Architecture, artifacts, and arts in the Harmony Society of George Rapp; the material culture of a nineteenth-century American utopian community.

9780773448773

Architecture, artifacts, and arts in the Harmony Society of George Rapp; the material culture of a nineteenth-century American utopian community.

Douglas, Paul.

Edwin Mellen Pr.

2008

203 pages

$109.95

Hardcover

HX656

The Harmony Society was a group of German Pietists who arrived in the US in 1803 and ultimately build two villages in Pennsylvania, and a third in Indiana. Douglas (American studies, Towson U., Maryland) examines the material cultures as the three villages in order to find insights into the changing attitudes of the Society. He looks at the Society itself, town planning, buildings, furniture, and arts and artifacts. In addition to illuminating the Harmonists, he hopes his study will demonstrate to scholars the benefit of using material culture to research others of the hundred of communes established in the US during the 19th century.

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