Singing from the Right Songbook

Abstract

German-language hymns and hymnals played a foundational role in American Protestant life, providing historical counterpoint to the English Protestant traditions. By the eve of World War I, nonetheless, English-language hymns had largely supplanted German originals, or had been introduced because of their great relevance to the American religious experience of ethnic Germans and followers of Lutheran and Reformed Protestantism. This chapter traces the transformation in language and tradition, assigning agency to immigrant and ethnic Germans who used hymnody as a medium for adapting to American culture. Specific compilers and publishers, such as Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg and C. F. W. Walther, are compared, as are denominational distinctions, such as those between Missouri Synod Lutherans and the Pennsylvania Germans.