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“Charles van Ravenswaay’s
massive volume is the landmark result of a unique pilot study of
nineteenth century German culture in eight Lower Missouri Valley
counties. . . . Van Ravenswaay combines the nostalgic appreciation of a
native son with the critical perspective of the professional historian.
. . . More than six hundred carefully identified photographs and
drawings, including twenty color plates, and four hundred pages of
analytical text represent this contribution. Log, frame, stone, and
brick construction with the designers and builders are discussed in
minute detail. Forty percent of the book is devoted to craftsmen and
their furniture, musical instruments, wood and stone carving,
stonecutting, baskets, firearms, tin and copperware, textiles, pottery,
drawings, prints, paintings, and trades. Such comprehensive treatment
marks the beginning of a welcome new era in ethnic histories.”—American
Historical Review
“Charles van Ravenswaay has
produced a prodigious survey and chronicle, profusely illustrated and
attractively printed, which must be rated as one of the great statements
on the Germans in America. . . . For Missouriana buffs and every serious
student of American cultural history The Arts and Architecture of
German Settlements in Missouri commends itself as required reading,
and for Germanophiles of every stripe, the book is a genuine joy.”—Journal
of American History
“By the time the reader
comes to the end of this massive study, two conclusions will almost
inevitably have been reached. First, it is one of the most important
volumes ever published on the history of Missouri and, secondly, the
research it entailed could not be duplicated in the present or the
future. . . . It would be idle to attempt to survey all of the subjects
which are treated by van Ravenswaay. Nothing of any importance seems to
have escaped his attention in his extensive travels through the state,
his diligent research into every conceivable form of written record, and
his conversations with a host of people.”—Missouri Historical Society
Bulletin
“This copious
and richly illustrated survey of the German influence on the arts and
crafts of the lower Missouri River Valley is a tribute to ‘a vanishing
culture.’. . . The author’s meticulous attention to every form of
cultural artifact, whether glassware or musical instrument or wooden
bench, is a tribute to his sensitivity to an immigrant group attempting
to defy the consequences of acculturation.”
—South Atlantic Quarterly
Many Germans who
immigrated to America in the nineteenth century settled in the lower
Missouri River valley between St. Charles and Boonville, Missouri. In
this magnificent book, which includes some six hundred photographs and
drawings, Charles van Ravenswaay examines that immigration—who came,
how, and why—and surveys the distinctive Missouri-German architecture,
art, and crafts produced in the towns or on the farms of the rural
counties of Cooper, Cole, Osage, Gasconade, Franklin, Montgomery,
Warren, and St. Charles from the 1830s until the closing years of the
century.
As the
immigrants sought to transplant their native culture to the Missouri
backwoods, the compromises they were forced to make with conditions in
Missouri produced many fascinating and individualistic structures and
objects. They built half-timbered, stone, and brick houses and barns
with designs reflecting the traditions of the many German regions from
which the builders emigrated. The author’s far-reaching study of
immigrants’ arts and crafts included furniture in traditional peasant
designs as well as the Biedermeier and eclectic styles, redware and
stoneware pottery, textiles, wood and stone carving, metalwares,
firearms, baskets, musical instruments, prints, and paintings and
identifies craftsmen working in all of these fields. One chapter is
devoted to the objects the immigrants brought with them from the Old
World.
Added to this
new printing of The Arts and Architecture of German Settlements in
Missouri is a touching and informative introduction by Adolf E.
Schroeder. Schroeder’s long friendship with Charles van Ravenswaay
allows him to reflect on the vast contributions this author made to our
knowledge of Missouri’s German culture. Everyone interested in
architecture, crafts, or Missouriana will find this book indispensable
as they savor van Ravenswaay’s excellent presentation of the craftsmen
and their products against the background of the aspirations and
folkways of a distinctive culture.
Charles van
Ravenswaay (1911–1990), a native of Boonville, Missouri, was Director
Emeritus of The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum and a former
director of the Missouri Historical Society. In preparation for this
book, he spent forty years interviewing craftsmen, studying and
photographing their work, and examining documentary materials.
Photo by Adolf E.
Schroeder
Adolf E.
Schroeder is Professor Emeritus of Germanic Studies at the University of
Missouri–Columbia. He has written extensively on the immigrant
experience in America and on nineteenth-century German literature.
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More Praise for
The Art and Architecture of German Settlements in
Missouri
The Arts and
Architecture of German Settlements in Missouri
“is a sumptuously
printed and illustrated volume.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“The
author meticulously examines the history of the settlement of what
became enclaves of German-American culture, paying particular attention
to how the culture was manifested in buildings and objects. The result
is a beautiful source book of information concerning people who carved
out a life for themselves in the New World, becoming the dominant
cultural group in many sections within two generations. Its works and
pictures preserve in one authentic source numerous fascinating details
of a way of life that is quickly passing from the scene.”—Conservationist
“A product
of over four decades of the author’s life, this voluminous work is
indeed the survey of a vanishing culture. Van Ravenswaay has preserved
the fast-disappearing remains of the substantial non-English population
of the lower Missouri. . . . Although not directly oriented toward the
history of technology, the underlying theme of this study is the
inevitable disappearance of hand craftsmanship in the face of the
economics of mass production.”
—Technology and Culture
“[Charles
van Ravenswaay] has drawn upon forty years of study and collecting to
produce this extraordinary book on German immigrant arts and
architecture. Limiting his study to the Missouri River Valley between
Saint Charles and Boonville, a region that received a heavy immigration
from various German states beginning in the 1830s, van Ravenswaay
examines in detail the remains of what was once a flourishing and
distinctive culture. . . . [This] book will be a revelation to
historians interested in ethnicity, few of whom have acquired the
knowledge and skill to interpret the kinds of evidence upon which this
book rests.”
—Western Historical Quarterly
“The
product of the very best traditions of American printing and
manufacture, this splendid record of and tribute to a vanishing culture
is a delight both to handle and to read. Charles van Ravenswaay’s
detailed and meticulous study of the arts and architecture of German
immigrants who settled in the Lower Missouri valley in the nineteenth
century includes some six hundred excellent photographs and
line-drawings which combine with a fascinating and most readable text to
give a full-bodied evocation of a unique culture. . . . [This books is]
of inestimable value to all who respond to a heartfelt and comprehensive
description of a unique way of life which is an important part of the
mosaic of the traditional heritage of America.”—Lore and Language
“This
monumental and handsome survey features voluminous photographs (b&w and
color) and descriptions of the Missouri-German contributions. . . . The
German-American culture developed here and its expression in design and
craftsmanship is abundantly imparted to the reader. While regional in
its scope, it is a reference study that should remain a model for other
studies of folkways and native arts of a distinctive culture. Its
importance to scholars in the fields of art, architecture, crafts,
ethnic studies and material culture is without limits. Everything about
this book is elegant: its design, its craft, and the vast information it
imparts.”—Come-All-Ye
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