Descendants of German-speaking immigrants from central Europe, especially the
Palatinate Rhineland region of what is now southern Germany and Switzerland, who
settled in southeast Pennsylvania from the late 17th to 18th centuries. The concentration
of their settlements and the persistence of traditional community life inland helped foster
the formation of a cultural region (often called the Pennsylvania Culture Region or, more
familiarly, “Dutch Country”) that has been maintained to the present day. The core of
Pennsylvania German influence lies in south-central Pennsylvania, while the domain
covers parts of Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, and Delaware. The cultural influence of
this Mid-Atlantic domain extends into the South and the Midwest of the United States
along paths of westward migration and into parts of Canada, particularly Ontario.
Pennsylvania Germans often refer to themselves as “Dutch” (not to be confused with
immigrants from the Netherlands). The term probably derives from old English usage of
Deutsch before there was a united German nation to include a wide array of settlers from the mouth of the Rhine to its origins in Switzerland. It received reinforcement in the
United States, since Dutch approximates Deitsch in the dialect used by German speakers
from the Palatinate. Although American scholars in the late 19th century encouraged the
change to Pennsylvania German, many “Dutchmen” resisted the change because they
considered themselves a distinct American group, with sharp contrasts to mid19thcentury German immigrants, and, during the 20th century, to what most Americans
considered a bellicose Germany. “Pennsylvania German” has received more widespread
acceptance today, but “Dutch,” a folk term with the connotation of endearment, is still
widdy used by people in Pennsylvania of Palatinate Rhineland ancestry to refer to
themselves.
The early immigrants to Pennsylvania were a mixed lot that included Palatines,
Swabians, Alsatians, Huguenots, Hessians, and Swiss. They mosdy held affiliations with
the main Protestant traditions of Lutheran and Reformed churches and were followed by
a wave of Mennonite and Amish settlement. Often the distinction is made historically and
culturally between the former group, or “church people” (sometimes called “fancy
Dutch”) and the latter, or “plain sects.” The social-religious situation becomes complex in
Pennsylvania because of founder William Penn’s tradition of religious tolerance and
cultural autonomy. Groups including German Schwenkfelders, Seventh Day Adventists,
Dunkards, Scots-Irish Presbyterians, and English Quakers wielded influence on the
cultural landscape of Pennsylvania. Some small groups that traveled across Pennsylvania,
such as Pennsylvania German-speaking Gypsies and Yiddish-speaking Jews (Yiddish and
Pennsylvania German are related since they share a source area in the Rhineland), also
figure in the ethnic relations within the Pennsylvania Culture Region. In addition, several
millennialist communities with German connections emerged in the Pennsylvania Culture
Region, including the Ephrata Society and the Moravian Brethren. New religious
movements formed in the pluralistic Pennsylvania Culture Region, including the United
Brethren, Old Order River Brethren, Evangelical Association, and Churches of God
(Winnebrennerian).
Religion also played a significant role historically in the formation of Pennsylvania
German identity because of a renewed effort in many central Pennsylvania communities
to stress Pennsylvania German ethnicity in response to Methodist revivalism during the
early to mid-19th century. Another response of ethnic consciousness in the Pennsylvania
Culture Region grew when some synods of the Lutheran and Reformed churches called
for use of English over German in services. The church was a central institution in most
Pennsylvania German communities and provided schooling (in German) as well as social
and spiritual services.
Pennsylvania German settements were typically concentrated in the inland mountains
and river valleys, although some urban centers such as Allentown, Reading, Harrisburg,
Lancaster, York, and Lebanon became significant Pennsylvania German cultural hubs.
Historically, Pennsylvania Germans were associated with farming and artisan trades.
Many Pennsylvania Germans identify themselves by the valleys and counties in which
they settled. Some examples of Pennsylvania German valley societies are Mahantango,
Hegins, Lykens, Oley, and Lehigh, while significant county combinations that form
cultural distinctions made among Pennsylvania Germans are Berks and Lebanon,
Dauphin and Schuylkill, Lancaster and York, Cumberland and Adams, and Lehigh and
Bucks.
