Saturday, May 2, 2020

Moravian General & Colonial History Bibliography

Moravian History – General

Atwood, Craig D., & Peter Vogt, editors.  The Distinctiveness of Moravian Culture: Essays & Documents in Moravian History in Honor of Vernon H. Nelson.  Nazareth: Moravian Historical Society, 2003.

Dreydoppel, Otto Jr.  Here We Stand:  The Moravian Church Among the Churches of the Reformation.  Bethlehem:  Provincial Women’s Board, 1999.

Sawyer, Edwin A.  These Fifteeen:  Pioneers of the Moravian Church.  Bethlehem & Winston-Salem:  Comenius Press, 1963.  Capsule biographies.

Schattschneider, Allen.   Through 500 Years & Beyond:  A Popular History of the Moravian Church.  Third edition, revised by Albert H. Frank.  Bethlehem:  Moravian Church in America, 2008.

Weinlick, John R., & Albert H. Frank.  The Moravian Church Through the Ages.  Third edition.  Bethlehem & Winston-Salem:  The Moravian Church in America, 2008.  A popular history.

Van Buijtenen, Mari, P., Cornelius Dekker, & Huib Leewenberg, editors.  Unitas Fratrum:  Herrnhuter Studien/Moravian Studies.  Utrecht:  Rijksarchief in Utrecht, 1975.  Essays treating Moravian life & history in different geographical areas, along with articles on Moravian theology, Moravian music, Moravian architecture, etc.  Roughly half of the pieces are in English & the other half in German.

Moravian History —The Renewed Moravian Church


Atwood, Craig D.  Community of the Cross: Moravian Piety in Colonial Bethlehem.  University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004.

--------.  “The Mother of God’s People: The Adoration of the Holy Spirit in the Eighteenth-Century Brüdergemeine.”  Church History 68 (December 1999): 886-909.

Brown, Dale.  Understanding Pietism.  Revised edition. Nippanee, Indiana: Evangel Publishing House, 1996. Treats Moravianism in the context of the 18th-century Continental Pietist movement.

Crews, C. Daniel, & Richard W. Starbuck.  With Courage for the Future: The Story of the Moravian Church, Southern Province. Winston-Salem: Moravian Church, Southern Province, 2002.

Erbe, Hellmut.  Bethlehem, Pennsylvanien:  Eine Kommunistische Herrnhuter Kolonie des 18. Jahrhunderts.  Stuttgart:  Ausland und Heimat Verlagsaktiengesellschaft, 1929.  “Bethlehem, Pennsylvania:  A Communistic Herrnhut Colony of the the 18th Century”; available at Reeves Library of Moravian Theological Seminary in a typescript translation (1959).

Faull, Katherine.  Moravian Women's Memoirs: Their Related Lives, 1750-1820.  Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1997.  The memoir (Lebenslauf; spiritual autobiography) was an important part of Moravian devotion during the communal period. Faull uses the word related in two senses: “told” & “connected.”

Fogleman, Aaron Spencer.  Jesus is Female:  Moravians & Radical Religion in Early America.  Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.

--------.  “Shadow Boxing in Georgia: The Beginnings of the Moravian-Lutheran Conflict in British North America.”  The Georgia Historical Quarterly.  83 (Winter 1999): 629-659.                   
Fries, Adelaide L., et al, editors.  Records of the Moravians in North Carolina.  11 volumes.  Raleigh:  North Carolina State Department of Archives & History, 1922-1969.  Excerpts & translations of materials from the Archives of the Moravian Church in America, Southern Province, covering the years 1752-1879.  A twelfth volume, edited by Daniel Crews & Lisa Bailey, appeared in 2000.

Gollin, Gillian Lindt.  Moravians in Two Worlds:  A Study of Changing Communities.  New York & London:  Columbia University Press, 1967.  A comparative historical & sociological study of Herrnhut, Saxony, & Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Hagen, Francis Florentine.  Old Landmarks Or, Faith & Practice of the Moravian Church, at the Time of Its Revival & Restoration, & Twenty Years After.  Bethlehem, Pennsylvania:  Hagen, 1886.  Excerpts from important primary documents in the early history of the Renewed Moravian Church.

Hahn, Hans-Christoph, & Hellmut Reichel.  Zinzendorf und die Herrnhuter Brüder: Quellen zur Geschichte der Brüder-Unität von 1722 bis 1760.  “Zinzendorf & the Moravian Brethren: Sources for the History of the Moravian Church, 1722-1760.”

Hamilton, J. Taylor, & Kenneth G. Hamilton.  History of the Moravian Church:  The Renewed Unitas Fratrum, 1722-1957. Bethlehem & Winston-Salem:  Interprovincial Board of Christian Education, Moravian Church in America, 1967.  The standard history of the modern Moravian Church.

Hamilton, Kenneth G.  John Ettwein & the Moravian Church During the Revolutionary Period.  Bethlehem:  Times Publishing Company, 1940.

