Holdings Information
Bibliographic Record Display
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Author/Creator:Arndt, Karl John Richard.
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Title:Karl John Richard Arndt collection of Bernhard Muller and the Harmony Society, 1721-1984.
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Physical Description:10.08 linear feet (12 boxes)
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Links:View a description and listing of collection contents in the finding aid
View a selection of digital images in the Beinecke Library's Digital Images Online database
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Yale Holdings
Holdings Record Display
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Notes:In German and English.
Purchased from Chapel Hill Rare Books on the Frederick W. and Carrie S. Beinecke Fund for Western Americana, 1993.
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Organization:Organized into three series: I. Primary Material, 1721-1937. II. Secondary Material, 1775-1984. III. Writings of Karl John Richard Arndt, undated.
- Access and use:This material is open for research.
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Biographical / Historical note:Karl Arndt, born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1903, was a scholar of German-American history specializing in utopian societies. He was a professor at Louisiana State University from 1935 until 1947, and at Clark University, where he was head of the German Department from 1950 to 1969. He served in the United States Military Government in Germany, in the Office of Church-State Relations, from 1945 to 1950. Arndt wrote several volumes of history on the Harmony Society, including George Rapp's Harmony Society, 1785-1847 (Rutherford, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1972).
Bernhard Muller, also known as Count Leon, Proli, and Archduke Maximilian von Este, was born near Frankfurt, Germany in 1788 and as a young man gave sermons predicting the onset of the millennium, which created conflict with church and state officials. He immigrated to the United States in 1831, first living in the Harmony Society in Butler County, Pennsylvania, and later founding the separatist New Philadelphia Congregation (in present-day Monaca, Pennsylvania) and, in 1833, the settlement of Germantown, in Grand Ecore, Lousiana. Muller died of yellow fever in Germantown in 1834.
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Summary:The papers document Karl Arndt's research on the Harmony Society in the United States, 1805-1905, (including its leaders Johann George Rapp and Frederick Reichert Rapp) and the settlements founded by Bernhard Muller, also known as Count Leon (including the New Philadalphia Congregation, 1832-1833 and the settlement of Germantown, Louisiana, 1833-1871). Material includes Arndt's collection of primary sources, his research files, including photocopies of other documentation, and the draft of his three-volume work Des Messias Wiederkehr. Also included in the collection are books from Johann Georg Goentgen's library
- Format:Archives or Manuscripts
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Indexes/Finding aids:Finding aid available.
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Cite as:Karl John Richard Arndt Collection on Bernhard Muller (Count Leon) and the Harmony Society. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
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Subjects:Arndt, Karl John Richard.
Goentgen, Johan Georg.
Muller, Bernhard, -1832.
Rapp, Frederick, 1775-1834.
Rapp, George, 1757-1847.
Harmony Society.
New Philadelphia Society.
German Americans--Louisiana--Religious life.
German Americans--Pennsylvania--Religious life.
Utopias--United States.
Butler County (Pa.)--Religious life and customs.
Louisiana--Religious life and customs.
Natchitoches Parish (La.)--Religious life and customs.
Pennsylvania--Religious life and customs.
Link to this page: https://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/9950323