On American soil, Pennsylvania German setders continued a cultural-unification
process that began in die Old World. Aldiough Pennsylvania German culture includes
transplants of Old World traditions, it is essentially a new regional-ethnic hybrid that
developed distinctively on American soil. This process is evident in the formation of the
Pennsylvania German dialect, also called Pennsylvania Dutch or Pennsylfanisch. It is
based on dialects from the Rhenish Palatinate with Swiss, French, and English influences.
It also has subregional variations, particularly between eastern and western portions of
the Pennsylvania Culture Region and between sectarian (Amish, Old Order Mennonite)
and nonsectarian speakers. Use of the dialect, once the centerpiece of Pennsylvania
German identity, has diminished in the region, although it continues to be taught and used
in many plain sects and nordiern sections of the Pennsylvania Culture Region. Estimated
at more dian 300,000 in 1950, the number of active Pennsylvania German speakers in
1995 was usually given as less than 80,000. Many nonspeakers of Pennsylvania German
in the region display what is known as Pennsylvania German English, familiarly called “a
Dutchy” or “central Pennsylvania” accent—the use of phrases in the dialect and rhythms
and grammatical formations based on Pennsylvania German patterns.
The number who claim Pennsylvania German ancestry runs into millions and has
influenced the spread of many Pennsylvania German traditions into American culture.
Among the most familiar traditions are foodways. Pennsylvania German foods, and
names for foods, such as sauerkraut, smearcase, pretzels, scrapple (pannhaas), corn
mush, hot bacon dressing, hot salad, chicken corn soup, chicken pot pie, funnelcakes,
riwel soup, stuffed pig stomachs, schnitz un gnepp, and shoofly pies, continue to be
popular. Some traditions are tied to holiday observations, such as the eating of fastnacht
cakes (fried doughnuts), on Shrove Tuesday, and the consumption of pork and sauerkraut
for good luck on New Year’s Day. Some localized foodways traditions are reminders of
variations within Pennsylvania German culture. Pennsylvania German cuisine in Lebanon
County, for example, is known for its liberal use of saffron in recipes for noodles, cheese,
and bread.
Pennsylvania Germans are known for a number of folk arts, many of which have been
revived. Fraktur, for example, refers to the art of illuminated manuscripts that flourished
between 1750 and 1850 and continued in Amish society to the early 20th century. These
manuscripts, typically rendered by a minister who doubled as a schoolteacher, often
marked rites of passage such as birth and baptism and marriage. There is a relationship
between the structure of the privately illuminated baptismal certificate and the public
design of carved gravestones that marked the final rite of passage. Pennsylvania German
painted furniture also displays many motifs and designs, such as tulips, hearts, distelfinks,
and trees of life common in fraktur, as well as the favorite Pennsylvania German colors
of red and green (now generally associated with Christmas). Other folk arts associated
with Pennsylvania Germans include Scherenschnitte (scissors cuttings on paper),
decorated earthenware (especially plates and bowls with graffito decoration), “hex sign”
painting (colorful geometric designs inside circles used for barn decorations), and
embroidered textiles (such as decorative “show towels” meant to be hung over doors).
The extent of Pennsylvania German culture has often been marked by the visible
imprint of ethnic architecture on the landscape. Traditions of the Pennsylvania barn and
the Pennsylvania house (or Middle Atlantic farmhouse) figure prominently. In contrast to
the one-level English barns set on the ground in New England, the Pennsylvania settlers
built two-level bank, or forebay, barns (later developing into three levels). An upper level
is cantilevered over the lower level on the barnyard side. The overhang is called the
forebay (der Vorschuss or der Vorbau in dialect). On the side opposite the forebay, the
barn may be built into a bank or have a ramp. The Pennsylvania German house with three
or four rooms (sometimes called the Continental plan in American architectural typology)
has German connections (particularly to the Flurkuchenhaus [hall-kitchen house]) but has
its greatest expression in Pennsylvania. The oldest type is a three-room plan that has an
entrance off to the right of the facade. The entrance leads into a long kitchen (die Kich)
with a central fireplace. On the other side is a front room (die Stupp or die Stube), and
behind it is a smaller sleeping chamber, storage room, or “safest room” (die Kammer).
