To the Latest Posterity
Pennsylvania-German Family Registers in the Fraktur Tradition
213 pages | 37 color/30 b&w illustrations | 7 x 10 | 2004
ISBN 978-0-271-02368-7 | cloth: $53.00 sh
Paperback edition is not available
Pennsylvania German History and Culture Series Co-published with Pennsylvania German Society
The family register holds a distinctive place in American visual culture. Used to record marriages and offspring within a family through several generations, the family register also incorporates hand-illuminated decorative art. To the Latest Posterity is the first major study to explore the colorful world of Pennsylvania German family registers and their place in American social, religious, and cultural traditions.
Renowned authorities on fraktur, Russell and Corinne Earnest trace the evolution of decorative family registers from their roots in medieval European illuminated manuscripts to their distinctly American forms that spread through Pennsylvania German culture. The form had a special association with persecuted Mennonites, who used the decorative documents to claim roots in their new home. The documents came to represent the separation from the Old World and the creation of family roots in the New.
To the Latest Posterity is filled with examples of family registers from museums and private collections, including early handmade work as well as printed registers that were hand-filled in the nineteenth century. Bringing the art to the twentieth century, the Earnests discuss the adoption of the art by Amish, who continue the practice of illuminated family record-keeping today. Pennsylvania German History and Culture Series.
Corinne and Russell Earnest have studied fraktur for over thirty years, and have recorded the geneaology infill from more than 25, fraktur. They have published nineteen books about geneaology and fraktur, including German-American Family Records in the Fraktur Tradition, Three Volumes (1991–1993), The Geneaologist’s Guide to Fraktur: For Geneaologists Researching German-American Families, with Beverly Repass Hoch (1991), and Fraktur: Folk Art and Family (1999).
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Prologue
1 Perspectives on Family Registers
2 Pennsylvania-German Family Registers and the Fraktur Tradition
3 Comparisons of Pennsylvania-German and New England Family Registers
4 Texts on Pennsylvania-German Family Registers
5 Forms of Pennsylvania-German Family Registers
Preprinted Broadside-type Family Registers with Printed Infill
Freehand Broadside-type Family Registers
Preprinted Broadside-type Family Registers with Added, Handwritten Infill
Preprinted Family Registers Bound into Bibles
Freehand Family Registers Written on Blank Pages of Bibles
Freehand Family Registers in Booklet Form
Epilogue
Appendixes
Notes
Selected References
Index