A bibliographical research project
sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Council of Research)
and located at the Georg August Universität in Göttingen, Germany.

 Directed by
Hermann Wellenreuther and Reimer C. Eck, Göttingen

The purpose of the project Bibliography and Edition of German-language Broadsides printed in North America, 1700 – 1830  is to collect bibliographical as well as electronic image data on as many broadsides as possible that fall into the German publishing language and the timeframe. To catalog them and to make them accessible in an annotated printed bibliography as well as to publish as many individual imprints as possible as an image in an internet edition. The project has to be seen as the continuation of the rather successful and reliable bibliography The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America published in cooperation of the Niedersächsische Staats und Universitätsbibliothek in Göttingen and the Pennsylvania German Society in 1989.[1]

Göttingen University Library, originally founded by King George II. in the year 1737, due to his German function as Elector of Hannover, got involved in German American Bibliography when, while preparing an exhibition for the Bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence, quite a series of up to then completely unknown, unseen or inadequately described early German American imprints were found in the Göttingen shelves. The material had been acquired by Göttingen already during the colonial period. Contact was established with two of the major collections of American printed matter from the colonial time, the Library Company at Philadelphia and the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Mass. These institutions suggested that the Göttingen Library should be put in charge of a bibliographical project on German American printing that was then already being sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Under this revived project the Göttingen Library was given funding to send Werner Tannhof from their library staff to the United States to do pioneering fieldwork through more than 110 libraries, archives and private collections. [2] Diligent, hard-working, amiable and diplomatic as he was, Werner Tannhof succeeded in collecting bibliographical data for 3151 different imprints, books, pamphlets and almanacs whereas Oswald Seidensticker’s standard bibliography from the year 1893 recorded but 1550 entries for the same period. [3]  The bibliography published in Göttingen about 100 years later then recorded about 600 items (about 19%) that had never been described before and for further 612 items but one single copy could be located. This bibliography was printed with the generous funding of the Pennsylvania German Society. The success of Werner Tannhof was only possible through the kind support and advice he was continuously given by all librarians and collections he visited. Gerd-J. Bötte who did the actual cataloguer’s work then later in Göttingen could similarly rely on helpful communication and help from the United States.

As a matter of fact Tannhof had also collected the bibliographical records, often supported by photocopies, for about 1100 to 1200 German language broadsides from the period. For lack of time and funding and due to the complexity of the material, these could not be included in the two volume bibliography. In 2001 another application for a grant was written in Göttingen to the Forschungsgemeinschaft by Professor Hermann Wellenreuther from the Göttingen University Department for Modern History and Reimer C. Eck, who was then head of English and American collections at the University Library, for editing and recording the German American broadsides for the period. While writing the proposal the authors were very well aware of the fact that bibliographical records and descriptions of broadsides are a rather delicate matter. They were also aware that a high percentage of the material found to be described, would lack important imprint information like date, place or printer. They were also aware that a large part of these scarce imprints are in private hands, a fact that would make comprehensive bibliographical recording not easier. On the other hand, from viewing the material at hand in Göttingen collected   during the former project, they expected considerable additional information on the day to day life and the acculturation of the German settlers in their new environment with its different and difficult economic and political aspects. Naturally the fascinatingly varied religious culture of the German immigrants would also be well documented. A full bibliographic and annotated description of this material could open a wealth of new sources for historical research. A printed or electronically published bibliography should supply as many images as possible and should be ordered systematically because chronological order or arrangement by place of printing was prohibitive. A rough systematic outline was part of the application for the grant. [4]