English fashion for the classic symmetrical twostory front, with two rooms on each side
of a broad central hall, influenced the development of the Pennsylvania house. The house
interior retained the Continental plan but adjusted the exterior to the symmetrical
arrangement, although usually without stylish trim. Chimneys moved to the gable end,
and the house was frequently built in brick and less commonly in frame in addition to the
popular stucco and stone. Unlike the classic English plan, the Pennsylvania farmhouse
lacked a hallway, and instead had two front doors for entrances. Settlers built the house
into a bank with a subterranean cellar (used for cooking and storage of preserved food)
and added long porches, sometimes on two levels, around the back. Particularly among
many Amish and Old Order Mennonite farmers, the practice of house and barn raising
continues according to Pennsylvania German traditions. They also build on to existing
homes to create additional self-contained houses for the grandparents (Grossdaadi Haus),
thus creating a string of different-sized plain white homes.
Beyond the Pennsylvania Culture Region, Pennsylvania German customs of the
decorated Christmas tree and the Easter Rabbit have become popular throughout
America. The popularity of Groundhog day, or Candlemas on February 2, when sighting
of the groundhog’s shadow predicts the extent of winter, also owes to Pennsylvania
German belief. Other holiday traditions associated with the Pennsylvania Germans are
the outdoor decoration of trees with brightly colored eggs at Easter time, Harvest Home
celebrations held during the fall in Lutheran and Reformed churches, and Belsnickeling
(the Belsnickel is a frightening figure who rang bells, snapped whips, and threw nuts and
candy at children) at Christmas. Christmas and New Year’s once featured many
distinctive beliefs among the Pennsylvania Germans, including leaving food for the
Crischtkindel (Christ Child), washing one’s face in Christmas dew, playing the role of
Belsnickel by teenagers the day after Christmas, and “shooting in the New Year” and
performing orally learned blessings at Wunsching parties on New Year’s Day. Some
special customs identify religious subgroups in Pennsylvania German culture. Dunkards
are known for foot washing and soups served at “Love Feast” celebrations and the Old
Order River Brethren based in Lancaster County have a unique tradition among the plain
sects of a bread-baking ritual during its Love Feast weekend celebration.
Pennsylvania Germans have a controversial healing tra dition known as powwowing
(also referred to as Braucherei in the dialect). Many Pennsylvania Germans denounce the
practice, and the tradition is in decline, but oral-historical references to Pennsylvania
German custom abound with special mention of powwowing practices. Don Yoder has
commented that powwowing reflects a Pennsylvania German belief system of the
“worldview of the unity of all things, heaven, earth, man, animal, and nature. Within this unity there is a dualism between evil powers, concentrated in the Devil and his voluntary
servitors the witches, and good powers, concentrated in God, the Trinity, the saints, and
the powwower who is the channel for healing power from source to patient” (Yoder
1990:96). Powwowing in Pennsylvania German culture relies on words, charms, amulets,
and physical manipulations applied by special healers to treat animals and humans. The
charms contain Biblical and Christian references, printed sources (The Long Lost Friend
[1819–1820] by John George Hohman is the most frequently mentioned text), and oral
tradition. An example is this generally used charm:
Die Wasser und dis Feuer,
Die Wasser und dis Feuer,
Die Wasser und dis Feuer,
Die ist eine grosse Dinge,
In dies grosses geheilige Land,
Unser yunge frau Maria,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen
(This water and this fire,
This water and this fire,
This water and this fire,
This is a big thing,
In this big holy land,
Our young lady Maria,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen)
Among the beliefs associated with powwowing is the passage of healing power from
woman to man and from man to woman. Reference will also be made to use of a printed
blessing called a Himmelsbrief to protect the house and person from harm. Many
Pennsylvania Germans, not necessarily powwowers, will have a collection of herbal and
folk-medical remedies, such as the use of berries, mints, and onions to relieve colds.
