Ursinus College Digital Commons @ Ursinus College Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine Pennsylvania Folklife Society Collection Winter 1992 Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 41, No. 2 Nancy Kettering Frye William B. Fetterman Annette Lockwood Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/pafolklifemag Part of the American Art and Architecture Commons, American Material Culture Commons, Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, Cultural History Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, Fiber, Textile, and Weaving Arts Commons, Folklore Commons, Genealogy Commons, German Language and Literature Commons, Historic Preservation and Conservation Commons, History of Religion Commons, Linguistics Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits oy u. Recommended Citation Frye, Nancy Kettering; Fetterman, William B.; and Lockwood, Annette, "Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 41, No. 2" (1992). Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine. 134. https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/pafolklifemag/134 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Pennsylvania Folklife Society Collection at Digital Commons @ Ursinus College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pennsylvania Folklife Magazine by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Ursinus College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Winter 1991-92 6:ontrilJutor~ WlLLlAM FETIERMAN, of Allentown, has studied Pennsylvania German arts, literature, and folk theater for several years; he recently directed the premiere production of Clarence Iobst's last play Schtarrkepp ( Stubborn­ heads, ca. 19 ~ 1-42) for the Pennsylvania German Society. Currently in the final stages of completing his doctoral dissertation at New York University, he is also working on an anthology-with translations-of Pennsylvania German plays for the Pennsylvania German Society. This article on Paul Wieand is one of a series of on-going essays, many of which have appeared in previous issues of Pennsylvania Folklife. NANCY KETIERING FRYE was raised on a Lebanon County farm in a three-generational Brethren household. A 1960 graduate of Harrisburg Hospital School of Nursing, she earned her bachelor of science in nursing from Lebanon Valley College in 1980. She then added an English major, becoming a free-lance writer J or The Daily News, Lebanon, Pa., as well as for the Brethren monthly periodical Messenger, published by the Church of the Brethren in Elgin, Illinois. Her work has also been published by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, appearing in The Word in Season, The Home Altar, Lutheran Women Today, and Light for Today. In 1991, she earned her master of arts in American Studies from The Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg, receiving the Joel Sater Award for Excellence in the Humanities. ANNETIE LOCKWOOD grew up in Lancaster County amid Amish culture and tourism. A graduate of Lycoming College, Williamsport, she began a career in advertising copywriting in Spokane, Washington. Returning to Pennsylvania, she continued copywriting and has also published articles in regional and national publications. EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: Thomas E. Gallagher, Jr. Richard P. Richter Evan S. Snyder MANAGIN G EDITOR: Nancy K. Gaugler EDITORIAL ADVISORS: Mac E. Barrick Donald B. Kraybill WINTER 1991-92, VOL. 41, NO. 2 Si mon J. Bronner Hilda Adam Kring Mrs. Arthur D. Graeff Monica Mutzbauer Earl C. Haag Paul R. Wieand Terry G. Jordan Don Yoder CONTENTS S UBSCRIPTIONS: Nancy K. Gaugler FOLK FESTIVAL DIRECTORS: 50 The Meetinghouse Connection: Mark R. Eaby Jr. Plain Living in the Gilded Age Thelia Jean Eaby NANCY KETTERING FRYE FOLK FESTIVAL PUBLIC R ELATIONS : Gail M. Hartmann P ENNSYLVANIA FOLKLIFE, 83 Paul Wieand's Contributions to Winter 1991-92, Vol. 41, No.2, Pennsylvania German Folk Theater published three times a year by WILLIAM FETTERMAN Pennsylvania Folklife Society, Inc., P.O. Box 92, Collegeville, Pa. 19426. $4.00 for single copies, 95 Amish Cottage Industries Autumn, Winter & Spring. Yearly ANNETTE LOCKWOOD subscription $10.00. Back issues (v. 21 -39), $4.00 each; other prices on request. Aides un Neis (Old and New) MSS AND PHOTOGRAPHS: (Inside back cover) The Editor will be glad to consider MSS and photographs sent with a view to publication. When un­ suitable, and if accompanied by CONTRIBUTORS return postage, care will be taken (Inside front cover) for their return, although no re­ sponsibility for their safety is assumed. Editorial correspondence: COVER: Nancy K. Gaugler P.O. Box 92, These Brethren meetinghouses stand today "as silent Collegeville, Pennsylvania 19426 but eloquent expressions of the paradoxical Brethren Subscription, business