Jews and Unitarians Reform Faith and Architecture In
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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School School of Humanities BUILDING LIBERAL RELIGION: JEWS AND UNITARIANS REFORM FAITH AND ARCHITECTURE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY PHILADELPHIA A Dissertation in American Studies by Matthew F. Singer © 2016 Matthew F. Singer Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2016 The dissertation of Matthew F. Singer was reviewed and approved* by the following: Simon J. Bronner Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Folklore Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee Gregory A. Crawford Interim Director of the School of Humanities John Haddad Professor of American Studies and Popular Culture Anne A. Verplanck Associate Professor of American Studies and Heritage Studies Simon J. Bronner Director, American Studies Doctoral Program *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School ii ABSTRACT “Building Liberal Religion: Jews and Unitarians Reform Faith and Architecture in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia” fuses family, social, intellectual, and religious histories with material culture analysis to document, interpret, and explore the achievements of the ecumenical network that developed between Victorian Philadelphia’s community of Americanizing and liberalizing Jews and Unitarians. The locus of this network was the relationship that developed between the Reverend William Henry Furness (1802–1896) of the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia and the progressive Rabbi Marcus Jastrow (1829–1903) of Congregation Rodeph Shalom soon after the rabbi’s arrival in Philadelphia in 1866. This network expanded and continued for some sixty years among the clerics’ families, congregations, colleagues, and friends. Through his singular talents, vision, and the prolificness, the Reverend’s son Frank Furness (1802–1896) translated the reformist theological, philosophical, social, and aesthetic sensibilities that shaped the ministry of his father and the rabbinate of Marcus Jastrow into ecclesiastical, cultural, educational, commercial, and domestic structures and their furnishings. In doing so, the junior Furness—with the initial support of his father and Rabbi Jastrow and continuing with the patronage of their cohort of reform-minded individuals—created a built landscape in Philadelphia that stood as evidence of strong links connecting religious and social reform with aesthetic change. By analyzing its most significant structures, I place this “reformed” built landscape in the context of the nationally and internationally emerging ideological, iii theological, aesthetic, and social concepts and concerns that inspired its creation. Many, but alas not all, of the buildings that composed the “reformed” built landscape of late- nineteenth-century Philadelphia still stand. Numerous works of scholarship and literature produced by the Reverend Furness, Rabbi Jastrow, their accomplished children, and others in their circle may be found on library bookshelves. They are with us, but have not been considered as the cohesive expression of a collective reformist and ecumenical spirit. This dissertation seeks both to address this oversight and discuss its relevance to contemporary life in the United States. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………vii Preface……………………………………………………………………………………..x Purpose and Method……………………………………………………………...xi Theory……………………………………………………………………………xv Overview………………………………………………………………………xxvi Argument and Inspiration………….………………………………………....xxviii Acknowledgements……………………..………………………………........xxxiii Chapter 1. FAITH IN FORM: BACKGROUND AND SCHOLARSHIP FOR THE FURNESS AND JASTROW FAMILIES AND THE SHAPING OF LIBERAL FAITH IN PHILADELPHIA………………………………………..1 Sources and Scholarship…………………………………………………………16 Organization……………………………………………………………………...26 Chapter 2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIBERAL RELIGION AND ECUMENACULISM IN PHILADELPHIA: FINDING FERTILE GROUND IN PENN’S “GREENE COUNTRIE TOWNE”………………………………...30 Jewish Advocates of Americanization and Modernity: Rebecca Gratz and Isaac Leeser………………………………………………………………………35 Quakers Established, Unitarians and Universalists Emergent…………………...45 Abolitionism in Philadelphia: The Legacy of Quakers and Unitarians………….57 Chapter 3.THE REVEREND WILLIAM HENRY FURNESS: TRANSCENDENTALIST UNITARIAN MINISTER, ABOLITIONIST, AND ARTS ADVOCATE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY PHILADELPHIA...61 Furness, Compelled by Faith to Advocate for Abolitionism…………………….72 Seeing and Seeking the Spiritual in Art and Architecture……………………….76 Chapter 4. CHOSEN WORDS: WILLIAM HENRY FURNESS, MARCUS JASTROW, AND THE LANGUAGE OF RACE, NATION, AND RELIGION………………………………………………………………...82 Chapter 5: BECOMING FRANK FURNESS………………………………………….107 Emerson, Ruskin, and the Development of the “Furnessque”………………….120 Chapter 6. THE MOORISH-GOTHIC-TRANSCENDENTALIST SYNAGOGUE: CONGREGATION RODEPH SHALOM……………………………………...131 Furniture Designed by Frank Furness for Rodeph Shalom…………………….147 Beyond the Synagogue: “Moorish” Forms in Other Furness Commissions……157 Chapter 7. BUILDING LIBERAL RELIGION: FRANK FURNESS’ COMMISSIONS FOR UNITARIANS, JEWS, AND “THE TEMPLE OF THE FINE ARTS” ……………………………………………………………..168 v An English, Gothic Parish Church in Philadelphia: The Unitarian Society of Germantown………………………………………………………………169 The “Temple of Art”: The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts…………...175 The Pre-Raphaelite Meeting House: First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia….189 A Moorish Bungalow for Eternal Rest: Mount Sinai Cemetery………………..205 Chapter 8. TO BE ETHICAL, CULTURE, CONTEMPORARY…AND GENTEEL: THE FURNESS-JASTROW CIRCLE AND THE SEARCH FOR SPIRITUAL, SOCIAL, EDUCATIONAL, AND ARTISTIC MEANING……213 Morris Jastrow, Horace Howard Furness, and the “Furness-Mitchell Coterie”……………………………………………………..216 Exemplar and Enigma: Morris Jastrow’s Evolution from Religious Leader to Scholar of Religion…………………………………………………..221 The Ethical Culture Society of Philadelphia……………………………………230 Horace Traubel and The Conservator…………………………………………..238 The Contemporary Club………………………………………………………..243 Chapter 9. CONCLUSION AND EPILOGUE…………………………………………247 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………269 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Congregation Rodeph Shalom, 1868–1871, Frank Furness (period print)..........2 Figure 2: Frank Furness, ca. 1880 (photograph)…………………………………………..5 Figure 3: Rabbi Marcus Jastrow, ca. 1880 (photograph)………………………………...10 Figure 4: The Reverend William Henry Furness, Sr., 1861, John Sartain after William Henry Furness, Jr. (etching)……………………………………………12 Figure 5: Rebecca Gratz, 1831, Thomas Sully (painting)……………………………….37 Figure 6: Isaac Leeser as a Young Preacher, Solomon N. Carvalo, c. 1840, (painting)..38 Figure 7: First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, 1828, William Strickland (engraving)………………………………………………….41 Figure 8: Congregation Mikveh Israel, 1825, William Strickland………………………41 Figure 9: Joseph Priestley, 1801, Rembrandt Peale (painting)….………………………49 Figure 10: First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, 1813, Robert Mills…………………55 Figure 11: St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice, built 1084–1117 (photograph c. 1895)…….…128 Figure 12: Unitarian Church of All Souls, New York, 1855, Jacob Wrey Mould……..128 Figure 13: National Academy of Design, New York, 1863–1865, Peter Bonnet Wight……………………………………………………………..129 Figure 14: Temple Emanu-El, New York, 1868, Leopold Eidlitz……………………...129 Figure 15: The Church of the Holy Trinity, 1856–1859, John Notman; tower 1868, John Fraser ……………………………………………………………………..133 Figure 16: Congregation Rodeph Shalom (Rodeph Shalom), exterior (period photograph)…………………………………………………………….133 Figure 17: Rodeph Shalom, sanctuary (period photograph)……………………………139 Figure 18: Church of the Holy Trinity, seating plan……………………………………139 Figure 19: Rodeph Shalom, chancel (bimah) (period photograph)…………….............141 Figure 20: Oranienburgerstrasse Synagogue, Berlin, 1866, Eduard Knoblauch….……145 Figure 21: Oranienburgerstrasse Synagogue, sanctuary………………………………..146 Figure 22: Congregation Rodeph Shalom, Ner Tamid (Eternal Light), 1868–1871, Frank Furness…………………………………………………………………...149 Figure 23: Rodeph Shalom, Frank Furness-designed furniture in chapel of current temple…………………………………………………………………..149 Figure 24: Rodeph Shalom, pulpit, Frank Furness, 1868–1871………………..............150 Figure 25: Rodeph Shalom, pulpit (detail)……………………………………………..152 Figure 26: Rodeph Shalom, reader’s desk, Frank Furness, 1868–1871………………..153 Figure 27: Congregation Rodeph Shalom, chair, Frank Furness, 1868–1871……….…154 Figure 28: Anthemion, or palmette, designs (illustration from A Handbook of Ornament by Franz Meyer, 1898)……………………………………………...155 Figure 29: Chair for Horace Howard Furness library, Frank Furness, ca. 1870………..157 Figure 30: Horace Howard Furness library, Frank Furness, 1870–1871 (period photograph)…………………………………………………………….159 Figure 31: Desk for Horace Howard Furness, Frank Furness, ca. 1870–1871…………159 Figure 32: Henry Gibson house, library, c. 1880, Frank Furness (1883 photograph)….161 vii Figure 33: Restaurant at the Philadelphia Zoological Gardens, 1875–1876, Frank Furness…………………………………………………………………...162 Figure 34: Brazilian Pavilion, Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, 1876, Frank Furness…………………………………………………………………...163 Figure 35: Desk and chair for Social Arts Club, Philadelphia, 1878, Frank Furness…………………………………………………………………...165 Figure 36: The Unitarian Society of Germantown, Philadelphia, 1866–1867, Frank Furness…………………………………………………………………...169 Figure 37: Church of Saint James the Less, Philadelphia, 1846–1850, John E. Carver after drawings by George