The Pennsylvania German folksong tradition includes a form of spiritual that
combines English and German and derives from Methodist (including Pennsylvania
groups such as the Evangelical Association, Church of the United Brethren in Christ, and
Church of God) camp-meeting singing in the Second Awakening after the Revolutionary
War. Alfred L. Shoemaker and Don Yoder dubbed this combination of hymns of German
Pietism with English-language revival songs of the American Methodists and Baptists
that entered oral tradition the “Pennsylvania (Dutch) spiritual,” but Albert F. Buffington
preferred the label of “Dutchified German spiritual” because of his linguistic analysis that
the texts of the songs were neither Pennsylvania German nor Standard Ger man.
According to Buffington, the songs approximated the Pennsylvania High German
(Pennsylvaanisch Hochdeitsch) used by Pennsylvania Germans in their churches and
newspapers. In a field collection from the Mahantango Valley area (Boyer, Buffington,
and Yoder [1951] 1964), the authors report that the favorite “Dutch” spiritual is “O How Lovely:” O wie lieblich, wie lieblich/Wie lieblich iss Yeesus!/Er iss mein Erleeser,/Mei
Haer un mei Freund (Oh how lovely, how lovely, /how lovely is Jesus!/He is my
redeemer,/My Lord, and my Friend). Its first three verses follow an old German hymn
about wise and foolish virgins, and then it shifts to campmeeting verses of “Oh sisters, be
happy…It’s Jesus in my soul” (Oh Schtueschdre seid dir hallich…Siss Yeesus in der
Seel). Yoder hypothesizes that Pennsylvania was a seedbed of American spiritual song
and a “transplanting point” where the White spiritual was shared with Blacks and
German settlers, with the result that two new types of spiritual arose, the Black spiritual
and the Pennsylvania (Dutch) spiritual.
Seclar Pennsylvania German folksongs and rhymes, by most accounts, have not
thrived as well in contemporary oral tradition as the Pennsylvania spiritual. Finger
rhymes, “ABC rhymes,” prayers, and lullabies sung in dialect to children figured
prominently in the traditional Pennsylvania German childhood. One might chant Kleiner
Finger, Dummer Finger, Langer Finger, Laus Knecker, Haver Stecker for the different
fingers, or A, B, C, Die Katz leit im Schnee, Der Schnee geht aweg, Die Katz leit im
Dreck for the letters of the alphabet. In the field collection by Boyer, Buffington, and
Yoder, adult songs of work and play were reported, especially relating to farm life,
courtship and marriage, snitzingparties (cutting of apples for making of apple butter), and
tavern pastimes. Other secular songs that gained popularity were “Dutchified” versions of
English songs such as “Oh, Susanna “and composed comic songs such as “Die Ford
Maschin” about the shock of the sight of the Model T machines to rural Pennsylvania
inhabitants.
The narrative tradition of Pennsylvania Germans is vibrant but has not been widely
collected. Reverend Thomas R. Brendle and William S.Troxell were pioneering
collectors who issued a representative collection in translation from oral sources (Brendle
and Troxell 1944). Among the categories of narrative they found were Eileschpiggel
trickster stories, hidden-treasure legends, Parre (preacher) stories, “Stupid Swabians”
(also Hessian and “Dumb Dutch”) jokes, and legends of the Elbedritsche. The
Pennsylvania German Eileschpiggel has a connection to a European trickster figure but
tends to be more lovable in Pennsylvania. He is a boastful, impish character who finds
ways to outwit the devil. According to one story, for example, a dispute arose as to who
was stronger. The devil, to show his strength, tore an immense tree up by its roots and
threw it up into the air. Then came Eileschpiggel’s turn. He climbed a tree, and the devil
asked, “Why are you climbing a tree?” The reply was: “I don’t care to waste time in
pulling up one tree. I am going to bind the tops of several trees together and then I’ll pull
them all out at one time.” The devil gave up. The hidden-treasure legends also might
include pacts with the devil for “seven brothers” in order to receive a treasure. In various
versions, the farmer—or tramp—brings seven suckling pigs, thereby outwitting the devil.
The hiddentreasure legends often rely on the belief that buried treasure lies hidden under
planks in old barns. A common motif is that a treasure seeker is supernaturally offered
riches if he can keep totally silent during the dig, but at the moment he lays eyes on the
treasure, he exclaims, “I’m rich,” or some other outcry, and the money disappears.
