society centered around missionary work. To free their missionaries from the need to earn a living, they formed a communal economic organization in which all workers gave their labor to the community in exchange for food, shelter, and clothing. To encourage each individual's religious development, family ties were deemphasized and members of the same sex, marital status, and age slept, worked, and worshipped together. After 20 years, the worldwide Moravian Church, facing a financial crisis, ordered Bethlehem to reorganize into a traditional community of nuclear families. It was hoped that, under this more conventional arrangement, Bethlehem could be expected to help pay the huge debts of the parent church. In The Transformation of Moravian Bethlehem, Beverly Prior Smaby traces the effects of this change on Bethlehem's Moravians, demonstrating how it altered even the most intimate aspects of their lives. She analyzes the unusually accurate marriage, birth, death, migration, and census records to assess the demographic response to institutional change. She traces change in cultural norms through unique technical analyses of biographies which were read at a variety of Moravian gatherings. Within 100 years, Smaby asserts, Bethlehem grew from an egalitarian communal society of symbolic Brothers and Sisters into a privatized community of socially stratified families whose cultural ideal was no longer religious service but usefulness to family and society. Scholars of American history and folk life will find this book a valuable addition to literature on community history, social change, and historical methods. Church historians will benefit from its in-depth study of secularization on a personal level, and it will be of keen interest to members of the Moravian Church.

General James Oglethorpe: From Georgia to Cranham Hall

General James Oglethorpe: From Georgia to Cranham Hall
Author: John Phillips
Publisher: Ambassador International
Total Pages: 106
Release: 2023-04-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1649603576

James Oglethorpe was a British aristocrat and philanthropist in the eighteenth century who pioneered prison reform in the United Kingdom before founding the state of Georgia as a classless society for poor people from England. He planned the town of Savannah as well as established a deep friendship with Native Americans. Oglethorpe refused to allow slavery in Georgia, despite strong opposition, and successfully defended Georgia from an attack by the Spanish in Florida. On his return to the UK, Oglethorpe became the senior general in the British army and supported the campaign to abolish slavery in the British Empire. General James Oglethorpe: From Georgia to Cranham Hall highlights Oglethorpe’s outstanding achievements, acknowledges some of his significant shortcomings, and offers reflection on his legacy both in Georgia and in the UK.