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Start Over Subject Charities Subject German Americans Year 1900 to 1949

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German Society of Pennsylvania Agentur records, 1854-1938 (bulk) 1847-1947 (inclusive)

Extent:
10.0 linear feet (52 boxes)
Abstract:
72 volumes of handwritten ledgers, indexes, logs, reports, and letter books, recording the efforts of the Agentur to help needy German immigrants and Philadelphia residents of German origin over a period of a hundred years. Valuable biographical information for local history, social history, labor history, immigration research, genealogy.

Held at: German Society of Pennsylvania: Joseph P. Horner Memorial Library [Contact Us]

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German Society of Pennsylvania Foreign Relief Committee records, 1919-1925, 1929

Extent:
0.5 linear feet (2 boxes + 1 oversize folder)
Abstract:
This collection contains the records of the German Society of Pennsylvania's Foreign Relief Committee, which from late 1919 through 1922 contributed humanitarian aid to the populations of Germany and Austria in the wake of the First World War. Most of the aid was distributed through the American Friends Service Committee. The collection contains correspondence, appeals, reports, financial records, and ephemera. The correspondence includes letters from 78 charitable organizations in Hamburg, Germany, that applied for distributions of donated sacks of flour in 1919; and nine letters written from various parts of Germany in 1922 during the period of inflation. The Foreign Relief Committee was comprised of an all-male committee of the Society and a committee of the Society's Women's Auxiliary, whose greatest contributions were in the form of knitted and sewn items produced by the members at weekly gatherings. Also included is a 1929 letter from the Deutsche Liga der freien...(see more)

Held at: German Society of Pennsylvania: Joseph P. Horner Memorial Library [Contact Us]

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Max Heinrici manuscript and photographs, circa 1936-1939

Extent:
0.83 linear feet (2 boxes)
Abstract:
The collection contains an unpublished manuscript by Max Heinrici, and several photographs of him in his later years. The manuscript (approximately 460 leaves) tells the history of the German Society of Pennsylvania from 1915 to 1935, and was intended as a continuation of an earlier history of the Society that Heinrici had published in 1917, co-authored by Oswald Seidensticker. It includes biographical sketches of prominent Society leaders, and lists of its officers and board of directors for the period. The text gives perspectives on the experiences of German Americans in the era of the First World War, and contains material on charitable relief work carried on by German Americans in Philadelphia to benefit Germany and Austria-Hungary during and after the war.

Held at: German Society of Pennsylvania: Joseph P. Horner Memorial Library [Contact Us]

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Ladies Social Club of the Philadelphia Rifle Club minute books, 1914-1944, 1959-1982

Extent:
0.38 linear feet (3 boxes)
Abstract:
This collections comprises three minute books of the Ladies Social Club of the Philadelphia Rifle Club, which was founded 12 February 1914, with the aim of holding social events and assisting the Philadelphia Rifle Club (Philadelphia Schützen-Verein), a German-American society that dated back to 1846. The Ladies Social Club also made charitable donations. It held meetings at the clubhouse of the Rifle Club in Schuetzen Park near Tabor Station, at the edge of the Olney neighborhood of Philadelphia. The extant minutes cover two periods, 1914 to 1944, and 1959 to 1971. Loose correspondence found with the minute books dates to as late as 1982.

Held at: German Society of Pennsylvania: Joseph P. Horner Memorial Library [Contact Us]

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Frauenhilfsfond records, 1914-1922, 1924

Extent:
0.17 linear feet (1 box + 3 legal-size folders)
Abstract:
The Frauenhilfsfond was the women's auxiliary of the Hilfsfond (Relief Fund), a German-American charitable organization in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, devoted to war relief and humanitarian aid in German-speaking areas overseas during and after the First World War. The Frauenhilfsfond was essentially an umbrella group of German-American women's organizations in the Philadelphia area that coordinated the women’s efforts related to the relief work. The collection contains the complete minutes of the group from August 1914 until March 1917, as well as a record of donations received from March 1915 to April 1917. It also includes a log of homemade knitted items produced for overseas relief from October 1919 to March 1920, as well as a few items dated in the early 1920s related to campaigns to feed destitute children in German-speaking areas in Europe, efforts that were led by the American Friends Service Committee. The records dating from after 1917 appear to overlap with the activities...(see more)

Held at: German Society of Pennsylvania: Joseph P. Horner Memorial Library [Contact Us]