Parre stories depict the preacher as a community folk hero possessing wit, sometimes
strength, and an often unexpected earthiness or worldliness. The story is told about
Reformed minister Isaac Stiehly who was hard pressed to say a kind word at the funeral
of a thief. “Now,” said the people, “Stiehly cannot say anything good about the dead.”
But they were disappointed. He closed his sermon by saying, “Er hat seineFamilie gut
besorgt. Er hat sie besorgt bei Tag und bei Nacht” (He provided well for his family. He
provided for them by day and night). Another common theme is the hunting prowess of
preachers. Stories of preachers spying a deer or a fox out the window of the church,
hunting it quickly, and resuming the sermon are legion. They are also known for repartee,
such as the exchange with the famous preacher Moses (Mose) Dissinger, who replied
when asked “What are you doing today?” “Today,” answered Mose, “I am going to do
something the devil never did.” “What is that?” asked his friend. “Leave Allentown.”
The Stupid Swabian (Hessian or Dumb Dutch) is the Pennsylvania German version of
numskull tales known widely in America and elsewhere. There’s the commonly heard
story, for example, of the Swabians who were building a church in the valley. They cut
the logs for the church on the top of a mountain nearby and began carrying them down
into the valley. A traveler came along and told them that they could roll the logs down
into the valley and he showed them how to do this. Thereupon the Swabians fetched the
logs that they had already taken down into the valley, took them back to the top of the
hill, and rolled all of them down. Hessian jokes refer to the failure of the Hessians during
the Revolutionary War. The story is told about the Hessian commander who led soldiers
into the Dutch Country. They came upon a large heap of barnyard manure and at the
command of their officer fired upon it. “There is the enemy,” he had said when he
commanded them to fire.
The Elbedritsche hunting legend and its enactment are the Pennsylvania German
version of the snipe hunt. The Elbedritsche is described to young Pennsylvania German
boys and girls as a mysterious creature who is caught in the woods with the aid of a sack.
The initiate’s companions take the youngster to an isolated location and leave him or her
with a bag and offer instructions on calling the Elbedritsche. Usually, the initiate is
consoled by the explanation that the companions will drive the Elbedritsche toward him
or her. Eventually, though, the initiate discovers that he or she is left “holding the bag.”
Many observers note that the continuity of Pennsylvania German culture has been
disrupted by many factors in the 20th century, including increased mobility, urbanization,
and development of the rural landscape (the construction of the Pennsylvania Turnpike
and the growth of retail outlets are two frequently mentioned developments that affected
the Dutch Country). As early as the mid-19th century, observers noted the loss of
Pennsylvania German traditions, especially after compulsory education in English was
legislated. Many Pennsylvania German children in the post—World War II baby boom
generation noticeably broke ties with the dialect and traditional Pennsylvania German
occupations and locations, although they may still maintain foodways and other
customary traditions. Amish and Old Order Mennonite groups might maintain
community integration characteristic of 19thcentury Pennsylvania German life while at
the same time developing some traditions that are distinct from the church people (for
example, Ordnung, dress, quilting, and carriage making), but they, too, face pressures
from modernization. They also must cope with state regulation that affects traditional
practices such as midwifery, horse-and-buggy travel, and butchering, as well as the
group’s separate social institutions in education, religion, and labor. Amish migration out
of the Pennsylvania core into outlying sections in the Pennsylvania Culture Region and
Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Ontario, New York, and lowa have in some cases reinvigorated
Pennsylvania German culture.
Some contemporary locations for the transmission of narrative and singing traditions
are the Versammling (gathering) and the Grundsau Lodch (groundhog lodge). These
social occasions gather Pennsylvania Germans to eat a dinner of traditional Pennsylvania
German foods and hear speakers relate stories, particularly folk humor, in dialect.
