The clash of modernity and an Amish buggy might be the first image that comes to one's mind when imagining Lancaster, Pennsylvania, today. But in the early to mid-eighteenth century, Lancaster stood apart as an active and religiously diverse, ethnically complex, and bustling city. On the eve of the American Revolution, Lancaster's population had risen to nearly three thousand inhabitants; it stood as a center of commerce, industry, and trade. While the German-speaking population--Anabaptists as well as German Lutherans, Moravians, and German Calvinists--made up the majority, about...
The clash of modernity and an Amish buggy might be the first image that comes to one's mind when imagining Lancaster, Pennsylvania, today. But in t...