The Personal Papers of Kate Hettasch (1905-1987) and Elizabeth Marx (1908-1996)

     As I mentioned in my last blog, I have had the opportunity to work on several collections that  focused on missionaries.  The collections of Kate Hettasch (1905-1987) and Elizabeth Marx (1908-1996) are of us particular interest to me. Both of these individuals were the daughters of Moravian missionaries, Kate's parents in Labrador and Elizabeth's in Tibet (her brothers also were missionaries in South America and places throughout the world).  Their childhood experiences laid the foundation for their future work as missionaries. While it was difficult for woman to work as missionaries unless married, both Kate and Elizabeth were able to do so as teachers. Kate was placed in an English school in Labrador, while Elizabeth worked in Nicaragua at a Moravian school called the Colegio Morava.
     While working on Kate's collection I was struck by her artistic talents.  Kate is relatively famous in the Moravian community for her drawings of the children and life in Labrador, some of which were published in the form of greeting cards.  The collection contained several examples of not only the final product but also her initial sketches.  Below is an example of Kate's work, which can sometimes still be purchased from the Moravian Archives or found online.

     While Kate used her artistic ability to connect to the new world in which she taught, Elizabeth was forced to address not only the cultural but also the political environment in Nicaragua during her tenure.  Elizabeth was placed in Nicaragua not only during a period of internal strife but also an external one with the US. In 1979 a social revolution overthrew the dictatorship, which was replaced by a system based on Communism. Elizabeth’s personal papers document the anxiety she felt between maintaining her status as missionary and the fear she felt as an American outsider.

      During this period, Elizabeth also lacked the support of the Moravian Church, which was beginning to shift its focus away from missionary work. It is fascinating to see the interplay between the Moravian Church and the environments in which it operated.  All of this tension can be ascertained from reading the correspondence of a singular missionary in the field.
     Finally, I was struck by both Kate’s and Elizabeth’s dedication to their work and the lasting connections each had made to Labrador and Nicaragua, respectively. Both women were active in the field for over 35 years.  They returned to the United States as retirees only when their bodies demanded rest.  From their later correspondence and journals, it is evident that both women remained emotionally attached to the places where they had lived most of their lives.

                                                                                                -Katey Fardelmann

Hard Work

     I am almost finished organizing the Lehigh Bridge Collection that David Zboray had initially worked on before he left the Archives. Once David left, more boxes were discovered to which I was assigned to catalog.
     A lot of the documents I have come across relate to the dissolution of the company. The Lehigh Bridge Company officially closed and liquidated its assets in 1920. I have identified numerous letters that the secretary of the company sent to shareholders notifying them of the dissolution and requesting the stock certificate. The secretary, however, was not always able to get in touch with the shareholder. At times, the shareholder may have passed away, which meant the secretary had to track down the executor of the estate.  While not always successful, more often than not he was able to reach the shareholder. When the certificate could not be discovered, a bond of indemnity covering the lost or missing certificate of stock was issued. Even though the Lehigh Bridge Company closed its doors in 1920, the secretary of the company was still contacting shareholders years later!

Sample letter from Lehigh Bridge Company secretary

Response from executor of shareholder's estate

     Compared to today, communication was not as simple or easy during the early 20th century. Without the ease of Google, email, or other networking tools, finding information took time and hard work!

                                                                                               -Alli Kowalski

Bringing the World into the (perceived) Wilderness

     The Moravians that moved to Pennsylvania in the mid 18th century were relative latecomers in the larger process of European colonization.  By the time the Brethren founded Bethlehem in 1741, the Spanish had spent two and a half centuries laying down their ever-expanding empire, and the British – to whom the Moravians were adding their numbers on the edges of established settlement - almost a century and half.  Despite their isolated location and relatively late arrival, Bethlehem’s Moravians maintained an understanding of the world’s geography, both distant continents and the more immediate colonial world.
     Settling the proverbial wilderness, the Moravians found themselves mapping what was to them a new geography.  Their library, however, kept them in close contact with the geography of the world they left behind.  John Arbo, member of the Moravian community, hand-numbered a large atlas composed of printed, hand-colored maps that displayed the latest information regarding known geography in Europe.  Dozens of maps, many themselves as recent as the mid 18th century, illustrate minute details for European states and localities.  It would not be remiss to conclude that the Moravians knew more about the geography thousands of miles away, even in Africa and Asia, than they knew about what was outside their front door in Bethlehem.
     By settling relatively late in the colonial period, Moravians had the added benefit of understanding the “new world” they were moving into much more than their colonial predecessors.  The first Iberians to wander through North and South America in the 16th century were seeing rivers and mountains never before viewed by European eyes.  Their earliest settlements were, from a European perspective, drawn on a completely blank map.  The same is true for the earliest Englishmen in the 17th century to plant colonies on the eastern shore of North America.
     Arbo’s aforementioned Atlas shows how the Moravians understood the western hemisphere at a level the earliest Spanish, English, and other initial explorers could never have imagined.  Moravians in Bethlehem were cognizant of even the smallest villages in Spain’s extensive North and South American empire.  English colonies are shown as settled areas filled with dots on the map representing towns and settlements.  As such, even though the immediate realm around Bethlehem may have been unexplored by Europeans, the Moravians must have been aware they were moving into a very busy colonial neighborhood.
     Many of the books in the Congregational collection showcase maps; however,  Arbo’s atlas most clearly suggests that the Moravians in Bethlehem were not only more familiar with the geography of distant lands more than their own immediate environment but also that they were aware of the already crowded nature of the colonial world they were making into their new home.

                                                                                    -Andrew Stahlhut

The Skeletons in the Book

As I continued my cataloging of books in the Congregational Library, I stumbled across a book from 1706 with a very interesting history and unexpected contents. Its title, Kurtze Verfassung Der Anatomie, Wie Selbige Zu der Mahlerey und Bildhauerey erfordert wird, told me that the book was about anatomy and I began to look through the book.

Title Page, Detail

What caught my eye right away were these stunning plates at the back of the book!

This was not what I imagined drawings in a book about anatomy to look like!

Biceps

This book is the German translation of Roger de Piles’ Abrégé d’anatomie accomodé aux arts de peinture et de sculpture, published in 1667. François Tortebat reproduced the illustrations from Andreas Vesalius’ Fabrica (1538). Vesalius was a physician, anatomist and scholar, and de Piles was an artist and French diplomat (some biographies even claim he was a spy).  De Piles’ book is important because it was one of the first anatomy book created for artists, not for those practicing medicine. The German translation held by the Moravian Archives was fascinating to page through and different words like in this picture would catch my eye!

Source: Ball. James Moore. Andreas Vesalius, the reformer of anatomy. Medical science press, 1910.

                                                                                                   -Meghan Fitch