Singing in dialect typically occurs, and often a dialect play will be performed. Other
institutions that help maintain the dialect and other traditions are “heritage” or “folk”
services provided in dialect, often around the time of Harvest Home. Some churches
provide suppers and picnics featuring traditional Pennsylvania German meals such as pig
stomach, ham and dandelion salad, pork and sauerkraut, and schnitz an gnepp. During the
summer, organized family reunions are important social occasions in Pennsylvania
German areas. Some radio and television shows in dialect are available in central
Pennsylvania, and a few newspapers carry dialect columns. Classes in dialect are offered
at several historical societies and schools, and a small program in Pennsylvania German
studies is available at Ursinus College (home of the Pennsylvania Folklife Society and
the journal Pennsylvania Folklife). Several organizations have as their mission the
preservation of Pennsylvania German culture, including the Pennsylvania German
Society, the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center, and the Pennsylvania Dutch
Folk Culture Society.
Part of the Pennsylvania German core area in Lancaster County has emerged as a
major tourist area, and debate can be heard over the effect of this development on
Pennsylvania German folk culture. Views of traditional Pennsylvania German practices
such as craft, language, and farming are commonly presented to non-Pennsylvania
Germans, and folklife plays a significant role in the public programming of this cultural
tourism. Ironically, much of the farmland once essential to Pennsylvania German
community life has given way to commercial development around Lancaster, although
some scholars respond that the commercial development directs tourists into urban strips
away from rural Amish communities. Some critics rail at the misrepresentation of
Pennsylvania German life in tourist presentations, such as the conflation of Amish,
Mennonite, Brethren, and nonsectarian cultures into a monolithic Pennsylvania German
culture. A genre of misplaced “tourist belief” has emerged about Pennsylvania German
traditions such as the ideas that “hex signs” warded away witches, that seven sours and
seven sweets are standard on the Pennsylvania German table, and that Amishmen painted
gates blue to show interested suitors that they had a daughter of marriageable age. Some
defenders of cultural tourism, meanwhile, point out the growth of Pennsylvania German
ethnic consciousness and spin-off efforts from tourism toward preservation as a result of
educational and entertainment programs.
Interest in Pennsylvania German traditions, both outside and within the culture, has
fostered an important legacy of folkloristic scholarship. The integration of oral, social,
and material traditions within Pennsylvania German communities has attracted scholars
to Pennsylvania folk culture. The importance of oral transmission and customary learning
in the maintenance of Pennsylvania German life has raised scholarly questions about the
traditional systems operating in the community in addition to historical and cultural
questions of maintenance and adaptation over the 300 years Pennsylvania Germans have
been settled in America. The special relation of community life to the integration of
traditions among Pennsylvania Germans influenced the development of the folklife, or
folk-cultural, approach championed by Pennsylvania German scholars. In the late 1940s,
Alfred L.Shoemaker, J.William Frey, and Don Yoder at Franklin and Marshall College in
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for example, founded the Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Culture
Center and the journal Pennsylvania Folklife. They also initiated the Pennsylvania Dutch
Folk Festival, later to become the Kutztown Folk Festival, held in Kutztown,
Pennsylvania, America’s largest folk festival. Shoemaker led the nation’s first, albeit
short-lived, department of folklore, at Franklin and Marshall and stressed a folk cultural
approach with special emphasis on folk arts and material culture. Henry Chapman Mercer
and the Landis brothers (Henry and George) established museums to preserve and present
their collections of Pennsylvania German folk arts and practices (Mercer Museum and
Landis Valley Museum, respectively). Reverend Thomas Brendle, a highly respected
collector of folk belief, medicine, language, and narrative, had a museum established in
his honor at Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania. Essays on the folklore and folklife of
Pennsylvania Germans by W.J.Hoffman were featured in the first issues of the Journal of
American Folklore (1888), and a book-length collection of “The Folklore of the
Pennsylvania-German” by Reverend John Baer Stoudt appeared in 1915 as a supplement
to the proceedings of the Pennsylvania German Society, founded in 1891. In addition to
the folkloristic interest of Pennsylvania Folklife and the Pennsylvania Folklife Society in
Pennsylvania German folk culture, a separate Pennsylvania German Folklore Society,
with the active leadership of pioneer collectors such as Edwin Fogel and John Baer
Stoudt, formed in 1935 and lasted until 1967 when it merged to form the reorganized
Pennsylvania German Society (which publishes a book series and the journal Der
Reggeboge [The Rainbow], edited for many years by Fred Weiser, and since 1992 by
Don Yoder, with many features on folk arts and folklife). The special attention given to
folklife and material culture in Pennsylvania greatly influenced the spread of these
concerns in American folkloristic scholarship generally.
