Looking to the Future—Preserving the Past
or several issues the articles in this
space have formed a series devoted to
German-American business and organizations
in Baltimore and Maryland. That
series will continue in Report 45. For now it
seems fitting to inaugurate a new tradition
to mark the beginning of the millenium. In a
preface to the First Annual Report of the
Society, the editors—presumably the
Executive Committee of the Society—
express their concern about the scarcity and
possible disappearance of materials on the
German presence in America, specifically
Maryland. Their hope in establishing the
Society and issuing an annual report was to
preserve as many documents of relevance to
the history of German immigrants to Maryland
as they could. Moreover, they were
determined to make those items available in
English so as to increase the likelihood that
the information would in fact be available to
those individuals among the American populace
who were interested in such things but
could not read German. Unfortunately, the
plan to issue an annual report lasted only
slightly more than twenty years, and today
early issues of the Report are almost as rare
as the materials it sought to preserve. Even
the Society itself has only one complete set
of all volumes.
As the new century dawns, then, it
seems appropriate to once again make available
rare materials on the history of the
German element in Maryland by reprinting
articles from the first two decades of the
Society's existence. Henceforth each new
volume of the Report will reproduce at least
one article from the early issues. In this case
I have chosen an article by Basil Sollers on
the Jonathan Hagar of Hagerstown which
provides an interesting counterpart to Gary
Grassl's new contribution on the same subject.
I'm certain that you will enjoy reading
and comparing both articles and hope that
you look forward, as I do, to a continuing
series of reprints to complement the existing
series of German-American businesses and
organizations in Baltimore and Maryland.
In addition to reprinting the Sollers'
article I am presenting here some exciting
news on the preservation of German-
American materials. In renovating and
restoring its library space as well as conserving
and cataloguing its most valuable
books, the German Society of Pennsylvania,
in cooperation with the University of
Pennsylvania, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of the Federal Republic, and a number
of other sponsors, has once again made
available an unparalled collection of
German Americana in a splendid historic
setting. The pages which follow here immediately
detail the fascinating story of the
conversation and renewal of the Joseph
Horner Library and its remarkable collection.
Many thanks to Professor Frank
Trommler of the University of Pennsylvania
for his assistance in supplying the material
which provided the background for the following
article.
F
Future and Past_________________
Von alten Drucken und Schriften, die uns treue Kunde brächten vom Schaffen und
Wirken des deutschen Elements in der Jugendzeit seines Adoptivlandes, bleiben uns
verhältnissmässig
nur kärgliche Reste. Der Anglo-Amerikanische Geschichtsforscher, nicht immer der
deutschen Sprache mächtig, wusste nicht was sie zu bedeuten hatten, und wurdigte sie
zumeist keiner Bekanntmachung. Nachlässigkeit und Apathie mancher Nachkommen der
deutschen Einwanderer thaten das Uebrige, und so sind uns diese, für das Studium der
Geschichte der Vereinigten Staaten so wertvollen Dokumente zum grössten Teil wohl auf
immer rettungslos verloren. Was uns noch in Maryland erhalten ist, sammeln wir jetzt für
den Gebrauch seines künftigen Historikers, der vielleicht des Deutschen unkundig, unsere
Verhandlungen und viele Beiträge von Deutsch-Amerikanern, in englischer Sprache geführt
und geschrieben, vorfinden wird. Ohne Zweifel wird er dann etwas mehr Kenntniss nehmen
von einem bedeutenden Teile seiner Mitbürge, der fast auf allen Gebieten so grossartiges
seinem Adoptivlande dargebracht, und folglich auf historische Würdigung gerechten Anspruch
hat.
reproduced verbatim from the inside cover of:
And, in the spirit of the text itself, a loose translation into English
Relative little remains of the old volumes and documents which could relate to us the
true story of the contribution of the German element to the early development of its adoptive
homeland. Anglo-American historians were not always trained in German. As a consequence,
they had little appreciation for the value of the old documents and rarely took notice
of them in their research. Apathy and ignorance on the part of the descendents of early
German immigrants did the rest until today the majority of those documents which might
have proven so valuable in the study of the history of the United States are likely lost to us
forever. We are now collecting what is left in Maryland for the use of future historians who,
although they might not know German, will find records of our meetings and the individual
contributions of German-Americans carried out and written up in English. Doubtless those
future historians will then take somewhat more notice of that significant portion of their fel-
low citizens who have made magnificent contributions to their adoptive homeland in almost
every field of endeavor and as a result have a right to expect historical evaluation of their
accomplishments.
—2—
The Joseph Horner Library
of the
German Society of Pennsylvania
The German Society of Pennsylvania,
founded in 1764, is the oldest German
organization in America. Like so many of
its sister organizations, the Society initially
sought to protect German immigrants from
unscrupulous shipping agents and to ease
the burden which all immigrants felt in settling
into a new country. As the initial trials
of accommodation to the new environment
passed, many immigrant organizations
began to devote at least part of their energies
to the preservation of the cultural heritage
of the land of their birth. In this
respect, too, the German Society of Pennsylvania
was no exception. Indeed, the
library of the Society, named in honor of
Joseph Horner, has long served an apprecia-
tive membership as a lending library with an
extensive collection of German classics,
English literature in German translation,
and world literature in both English and
German. On its dark oak shelves the homesick
immigrant could find refuge among a
wide variety of books familiar from his
schooldays or popular works of which the
relatives at home across the sea wrote.
Less well known—and certainly less in
demand—were approximately ten thousand
volumes collected and lovingly cared for by
Professor Oswald Seidensticker of the
University of Pennsylvania. Although these
volumes represented Professor Seidensticker's
professional interests, because they
were acquired initially as additions to the
collection of a lending library there are
many items which would not have been collected
by a research library. As a result, the
library today has holdings which are duplicated
in only one or two prestigious scholarly
libraries worldwide. In the case of cer-
tain pieces of German-Americana, the
Horner Library owns items which are truly
unique and available nowhere else.
In 1994, on the 230th anniversary of
the founding of the Society, the organization
undertook the daunting project of moderniz-
ing and improving the Joseph Horner
Memorial Library. The goals of the project
were to catalog the bulk of the important
holdings of the library in modern, machinereadable
form, to preserve the materials in
the German American Collection in its
entirety, and to begin the process of establishing
a center for research into the history
of German-America. The refurbished
library was reopened to the public in
October 1999.
Cataloging of the German Society's
library into the RLIN (Research Libraries
Information Network) database began in
October of 1994. Electronic catalog records
were being entered into RLIN, a database
into which many of the large university and
research libraries enter their libraries' holdings.
In the process of cataloging, catalogers
found that fully fifty-seven percent of
the books cataloged were new to the database,
and close to twenty percent were
unique titles, available in no other library in
the United States.
The advantages of an electronic format
are many. The information the catalogers
enter in the database is available to anyone
who searches in it. Other library catalogers
with access to the database can determine
whether the book they have is similar to one
already represented, or whether their book
is a new one. Library users and researchers
can determine whether a book is available
The Joseph Horner Library__________
and which libraries have copies. This is a
large improvement over the way libraries
used to store information about the books
they held. Only those who were actually in
the library could use a card catalog. Now,
anyone with access to the database can see
what is actually in any given library. In
addition to entering the records of the
library's into a national database, the members
of the library project were able to set up a
web-based catalog through which the pub-
lic can access the electronically catalogued
records. Those who are interested in the
library and its collection can go to the
Society's webpage at http://www.libertynet.
org/gsp/, and follow the links.
The German Society of Pennsylvania
—4—
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