Since its original release in 1939, Carl Schneider's The German Church on the American Frontier has been the premier published resource on the unique "Evangelischer Kirchenverein des Westens" (Evangelical Church Society of the West), 1840-66, which later assumed a wider denominational identity as the German Evangelical Synod of North America, the church of the Niebuhr family. Known eventually as the Evangelical Synod of North America, the group's ecumenical and irenic heritage contributed to mergers that resulted in the Evangelical and Reformed Church, 1934-1957, and thereafter in the United Church of Christ.

The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church is a multivolume study by Hughes Oliphant Old that canvasses the history of preaching from the words of Moses at Mount Sinai through modern times. In Volume 1, The Biblical Period, Old begins his survey by discussing the roots of the Christian ministry of the Word in the worship of Israel. He then examines the preaching of Christ and the Apostles. Finally, Old looks at the development and practice of Christian preaching in the second and third centuries, concluding with the ministry of Origen.

From French coureurs de bois coursing through its waterways in the seventeenth century to the lumberjacks who rode logs down those same rivers in the late nineteenth century, settlers came to Wisconsin's frontier seeking wealth and opportunity. Indians mixed with these newcomers, sometimes helping and sometimes challenging them, often benefiting from their guns, pots, blankets, and other trade items. The settlers' frontier produced a state with enormous ethnic variety, but its unruliness worried distant governmental and religious authorities, who soon dispatched officials and missionaries to help guide the new settlements. By 1900 an era was rapidly passing, leaving Wisconsin's peoples with traditions of optimism and self-government, but confronting them also with tangled cutover lands and game scarcities that were a legacy of the settlers' belief in the inexhaustible resources of the frontier.

Wilhelm Wagner (1803-1877), son of Peter Wagner, was born in Dürkheim, Germany. He married Friedericke Odenwald (1812-1893). They had nine children. They emigrated and settled in Illinois. His brother, Julius Wagner (1816-1903) married Emilie M. Schneider (1820-1896). They had seven children. They emigrated and settled in Texas.

Interest in ethnic studies and multiculturalism has grown considerably in the years since the 1992 publication of the first edition of this work. Co-editors Ratner and Buenker have revised and updated the first edition of Multiculturalism in the United States to reflect the changes, patterns, and shifts in immigration showing how American culture affects immigrants and is affected by them. Common topics that helped determine the degree and pace of acculturation for each ethnic group are addressed in each of the 17 essays, providing the reader with a comparative reference tool. Seven new ethnic groups are included: Arabs, Haitians, Vietnamese, Koreans, Filipinos, Asian Indians, and Dominicans. New essays on the Irish, Chinese, and Mexicans are provided as are revised and updated essays on the remaining groups from the first edition. The contribution to American culture by people of these diverse origins reflects differences in class, occupation, and religion. The authors explain the tensions and conflicts between American culture and the traditions of newly arrived immigrants. Changes over time that both of the cultures brought to America and of the culture that received them is also discussed. Essays on representative ethnic groups include African-Americans, American Indians, Arabs, Asian Indians, Chinese, Dominicans, Filipinos, Germans, Haitians, Irish, Italians, Jews, Koreans, Mexicans, Poles, Scandinavians, and the Vietnamese.

The debate over America's multiculturalism has been intense for nearly three decades, dividing opponents into those insisting on such recognition and those fearing that such a formal acknowledgment will undermine the civic bonds created by a heterogeneous nation. Facts have often been the victim in this dispute, and few works have successfully attempted to present the broad spectrum of America's ethnic groups in a format that is readable, current, and authoritative. The chapters in this reference book demonstrate that America has been far more than a nation of immigrants; it has been a nation of peoples—of virtually all races, religions, and nationalities—inclusive of indigenous natives and peoples long present as well as myriad immigrant and refugee groups. Not all groups have equally found America to be a land of opportunity, and the successes of some groups have come at the expense of others. To understand the American experience, the reader must not just study the story of immigrants living on the East Coast, but also the history of those living in the South, Southwest, West, and even Alaska and Hawaii. As a reference book, this volume provides thorough coverage of more than two dozen racial, ethnic, and religious groups in the United States. Each chapter is written by an expert contributor and overviews the experiences of one group or a cluster of related groups. The chapters are arranged alphabetically and cover groups such as African Americans, American Indians, Filipinos, Hawaiians, Mexicans, Mormons, and Puerto Ricans. To the extent possible, each chapter discusses the initial arrival of the group in America; the adaptation of the first generation of immigrants; the economic, political, and cultural integration of the group; and the status of the group in contemporary American society. Each chapter closes with a bibliographical essay, and the volume concludes with a review of the most important general works on America's multicultural heritage.

During the 1930s in the United States, the Works Progress Administration developed the Federal Writers’ Project to support writers and artists while making a national effort to document the country’s shared history and culture. The American Guide series consists of individual guides to each of the states. Little-known authors—many of whom would later become celebrated literary figures—were commissioned to write these important books. John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ralph Ellison are among the more than 6,000 writers, editors, historians, and researchers who documented this celebration of local histories. Photographs, drawings, driving tours, detailed descriptions of towns, and rich cultural details exhibit each state’s unique flavor. The WPA Guide to the Show-Me State of Missouri literally shows the reader the virtues of this lovely region, by including vivid pictures of Art Deco skyscrapers in downtown Kansas City, farm scenes, the Ozark Mountains, and the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. It includes historical essays about the influence of these rivers on the state as well as Missouri’s important role in the American Civil War.

Published in 1986, this selected bibliography considers private schools that are religiously affiliated. Divided into several sections the book open with chapters covering the most influential general books on religion and schooling and offers summaries and analysis of court decisions and commentaries on the issues of government aid and regulation. The book goes on to provide entries of the schools operating in the United States by seventeen religious groups, entries are annotated by experts from the field. The final section of the book considers statements on religious schools made by both public school educators and religious school advocates; formal and informal interactions between the public and religious schools; and the concept of the education of the public by religious and public schools. This work pulls together a wealth of reference material, mainly on religious schools, and provides a much-needed resource for those interested in religious schooling, whether researcher, scholar, student or policy-maker.

A panoramic introduction to religion in America, newly revised and updated

Historians of the early Republic are just beginning to tell the stories of the period&’s ethnic minorities. In Foreigners in Their Own Land, Steven M. Nolt is the first to add the story of the Pennsylvania Germans to that larger mosaic, showing how they came to think of themselves as quintessential Americans and simultaneously constructed a durable sense of ethnicity. The Lutheran and Reformed Pennsylvania German populations of eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Appalachian backcountry successfully combined elements of their Old World tradition with several emerging versions of national identity. Many took up democratic populist rhetoric to defend local cultural particularity and ethnic separatism. Others wedded certain American notions of reform and national purpose to Continental traditions of clerical authority and idealized German virtues. Their experience illustrates how creating and defending an ethnic identity can itself be a way of becoming American. Though they would maintain a remarkably stable and identifiable subculture well into the twentieth century, Pennsylvania Germans were, even by the eve of the Civil War, the most &"inside&" of &"outsiders.&" They represent the complex and often paradoxical ways in which many Americans have managed the process of assimilation to their own advantage. Given their pioneering role in that process, their story illuminates the path that other immigrants and ethnic Americans would travel in the decades to follow.