correspondence : concept of plain living in an era of extravagance; P.O. Box 92, they are tangible signs of intangible values." COllegeville, Pennsylvania 19426 Folk Festi val correspondence: 461 Vine Lane Layout and Special Photography Kutztown, Pennsylvania 19530 WILLIAM K. MUNRO Phone 215-683-8707 800-447-9269 Folk Festival public relations: Hartmann Associates 461 Vine Lane Ku tztown, Pennsylvania 19530 Phone 215-683-531 3 Copyright 1992 Entered as thi rd class matler at Coll egevi ll e. Pa . ISSN 0031-4498 THE MEETINGHOUSE CONNECTION: PLAIN LMNG IN THE GILDED AGE by Nancy Kettering Frye INTRODUCTION observed, "every true culture group suffers from . As the battle-scarred American republic lurched toward extern al conflicts with the imposing culture,"4 these late the centennial of its birth, money was God and the chief nin eteenth -century Brethren must have felt squeezed indeed aim of most Americans was to get rich quick. It was an by hegemonic pressures. And, adding to th ose pressures age of hardness and glitter; of gluttony and glory; of pomp was th eir doctrine of submissivene s, which seemed to and panic. make them especially vulnerable to the encroachm ents of Author Mark Twain-its voice and sometimes con­ acculturation. science--one day looked deeply into hi s own mirror, The Brethren fellowship, then, in almost every aspect recogni zed his uneasy reflecti on as represent ative of his opposed to the rising tendencies of this Gilded Age, was time and place, and called it like he saw it: The Gilded clearly a cultural group under attack. How were they to Age.! respond to that attack from without, considering they had Iro nically, while members of mainstream American been honed by centuries of conditioning to be almost society were experiencing an artificial Gilded Age, mem­ incredibly submissive and deliberately pacific in thought, bers of a small American religious sect were enjoying word, and deed? How were they to communicate with one something of a genuine Golden Age. These German Baptist another; clarify their position relative to the rest of American Brethren comprised one of the few religious groups to society; enclose their group within firmly established escape th e devisive impact of the Civil War. In fact, their boundaries? Answers would be found in Brethren publi­ numbers were growing, and there had never been a better cations,S in plain dress and other personal expressions of time to be Brethren. Members lived plainly, dressed plainly, plain Iiving,6 and-in an age of Gothic revival in American and worshiped plainly. They worked hard, striving to be ecclesiastical architecture--in the practical simplicity of the honest, humble, and lovi ng in all relationships. They refused meetinghouse, within whose walls Gilded-Age Brethren to fight , to take oath s, or to run for political office. Most would enclose themselves. were prospering, down-to-earth farmers or indepe~nt, Today these meetinghouses stand as silent but eloquent rural craftspersons. They might easily have yielded to expressions of the paradoxical Brethren concept of plain countless worldly temptations, yet they managed to live living in an era of extravagance; they are tangible signs pl ainly in an age of excess. of intangible values. Clearly designed specifically to fit Although in some ways the Gilded Age seems long ago, Brethren practice, a unique, hand-in-glove aspect marks in oth er ways it seems closely connected to modern these practical folk structures built of local materials by America. 2 For during this postwar period of financial panic, the people who used them. Here was purpose; here was political intrigues, growing industrialization, and increas­ plan; no walls were raised without a reason. From bench ingly restl ess li vi ng, Americans seem to have begun many design to door placement, every visible detail signified changes still in progress: for example, the census of 1870 something unseen. was th e last to register agricultural workers as a majority; The purpose of this study, in which eight Brethren meet­ steel and steam power and electricity brought significant inghouses and their sites are examined in great detail, is ch anges in both the landscape and values of the country;3 to gain a better understanding of the pattern beneath the industria lizati on began to separate work from thought; surface--to connect these visible architectural examples of individual self-interest began to separate the younger American material culture with the invisible spiritual and generation from the older; and cross-country rail transpor­ intellectual forces that shaped and maintained them. And, tati on made it easier to relocate. That old-time sense of mindful of the late Winston Churchill's astute observation mutual obligati on heretofore considered normal, indeed that "we shape our buildings,