Christoph Sauer (1695 – September 25, 1758) was the first German-language printer and publisher in North America.
Johann Christoph Sauer was born in 1695 in
Ladenburg
Ladenburg is a town in northwestern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It lies on the right bank of the river Neckar, northwest of Heidelberg and east of Mannheim.
The town's history goes back to the Celtic and Roman Ages, when it was called Lopo ...
(near
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
), the son of a Reformed pastor. He came to the county (''Graftschaft'') of
Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrians, Austrian-British people, British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy o ...
in central Germany as a child with his widowed mother some time between 1700–1710. He was a graduate of a German university, and studied medicine at the
University of Halle
Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (german: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg and the largest and oldest university i ...
. At the time, its rulers were tolerant of a variety of
Pietists
Pietism (), also known as Pietistic Lutheranism, is a movement within Lutheranism that combines its emphasis on biblical doctrine with an emphasis on individual piety and living a holy Christianity, Christian life, including a social concern for ...
and other religious dissenters, most notably
Alexander Mack
Alexander Mack ( 27 July 1679 – 19 January 1735) was a German clergyman and the leader and first minister of the Schwarzenau Brethren (or German Baptists) in the Schwarzenau, Wittgenstein community of modern-day Bad Berleburg, North Rhi ...
, who would found the
Schwarzenau Brethren
The Schwarzenau Brethren, the German Baptist Brethren, Dunkers, Dunkards, Tunkers, or sometimes simply called the German Baptists, are an Anabaptist group that dissented from Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed European state churches during t ...
and later emigrate to the United States. Most Brethren denominations descend from this original congregation. Johann Christoph Sauer married the widowed Maria Christina (born Gruber) in 1720. The family lived in the village of Schwarzenau, which now belongs to the town of
Berleburg
Bad Berleburg (, earlier also Berleburg) is a town, in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is one of Germany's largest towns by land area. It is located approximately northeast of Siegen and northwest of ...
though had ties to
Laasphe as well.
Pennsylvania
The family emigrated to
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
in 1724, settling in
Germantown Germantown or German Town may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Germantown, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region
United States
* Germantown, California, the former name of Artois, a census-designated place in Glenn County
* Ge ...
. Sauer worked as a tailor before moving in 1726 to
Lancaster where he had a farm.
In 1731, Sauer's wife, Maria Christina, joined
Johann Conrad Beissel
Johann Conrad Beissel (March 1, 1691 – July 6, 1768) was a German-born religious leader who in 1732 founded the Ephrata Community in the Province of Pennsylvania.For the correct date of his birth see Alderfer, Everett Gordon: ''The Ephrata Com ...
's
Seventh Day Baptist
Seventh Day Baptists are Baptists who observe the Sabbath as the seventh day of the week, Saturday, as a holy day to God. They adopt a covenant Baptist theology, based on the concept of regenerated society, conscious baptism of believers by immers ...
community at
Ephrata Ephrata may refer to:
Places
* Ephrata, Suriname
* Ephrata, Pennsylvania, U.S.
*Ephrata, Washington, U.S.
* Ephrata Township, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Other uses
*Ephrata Cloister, a religious community in Ephrata, Pennsylvania
See also
*
* Efrata or E ...
, the
Ephrata Cloister
The Ephrata Cloister or Ephrata Community was a Intentional community, religious community, established in 1732 by Conrad Beissel, Johann Conrad Beissel at Ephrata, Pennsylvania, Ephrata, in what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Lancaster ...
.
She was known in Ephrata as "Sister Marcella," and eventually became sub-prioress of the community, which was dedicated to celibacy.
[Leaman, Hans]
"Johann Christoph Sauer.
In ''Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present'', vol. 1, edited by Marianne S. Wokeck. German Historical Institute. Last modified March 07, 2014. Maria Christina's decision disabled Sauer's farming operation,
and he moved with his son to Germantown where that same year he built a large dwelling for his residence.
In order to supply the needs of other German-speaking people in the colonies who were liberally educated, especially in
theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
, he obtained Bibles and religious works from Germany.
Around 1735, Sauer took up the idea of becoming a printer and publisher.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
dominated this trade at the time, and was a supplier of printed materials to the large German community around Pennsylvania. Significantly, Franklin used only Roman typefaces. Sauer obtained
Fraktur
Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. The blackletter lines are broken up; that is, their forms contain many angles when compared to the curves of the Antiqu ...
type from a foundry in
Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
originally purchased by Jacob Gass of the
Ephrata Cloister
The Ephrata Cloister or Ephrata Community was a Intentional community, religious community, established in 1732 by Conrad Beissel, Johann Conrad Beissel at Ephrata, Pennsylvania, Ephrata, in what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Lancaster ...
