Back to the Cloister Fund

Posted by on Jan 14, 2026 in | Comments Off on Back to the Cloister Fund In 1925, Rev. Samuel Zerfass faced a quandary. He needed a new suit, but he lacked the funds for such a substantial purchase. Zerfass was a minister with the Society of German Seventh Day Baptists, a last vestige of the Ephrata Cloister religious community. With a dwindling membership and an entire campus of historic structures in disrepair, financial resources were limited. Undaunted, Zerfass...
read more

“Scenes of War Are Not Forgotten” The Civil War Drawings of Anthony Goldsmith

Posted by on Jan 14, 2026 in | Comments Off on “Scenes of War Are Not Forgotten” The Civil War Drawings of Anthony Goldsmith “The scenes of war have long since past and the Ex Soldiers have long since settled down to peaceful vocations of life yet the scenes of war are not forgotten,” a Civil War veteran wrote in an 1889 letter to his former comrade-in-arms Anthony Goldsmith (1839–99). “The picket[,] the Skirmish line[,] the Battles[,] the Raids and night marches are all fresh in our memories, yet there are many...
read more

Clocks of the Cloister

Posted by on Mar 29, 2024 in | Comments Off on Clocks of the Cloister In 1732 German mystic Conrad Beissel (1691–1768) came to the region known as the Cocalico. This was an undeveloped wilderness where he hoped to find solitude with God. Soon, fellow seekers of God came to be with him. Together, they created the Camp of the Solitudes, which quickly took the biblical name “Ephrata.” Those on the outside called it the Ephrata Cloister. This community grew rapidly...
read more

Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Mar 27, 2024 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter “A century hence, they will not be here as I see them,” John James Audubon wrote in his journal on December 12, 1826, during a trip to England to raise money for the publication of The Birds of America. Audubon was feeling disconcerted about encroaching human activity in the American wilderness that would destroy nature’s “many brilliant charms,” among which he laments, “The Eagle scarce ever...
read more

The Pennsylvania Germans: A Celebration of their Arts, 1683-1850, An Exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Pennsylvania Germans: A Celebration of their Arts, 1683-1850, An Exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art The art of the Pennsylvania Germans is showy and elusive, reflective and new, easy and difficult; showy because it is boldly colorful; elusive because there is more to it than decoration; reflective because one can see the Old World in details; new because Pennsylvania Germans add­ed to the European vocabulary of designs and form; easy because it is familiar; and difficult because marks, like...
read more

The New Taste in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The New Taste in Pennsylvania Like the nation itself during the so-called “Federal” period, the arts in Pennsylvania reached a crescendo in their development that had an unexpected unity, a strong purpose, and a national style. Despite great varia­tions in the Germanic and English traditions, Pennsylvania emerged from the revolutionary period reasonably cohesive. City and country perspectives, naive and...
read more

Commemorating a Centennial by Revising a Vision

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Commemorating a Centennial by Revising a Vision The American museum was and is an idea. The European museum was a fact. Almost without exception the European museum was first a collection. With few exceptions most American museums were first an ideal,” Philadelphian Nathaniel Burt wrote in his 1977 history of the American museum, Palaces for People. Unlike their European counterparts, which were usually created to house the great...
read more

The Missionary and the Clockmaker: A Saga of Two Brothers-In-Law

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Missionary and the Clockmaker: A Saga of Two Brothers-In-Law Scion of a decayed Anglo-Irish Ascend­ancy family of Ireland’s County Monaghan, the young Rev. Thomas Barton journeyed in spring 1755 through the largely unbroken forests of Pennsylvania to the settlement known at the time as Contwager or Conewago. He made his way – “over Susquehanna,” as the contem­porary traveler commonly described it-to lands lying along the Bermudian...
read more