Hamilton, Kenneth G., editor & translator.  The Bethlehem Diary, Volume 1:  1742-1744.  Bethlehem:  Archives of the Moravian Church, 1971.  An annotated translation of part of the communal diary of the early Moravians in North America.

Hamilton, Kenneth G., & Lothar Madeheim, translators.  The Bethlehem Diary, Volume 2: 1744-1745.  Vernon H. Nelson, Otto Dreydoppel, Jr., & Doris Rohland Yob, editors.  Bethlehem: Moravian Archives, 2001.

Krüger, Bernhard.  The Pear Tree Blossoms: the History of the Moravian Church in South Africa, 1737-1869.  Genadendal, South Africa, 1966.

Levering, J. Mortimer.  A History of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1741-1892.  Bethlehem:  Times Publishing Company, 1903.  In extensive & copious footnotes, Levering translates many diary entries & other German-language source materials that otherwise are available only in manuscripts held in the Moravian Archives.

Mason.  J, C. S.  The Moravian Church & the Missionary Awakening in England, 1760-1800.  Rochester, New York:  Boydell & Brewer Inc., 2001.

Meyer, Dietrich.  Zinzendorf und die Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, 1700-2000.  Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2000.  “Zinzendorf & the Moravian Church, 1700-2000.”

Murtaugh, William.  Moravian Architecture & Town Planning:  Bethlehem, Pennsylvania & Other Eighteenth-Century American Settlements.  Chapel Hill:  University of North Carolina Press, 1967.

Peucker, Paul.  “The Songs of the Sifting:  Understanding the Role of Bridal Mysticism in Moravian Piety during the Late 1740s.”  Journal of Moravian History 3 (Fall 2007):  51-87.

Podmore, Colin.  The Moravian Church in England, 1728-1760.  Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1998.

--------.  “Zinzendorf & the English Moravians.”  Journal of Moravian History 3 (Fall 2007):  31-50.

Reichel, Levin Theodor.  The Early History of the Church of the United Brethren , (Unitas Fratrum) Commonly Called Moravians, in North America, A.D. 1734-1748.  Nazareth, Pennslvania:  Moravian Historical Society, 1888.

Sawyer, Edwin A.  The Religious Experience of the Colonial American Moravians.  Nazareth:  Moravian Historical Society, 1961.  An “answer” to Sessler (see below).

Schattschneider, David A.  “Moravianism as an American Denomination.”  Methodist History 24 (1986):  157-170.

Sensbach, Jon.  Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World.  Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2005.

--------.  A Separate Canaan:  The Making of An Afro-American World in North Carolina, 1763-1840.  Chapel Hill, North Carolina:  University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Sensbach describes the situation of African Americans in the Moravian community of Salem, North Carolina.

Sessler, John Jacob.  Communal Pietism Among Early American Moravians.  New York:  H. Holt & Company, 1933.  Sessler provides translations of much 18th-century Moravian literature, especially the poetry & hymnody of the so-called “Sifting Time,” which he then uses to portray the Moravians as theologically unsound & socially eccentric.

Smaby, Beverly Prior.  The Transformation of Moravian Bethlehem:  From Communal Mission to Family Economy.  Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988.  A historical & demographic study.

Sommer, Elisabeth.  “A Different Kind   of Freedom?  Order & Discipline Among the Moravian Brethren in Germany & Salem, North Carolina, 1771-1801.”  Church History 63  (June 1994): 221-234.

--------.  Serving Two Masters: Moravian Brethren in Germany & North Carolina, 1727-1801.  Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2000.

Stocker, Harry E.  A Home Mission History of the Moravian Church in the United States & Canada (Northern Province).  New York:  The Special Publications Committee of the Moravian Church, 1924.  The only comprehensive work on the expansion of the Moravian Church in North America.  Stocker based his history on primary sources, but unfortunately he did not employ footnotes or other scholarly apparatus.

Stoeffler, F. Ernest.  Continental Pietism & Early American Christianity.  Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1976.

Surratt, Jerry L.  Gottlieb Schober of Salem: Discipleship & Ecumenical Vision in an Early Moravian Town.  Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1983.

Thorp, Daniel B.  The Moravian Community in Colonial North Carolina:  Pluralism on the Southern Frontier.  Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989.  A historical study of the interaction between the Moravians & their neighbors in colonial North Carolina.

Towlson, Clifford.  Moravian & Methodist:  Relationships & Influences in the Eighteenth Century.  London:  Epworth Press, 1957.

Vogt, Peter.  “‘Everywhere at Home’:  The Eighteenth-Century Moraivan Movement as a Transatlantic Religious Community.”  Journal of Moravian History 1 (Fall 2006):  7-29.    

Weinlick, John R.  “Colonial Moravians: Their Status Among the Churches.”  Pennsylvania History 26 (July 1959): 213-225.

Yates, W.  Ross.  Bethlehem of Pennsylvania:  The Golden Years.  Bethlehem:  Bicentennial Book Committee, 1976