. In 1738 Sauer began to publish almanacs, calendars, books and newspapers in 1739 using a type face that his German readers could more easily read.
The press itself is believed to have come from Berleburg in Wittgenstein, with which he had remained in contact. It had been used by Pietist printers there. Sauer also made his own ink, which he eventually sold as “Sauer’s Curious Pennsylvania Ink-Powder.”
In 1739 he brought out the first number of ''Der Hoch-Deutsch Pensylvanische Geschichts-Schreiber'', a religious and secular journal, a small folio, by , which attained a circulation of nearly 10,000, and had great influence among his countrymen. It was the first of its kind that was published in a non-English language in Pennsylvania.
Bible
In 1743, Sauer published the first German-language Bible to be printed in North America (the first in any European language). It was a quarto edition of the Bible in high German,
Luther
Luther may refer to:
People
* Martin Luther (1483–1546), German monk credited with initiating the Protestant Reformation
* Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), American minister and leader in the American civil rights movement
* Luther (give ...
's translation, which was limited to 1,200 copies of 1,284 pages. All pages were hand-set and printed one sheet at a time. It bore the title "''Biblia, Das ist: Die Heilige Schrift Alten und Neuen Testaments, Nach der Deutschen Übersetzung D. Martin Luther''". (Bible: The Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments following the translation of Dr. Martin Luther). Another 40 years would pass before an English-language Bible would appear in North America. It was three years in press, the largest work as yet issued in the colonies, and was the first Bible printed in the
American colonies, with the exception of
John Eliot's Indian Bible.
Sauer's Bible emphasized passages most in sympathy with
Anabaptist
Anabaptism (from New Latin language, Neo-Latin , from the Greek language, Greek : 're-' and 'baptism', german: Täufer, earlier also )Since the middle of the 20th century, the German-speaking world no longer uses the term (translation: "Re- ...
and Pietist beliefs. It was rapidly excepted among the Mennonites, Amish and Brethren. It was well received by the German churches of Pennsylvania, who were in turn influential in what became the
Universalist church in the Middle Atlantic and New England states.
George de Benneville (1703–1793) was an important influence on the early Universalists and, like Sauer, had sojourned among the Wittgenstein Pietists before coming to America.
Sauer remained active as a printer up until his death on September 25, 1758 in Germantown, but none of his other publications had the impact of the "Sauer Bible." The latter was re-published in 1763 and again in 1776 by his son.
See also
*
German American journalism German American journalism includes newspapers, magazines, and the newer media, with coverage of the reporters, editors, commentators, producers and other key personnel. The German Americans were thoroughly assimilated by the 1920s, and German langu ...
Further reading
* Durnbaugh, Donald F. (1958) "Christopher Sauer Pennsylvania-German Printer: His Youth in Germany and Later Relationships with Europe." ''Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography'' (1958): 316–340.
* Durnbaugh, Donald F. (1969) "Was Christopher Sauer a Dunker?" ''Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography'' (1969): 383–391
onlinehttp://journals.psu.edu/index.php/pmhb/article/viewFile/41389/41110 online]
* Frantz, John B. (1999). "Sower, Christopher, II". ''American National Biography'' New York: Oxford University Press; online
* Genzmer, George Harvey. "Sower, Christopher (1693 – September 25, 1758)". ''Dictionary of American Biography'' (Charles Scribner's Sons)
* Leaman, Hans. (2014) "Johann Christoph Sauer was the most active publisher of German-language print in colonial America. Through his publishing work, based in Germantown, Pennsylvania, he became the mouthpiece for many German immigrants’ opinions on the political and religious controversies of the mid-eighteenth century.
online* Oller, Anna Kathryn. (1963) "Christopher Saur, Colonial Printer: A Study of the Publications of the Press, 1738–1758,” Ph.D. diss. (University of Michigan, 1963)
* Steckel, William R. ''Pietist in Colonial Pennsylvania: Christopher Sauer, Printer, 1738–1758'' (Stanford., 1949)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sauer, Christoph
1695 births
1758 deaths
People from Ladenburg
German printers
German emigrants to the Thirteen Colonies
People of colonial Pennsylvania
American members of the Church of the Brethren
Colonial American printers
Businesspeople from Philadelphia
German artisans
American artisans