Simon J.Bronner
References
Boyer, Walter E., Albert F. Buffington, and Don Yoder. [1951] 1964. Songs along the
Mahantango: Pennsylvania Dutch Folksongs. Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associates.
Brandt, Mindy, and Thomas E.Gallagher. 1993–1994. Tourism and the Old Order Amish.
Pennsylvania Folklife (Winter) 43:71–75.
Brendle, Thomas R., and William S.Troxell. 1944. Pennsylvania German Folk Tales, Legends,
Once-upon-a-Time Stories, Maxims, and Sayings. Norristown, PA: Pennsylvania German
Society.
Brendle, Thomas R., and Claude W.Unger. [1935] 1970. Folk Medicine of the Pennsylvania
Germans: The NonOccult Cures. New York: Augustus M.Kelley.
Bronner, Simon J. 1992. “Elaborating Tradition: A Pennsylvania-German Folk Artist Ministers to
His Community.” In Creativity and Tradition, ed. Simon J. Bronner. Logan: Utah State
University, pp. 277–326.
Buffington, Albert F. 1965. “Dutchified German” Spirituals. Publications of the Pennsylvania
German Society Vol. 62. Lancaster, PA: Franklin and Marshall College.
——. 1974. Pennsylvania German Secular Folksongs. Publications of the Pennsylvania German
Society Vol. 8. Breinigsville, PA: Pennsylvania German Society.
Burke, Susan M., and Matthew H.Hill, eds. 1992. From Pennsylvania to Waterloo: PennsylvaniaGerman Folk Culture in Transition. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
Enninger, Werner, ed. 1986. Studies on the Languages and the Verbal Behavior of the
Pennsylvania Germans. Vol. 1. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
Ensminger, Robert F. 1992. The Pennsylvania Barn: Its Origin, Evolution, and Distribution in
North America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Fogel, Edwin Miller. 1915. Beliefs and Superstitions of the Pennsylvania Germans. Philadelphia:
American Germanica Press.
Long, Amos. 1972. The Penmylvania German Family Farm. Breinigsville, PA: Pennsylvania
German Society.
Huffines, Marion Lois. 1980. Pennsylvania German: Maintenance and Shift.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 25:43–57.
——. 1990. Pennsylvania German in Public Life. Pennsylvania Folklife. (Spring) 39:117–125.
Kraybill, Donald B.1989. The Riddle of Amish Culture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Kraybill, Donald B., and Marc A.Olshan, eds. 1994. The Amish Struggle with Modernity. Hanover,
NH: University Press of New England.
Reed, Henry M. 1987. Decorated Furniture of the Mahantongo Valley. Lewisburg, PA: Center
Gallery, Bucknell University.
Shoemaker, Alfred L. 1951. Three Myths about the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Lancaster, PA:
Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore Center.
Swank, Scott T., with Benno Forman, et al. 1983. Arts of the Pennsylvania Germans. New York:
W.W.Norton.
Weaver, William Woys. 1986. The Pennsylvania German House: European Antecedents and New
World Forms. Winterthur Portfolio 21:243–264.
——. 1993. Pennsylvania Dutch Country Cooking. New York: Abbeville.
Yoder, Don. 1961. Pennsylvania Spirituals. Lancaster, PA: Pennsylvania Folklife Society.
——. 1971. Pennsylvania German Folklore Research: A Historical Analysis. In The German
Language in America: A Symposium, ed. Glenn G.Gilbert. Austin: University of Texas Press,
pp. 76–86.
——. 1990. Discovering American Folklife. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press.
Yoder, Don, and Thomas E.Graves. 1989. Hex Signs: Pennsylvania Dutch Barn Symbols and Their
Meaning. New York: Dutton.