Nineteenth century German-American church artists decorated many houses of worship in the eastern half of the country. Some of them are still standing, others have given way to urban renewal.

       The earliest churches in North America were erected by missionaries for the purpose of converting the native population. Once representatives of European monastic orders arrived, their abbey churches served the needs of the religious communities and those of early settlers. As for the Germans who settled in the United States, the first group of eight arrived in 1608 at Jamestown, Virginia, where the colonization of the country began.[1] Early seventeenth century German settlers also arrived in New Netherland, the Dutch colony, which was taken over by the British and renamed New York. The first permanent German settlement in North America was founded in Pennsylvania at Germantown in 1683, located six miles north of the city of Philadelphia.  The arrival of these German settlers on October 6, 1683, in Pennsylvania, is being celebrated as German-American Day by presidential decree that was signed by former President Ronald Reagan three hundred years after the event.[2] During the eighteenth century many Germans came to Pennsylvania to seek religious freedom: The Quakers, Lutherans, Swiss Mennonites, the German Reformed, and the United Brethren settled in the state. German Catholic immigrants had also arrived in Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century.  In 1741 two German Jesuits arrived in the state, but a German priest came to Philadelphia only twenty years later.[3]

      The great wave of German immigration of the 1830's and 1840's brought large numbers of Catholics to the U.S. These newcomers began to see themselves as a group apart from the Irish immigrants because of their language and cultural background. They did not wish to forget their German identity, and the Anglo-Americans actually made it impossible for them to do so, since they regarded the Germans as foreigners.[4] In Pennsylvania, as in other states, the German Catholic settlers considered the building of a parish church with an adjacent schoolhouse, the presence of a German-speaking priest and German nuns to teach their children, necessary factors for survival.

      Before the arrival of Boniface Wimmer and his small group of German Benedictines from Bavaria in 1846, the Redemptorists had sent members of their religious order to Philadelphia and Baltimore. Once established in these two cities, they set up small colonies for German Catholic immigrants in the interior of Pennsylvania. One such colony was St. Mary's of Elk County in north- central Pennsylvania. The site was originally called Marienstadt, which later became Saint Marystown and then Saint Mary's. In December of 1842 a small group of German Catholics arrived there to build log houses as their future homes. It is believed that at that time advertisements in Munich newspapers portrayed the original colony of St. Mary's as a busy city with ships lining up at its wharf.[5] Today we would call such a portrayal the epitome of false advertising, since there is no water to be found in that part of Pennsylvania.  A few years later the Redemptorists arranged for Sisters of Notre Dame to provide instruction for the children of St. Mary's settlers.  The women arrived in 1847.  However, the Redemptorists and the Sisters departed two years later, at which time the parish was entrusted to the Benedictines of St. Vincent in Latrobe through a decree by Bishop O'Connor of the Pittsburgh Diocese. St. Vincent's abbot Boniface Wimmer in turn brought a small number of German Benedictine nuns from St. Walburg in Eichstaett, Bavaria, to Marienstadt in 1852. After their arrival, a handsome Neo-Gothic brick church with a single spire was constructed and consecrated in 1869.[6] The church interior is a wonderful example of the efforts by German-American church artists to create a place of great beauty, where God's presence could be felt through the visual representation of biblical themes and Catholic dogma. St. Mary's church history notes that the main altar was designed and placed in the sanctuary in 1866 by Cosmas Wolf and members of the Covington Altar Building Stock Company.[7] Ten years later the German-American artist Wilhelm Lamprecht painted the Immaculate Conception on this altar (Figure 97). The work has an interesting history of its own, since it was shown at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia and received a prize in the category of religious art.[8] Pope Pius IX had declared the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, 1854, and the story of the Virgin Mary having been conceived without original sin, became a favorite for many religious painters.  Lamprecht's altar painting depicts the Queen of Heaven standing on the half moon, surrounded by twelve stars and flanked by two angels. Below her apparition in the heavenly realm, Pope Pius IX, accompanied by St. Benedict and St. Francis of Assisi, points upward. Behind the Pope stands St. John Neumann, a Redemptorist from Germany, who became Bishop of Philadelphia in 1852. One of the highlights of John Neumann's life was his presence at the proclamation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception in Rome. The German-born Bishop was canonized in 1977. As a Redemptorist he worked hard, preaching to parish missions and serving as pastor of a number of German parishes. He composed a large and a small German Catechism and wrote a Bible history in German. He also promoted Catholic parochial schools.[9]

     It is not known who painted the figures of St. Boniface, St.Patrick, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory and St. Augustine, who surround Lamprecht's painting on the main altar. These saints may well have been the work of Johann Schmitt, whose travels for the Covington Altar Building Stock Company began in the fall of 1862 and took him frequently to the northeastern quadrant of the United States.