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German Associated Nationality Group of the American Red Cross War Fund Campaign. Records, 1943-1945 (inclusive)

Extent:
0.1 linear feet (5 folders)
Abstract:
This collection contains the records of the German Associated Nationality Group, a committee of the Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter of the American Red Cross that led a fundraising effort within the German-American community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during World War II, from 1943 to 1945, as part of the Red Cross War Fund campaign. Included are minutes of meetings (12 March to 12 May 1943); invitation letters to meetings (July 1943 to April 1944); two appeal letters (1944, 1945), including related Red Cross campaign ephemera; committee membership lists; lists of donors and donations; and two clippings from German-language newspapers.

Held at: German Society of Pennsylvania: Joseph P. Horner Memorial Library [Contact Us]

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Ladies Society of the Philadelphia Turners. Records, 1933-1938, 1954-1959

Extent:
0.25 linear feet (2 boxes)
Abstract:
This collection comprises two volumes of records of the Ladies Society (Damen-Verein), or women's auxiliary, of the Philadelphia Turners. The parent club, which was known until the late 1930s as the Philadelphia Turngemeinde, was one of the oldest German-American Turner, or gymnastics clubs in the United States, founded in 1849. The Ladies Society was founded on 5 September 1877 to assist the Turngemeinde. These partial records of the Ladies Society are from two different periods. The first volume is a ledger recording member information and dues paid from 1933 to 1938. The second volume is a cashbook kept from 1954 to 1959. In the 1950s the Ladies Society mainly held social events such as card parties, dessert parties, picnics, and dinners; and besides supporting the Turngemeinde it partly had a general charitable purpose.

Held at: German Society of Pennsylvania: Joseph P. Horner Memorial Library [Contact Us]

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Women's Auxiliary of the German Society of Pennsylvania (Frauen-Hilfsverein) records, 1900-2013 (inclusive)

Extent:
6.25 linear feet (5 paige boxes)
Abstract:
The Women’s Auxiliary of the German Society of Pennsylvania was founded in 1900 to serve as an additional charitable arm of the Society, with particular emphasis on charity for families in distress in the Philadelphia area. Since its founding in 1764, the German Society had provided charitable assistance to German-speaking immigrants in the community, especially those newly arrived in the country. With German immigration on the decline in the early 20th century, the Women's Auxiliary assumed the greater portion of the Society's charitable work. After the First and Second World Wars the Auxiliary engaged in war relief to German speaking lands directly and in cooperation with Quaker relief agencies. As state and federal government undertook more and more welfare work in the city, the auxiliary charter was changed in the 1950s to provide scholarship aid to students who majored in German language study. The records include annual reports, charters, bylaws, minute books, treasurer’s...(see more)

Held at: German Society of Pennsylvania: Joseph P. Horner Memorial Library [Contact Us]

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Austro-American Relief Society records, 1916-1942 (inclusive)

Extent:
0.83 linear feet (5 boxes + 1 oversize folder)
Abstract:
Records of the Austro-American Relief Society of Philadelphia, Pa., mainly documenting its charitable work from 1916 to 1941, including fundraising in behalf of war relief for Austro-Hungarian and German civilians and prisoners of war during and after World War I. The collection includes financial records, membership and donor lists, inventories, correspondence, ephemera, and clippings.

Held at: German Society of Pennsylvania: Joseph P. Horner Memorial Library [Contact Us]

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German Society of Pennsylvania institutional records, 1764-1968 (bulk) 1764-1998 (inclusive)

Extent:
27.4 linear feet
Abstract:
The German Society of Pennsylvania, founded in Philadelphia in 1764, directed its early efforts to assisting new German immigrants, especially those forced into indentured servitude when they were unable to pay their sea fare. Throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries, the Society was very visible in the thriving German-American community in Philadelphia, boasting just over one thousand members at the peak of its growth, in the late 1870s. In the 20th century, the Society’s scope and prominence was affected by the two World Wars, which created suspicion and criticism of Germanic culture. That suspicion and government scrutiny played a role in the dwindling membership of the Society. In the post-World War II era the Society channeled its overseas relief activities through a Quaker-based aid society. In the second half of the century, the neighborhood was also changing, as it became predominantly African-American, rather than German, and more impoverished. But the Society pressed...(see more)

Held at: German Society of Pennsylvania: Joseph P. Horner Memorial Library [Contact Us]

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