Amerika und die moderne Völkerwanderung. Nebst einer Darstellung der gegenwärtig zu Ökonomie (Economy) am Ohio angesiedelten Harmonie-Gesellschaft, und einem Kupfer: Georg Rapp, Leiter der Harmonie-Gesellschaft, vorstellend. (= Das liberale System, oder das freie Bürgerthum in seiner höchsten Entfaltung; in einem Gemälde des Bundesstaats von Nordamerika praktisch dargestellt. Zweiter Theil.)
Potsdam: Verlag der H. Vogler’schen Buchhandlung, 1833. First edition. In publisher’s blue blank paper. xvi, 400 p. and an engraved portrait of Georg Rapp as frontispiece. Untrimmed. Light foxing throughout. Otherwise in fine condition.
Rare early German study of American migration, containing one of the earliest extensive contemporary descriptions of the Harmony Society under Johann Georg Rapp.
Ernst Ludwig Brauns’s Amerika und die moderne Völkerwanderung ranks among the rarest German economic and social studies of early nineteenth-century America. It appeared as the second independent volume of his larger work Das liberale System oder das freie Bürgerthum in seiner höchsten Entfaltung, whose first volume had been published two years earlier. In this part Brauns offers a wide-ranging ethnographic and historical examination of the American republic, interpreting its rapid expansion through the framework of the modern transatlantic Völkerwanderung. Combining demographic analysis, migration history, political economy, and contemporary observation, he investigates the composition and development of the American population while tracing the successive European movements that contributed to its formation.
Brauns explains the rapid growth of the United States through two principal forces: natural increase and immigration. He develops this interpretation through statistical and historical discussion of population growth, census data, disease, mortality, and migration, situating European colonization in North America within a broader historical perspective comparable to the great migrations of antiquity and the Middle Ages. In his view the United States had become the principal outlet for Europe’s surplus population, driven by religious dissent, economic pressure, political constraint, land hunger, and the search for social mobility—conditions that also produced a number of experimental communal and utopian settlements founded by European emigrants.
The most substantial section of the volume is Brauns’s contemporary account of the Harmony Society under Johann Georg Rapp (pp. 214–270), written while the community was still flourishing and its founder still alive. It constitutes one of the earliest printed descriptions of the Harmonists and an early account of a German communal society within the broader landscape of American utopian experiments.
Brauns traces the group’s migration from Württemberg to Pennsylvania, beginning with Rapp’s exploratory journey to America in 1803 and the establishment of the first settlement at Harmony in Butler County near Pittsburgh in 1804–1805. Drawing on detailed observations, he describes the rapid development of the society’s agriculture, manufacturing, and commercial activity, presenting its economic growth as evidence of the effectiveness of communal structure. He then follows the society’s relocation to New Harmony on the Wabash River in Indiana between 1814 and 1824, outlining the structure of the settlement, its industries, and the religious discipline of its members. The sale of New Harmony to Robert Owen is presented not as a failure but as part of the society’s continued mobility. The narrative concludes with the establishment of the Harmonists’ final settlement at Economy on the Ohio River, whose manufactures, internal discipline, and distinctive religious practices are described in detail. Throughout the account Brauns combines narrative history with statistical and economic observations to illustrate the material success of the Harmonists’ communal system.
Brauns’s study was recognized within the community itself. After publication he sent a copy to Rapp in 1842, and Rapp replied in 1844 with what is considered his final reflective statement on the society, praising Brauns for his understanding of its religious foundations. (Arndt, 1972)
A related experiment discussed by Brauns is the settlement of the German Bundesbrüder at Blumengartenthal (Blooming Croft Valley) in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1806 by Dr. Friedrich Haller, a former Württemberg court councillor, this group emerged from the wider religious milieu influenced by Rapp’s movement. Unlike the Harmonists, however, the Bundesbrüder rejected complete communal ownership and developed a religious society that relied on internal arbitration rather than civil litigation.
Alongside these communal experiments the volume surveys German and Swiss colonization in North America. Beginning with the founding of Germantown in Pennsylvania by Franz Daniel Pastorius in 1683, Brauns traces later migration waves including the Palatine emigration of 1709, whose settlements spread along the Hudson and Mohawk valleys and into Pennsylvania, followed by subsequent eighteenth-century movements. He also discusses organized nineteenth-century settlement projects such as the German colony at Vandalia in Illinois, as well as projected enterprises in regions including Florida. Swiss migration receives parallel attention, including the wine-growing settlement founded by Jean-Jacques Dufour at Vevay in Indiana and the Swiss colony of Nova Friburgo in Brazil.
The study also sketches the earlier English foundations of the future United States. Figures such as John and Sebastian Cabot, Sir Walter Raleigh, William Penn, and Lord Baltimore appear as pioneers of exploration and settlement, while Virginia, New England, Pennsylvania, and Maryland are presented as the political structures within which later European immigration unfolded. Dutch colonization is discussed through New Netherland along the Hudson River and New Amsterdam, while Swedish settlements are noted along the Delaware River in present-day Delaware and Pennsylvania. French and Spanish colonization are likewise treated in comparative perspective. Brauns thus presents European migration—especially German settlement—as a major factor in the demographic and economic development of the United States.
Ernst Ludwig Brauns (1790–1862) was a German Lutheran clergyman and writer on the United States and transatlantic migration. He served Lutheran congregations in Pennsylvania before about 1820, after which he returned to Germany, where he studied history in Göttingen and later held a pastoral position at Deensen in Lower Saxony. In his prefatory remarks Brauns presents himself as a former resident of the United States who had direct experience among German congregations and regular contact with different denominations, circumstances that shaped his comparative approach and his emphasis on religious tolerance.
Brauns belongs to the earliest generation of German authors who attempted a systematic analysis of emigration to the United States, and his writings rank among the earliest systematic German studies of transatlantic migration. Writing at a moment when German migration to North America was only beginning to expand significantly, several of his early publications also served as practical guides for prospective emigrants. His works include Ideen über die Auswanderung nach Amerika (Göttingen, 1827); Mittheilungen aus Nordamerika (Braunschweig, 1829); Skizzen von Amerika (Halberstadt and Potsdam, 1830); and Das liberale System oder das freie Bürgerthum in seiner höchsten Entfaltung (2 vols., Potsdam, 1831–1833), whose second part—the present work—appeared under a title emphasizing modern European migration and the Harmonist community established at Economy on the Ohio. Later publications include the colonization study Neudeutschland in Westamerika (Lemgo and Detmold, 1847) and the comparative reflection Europa und Amerika im Lichte der Gegenwart (Grimma and Leipzig, 1851). Across these writings Brauns examined German-American settlement, linguistic assimilation, population growth, and the broader social consequences of migration, producing one of the earliest sustained German discussions of the United States in the age of expanding European emigration.
Scarce in institutional holdings, and Rare Book Hub records the last appearance of the work in the trade as a copy offered by Lathrop C. Harper in 1941.
References: Arndt, Karl J. R. George Rapp’s Harmony Society, 1786–1847. Revised edition. Rutherford / Madison / Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1972.
Sabin 7449.
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Price: €25,000.00