      In 1866 Cosmas Wolf, Johann Schmitt and his young apprentice Frank Duveneck traveled to Newark, New Jersey, where they worked on decorations for St. Mary's Abbey church. Three years earlier Cosmas Wolf had fulfilled a commission in Baltimore for the German Sisters of Notre Dame. They had erected their convent chapel in 1863 and contracted with the Benedictine studio at Covington, Kentucky, for an altar and altar painting. The Catholische Volkszeitung of Baltimore commented on the occasion of the chapel dedication that "the beautiful picture over the altar representing Christ being taken from the cross, and measuring five by eight feet, was painted by the artist Johann Schmitt of Covington."[10] The chapel has been renovated, and Schmitt's painting is no longer part of the interior.

     By 1854 the Benedictine Abbot Boniface Wimmer had sent several monks to missions and parishes in four states. One such state was New Jersey, where a Benedictine monastery was founded in 1857 at Newark. It was eventually granted abbey status in 1884. The interior decoration of the church began in 1866 and continued through 1867. The altars were designed and installed by Cosmas Wolf. Wilhelm Lamprecht painted murals; Johann Schmitt, and Frank Duveneck painted altarpieces. The Newark Abbey altars were dismantled in 1986 like so many nineteenth century ecclesiastical works in other parts of the country. The sanctuary was completely renovated, and Lamprecht's murals can no longer be viewed. This fate has befallen a large number of nineteenth century churches located in the eastern half of the United States. Cosmas Wolf's altars for St. Mary's church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, can no longer be appreciated, since the church was closed in 1981. A grim disaster removed St. Joseph church in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, from the map when the flood of 1889 swept through the town. Two convent chapels, one in Carroltown, Pennsylvania, and a second one in Erie, Pennsylvania, removed their altars in the 1960's. These events followed changes in liturgy and church design prompted by Vatican II.

      Cosmas Wolf relocated the Altar Building Stock Company from Covington, Kentucky, back to St. Vincent in Pennsylvania around 1870. Since he was a lay-brother of this Benedictine monastic community, his travails were recorded in St. Vincent's archives. Despite this repository, it is extremely difficult to ascertain the participation of other German-American altar- and mural painters in each one of Wolf's assignments. One fact is indisputable: St. Vincent Archabbey was an important gathering place for German-American church artists whenever they traveled east. The art collection at St. Vincent owns a painting of The Virgin Mary with the Christ child by Wilhelm Lamprecht. The canvas is not dated, but it is believed that the artist donated it to the collection on one of his visits to St. Vincent after 1867 and before 1870. Johann Schmitt donated a painting of St. Benedict to the monastery in 1871.[11]

     It had been the dream of Boniface Wimmer and King Ludwig I of Bavaria to establish a center for German art in the New World, where aspiring painters could draw inspiration and learn traditional European techniques. The dream had become a reality by the 1860's in Pennsylvania.

       The great wave of immigration from Europe to North America during the 1840's can be explained by an increase in birth rates and by crises of famine. Whereas there had been about 300,000 immigrants between 1835 and 1839, during the years 1845 and 1849 ca. one million newcomers arrived at U.S. harbors. Many remained in cities, but a majority moved on. Until the 1860's they occupied the land east of the Mississippi. Afterwards the settlers pushed ever farther to the west. The states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, and Iowa eagerly advertised for immigrants. The implementation of the Homestead Act in 1862 encouraged the settlement of the Midwest. The U.S. Government granted land to a settler under certain conditions: If he had lived on the land and cultivated it for five years, he could receive 160 acres for a very small payment.[12] It did not take long before large areas of land became populated. The population of Illinois increased from 600 in 1800 to 1,711,000 in 1860. The Illinois territory was formed in 1809, and in 1818 Illinois became a state.[13]