The Arts and Architecture of German Settlements in Missouri: A Survey of a Vanishing Culture

The Arts and Architecture of German Settlements in Missouri: A Survey of a Vanishing Culture





Many Germans who immigrated to America in the nineteenth century settled in the lower Missouri River valley between St. Charles and Boonville, Missouri. In this magnificent book, which includes some six hundred photographs and drawings, Charles van Ravenswaay examines that immigration--who came, how, and why--and surveys the distinctive Missouri-German architecture, art, and crafts produced in the rural counties of Cole, Osage, Gasconade, Franklin, Warren, and St. Charles from the 1830s until the closing years of the century.

Although the immigrants sought to transplant their native culture to the Missouri backwoods, the compromises they were forced to make with conditions in Missouri produced many fascinating and individualistic structures and objects. They built half-timbered, stone, and brick houses and barns with designs reflecting the traditions of the German states from which the builders emigrated.

The author catalogs the immigrants' arts and crafts, which included furniture in traditional peasant designs as well as the Biedermeier and eclectic styles, redware and stoneware pottery, textiles, wood and stone carving, metalwares, firearms, baskets, musical instruments, prints, and paintings. Craftsmen working in all of these fields are identified. One chapter is devoted to the objects the immigrants brought with them from the Old World.

Added to this new printing of The Arts and Architecture of German Settlements in Missouri is a touching and informative introduction by Adolf E. Schroeder. Schroeder's long friendship with Charles van Ravenswaay allows him to reflect on the vast contributions this author made to our knowledge of Missouri's German culture. Anyone interested in architecture, crafts, or Missouriana will find this book indispensable as they savor van Ravenswaay's excellent presentation of the craftsmen and their products against the background of the aspirations and folkways of a distinctive culture.









List Price: $ 59.95



Price: $ 59.93