Again the editors were very fortunate. With Dr.Carola Wessel we found an extremely qualified Göttingen-trained historian and librarian who took upon herself the task to travel again to the United States, to follow Werner Tannhof’s footsteps and even to try to trace back the migrations of this important, fugitive and even rarer material of the German American heritage among various collections and collectors.[5] While we had sent Werner Tannhof out with a xeroxed Seidensticker, pencil, paper, boxes of card files and ESTC bib-sheets, plus the hope that we would be permitted to draw photo-copies without breaking our budget, this time we could supply Carola with a laptop-computer that held a preliminary bibliographic file linked with the xeroxed images of most of the broadsides that Werner had collected in the early 1980s. In addition she was equipped with a high resolution digitization camera. Again the support for Carola and the Göttingen broadside project from institutions and private collectors during her field-work in 2002 and 2003 was overwhelming. In a rather short period she managed to collect a corpus of about 1400 different imprints that fall within the scope of the project. She recorded about 400 completely new ones that had not been seen by Werner Tannhof or not been described before in any bibliographies or publications. From most of them she managed to produce high resolution digitized images that will facilitate the creation of adequate bibliographical descriptions for the bibliography. Quite a lot of the images she took, turned out to be good old friends that we had also recorded nearly twenty years before. Often we found the identical items with the same waterstains in now completely different private or public collections. The migration between the various collections has been and still is considerable. Thus it seems to be even more important to do a complete survey of this rare and fragile material that has been preserved to this day.

When Carola returned from the U.S. in 2003 she turned to sorting and classifying the collected material and preparing an itinerary for further serious field work in the United States. Those who know her can imagine how diligently she kept her records. Soon the editors - in consent with the sponsor of the project – had to permit her to take a half time job at the Bielefeld University Library because she had to think of her professional career and even a librarian can not live on German ephemera alone. But at the end of the year 2003 Carola Wessel suddenly became seriously ill and she died in February  2004 not quite forty years old. After the editors had overcome that shock it took quite a while to find an adequate replacement and to convince the Forschungsgemeinschaft to continue its funding. The work Carola had left on her computer convinced us that a solid base for the bibliography of early German American broadsides had been laid. If we could find a properly qualified successor for the descriptive work and the maintenance of the database and more than one person who could invest manpower into the project we should be able to continue with success.

The new librarian to work on the bibliography is Anne von Kamp [6], a graduate from the University of Erlangen, who among other specialized experience has spent a year at the Mennonite Hesston College, Hesston, Ks. and has worked in the Theological Library at Princeton. She started to work with the project in September 2005.

Recently two very important publications on the subject have given new impact to the interest in the study of early German American broadsides. [7] Both books are of vital importance for the project and the findings presented there will be taken in careful consideration while continuing. Both books also show convincingly the wealth and the beauty of the German American Broadside tradition, a tradition that deserves to be preserved and thoroughly described. In this context we would like to add some statistical findings on subject and range of the German American Broadside as Reimer Eck presented them at the symposium Ephemera across the Atlantic: Popular Print Culture in Two Worlds at the Library Company of Philadelphia in September 2005. These slides are generated from Carola Wessel’s original findings. [8]

During April and early May 2006 Reimer Eck, after retirement from official duties at the Göttingen library, will make a field trip in the United States in order to view material Carola had to leave out of her recordings and to contact and visit further public and private collections that could not be checked thoroughly the first time around. Some of our records still rely on hearsay or bad Xerox-copies in private hands. Other records rely on Tannhof’s original fieldwork now dating back some twenty years. Much of the success of this second trip in search of broadsides depends on the support he will find in Amercan institutions and private collections. For the project, that was so sadly interrupted by Carola’s untimely death it is vital, that we can develop a reliable schedule in order to keep the financial support going. What would be highly appreciated is, that as many collections and collectors make their material as liberally as possible available for the project. Copies or skans that permit accurate bibliographic description of size and size of printed matter would be highly appreciated. Naturally the electronic copy has preference. Permission to employ the high resolution camera for recording important items would be very welcome. On the long run an electronic edition of the bibliography giving access to as many images as possible and permissible seems to be the best state of the art solution.

On the other hand the project directors are very well aware that there are various good reasons for not permitting images of individual broadsides to be put on the internet. They will scrupulously adhere to any restriction owning institutions or individual collectors might put on the images they make available for the project.

Any further helpful comments for the project are highly appreciated.