Item #25361 THE HARMONY SOCIETY, AT ECONOMY, PENN'A. FOUNDED BY GEORGE RAPP, A.D. 1805. WITH AN APPENDIX. Aaron Williams.

THE HARMONY SOCIETY, AT ECONOMY, PENN'A. FOUNDED BY GEORGE RAPP, A.D. 1805. WITH AN APPENDIX.

Pittsburgh: Printed by W.S. Haven, 1866. viii, [9]-182pp. Bound in publisher's black blindstamped cloth with gilt title on front board [some extremity wear, rear inner hinge cracked, lacks rear endpapers]. Scattered foxing, first few pages damped. Narrow tears at blank outer margins of pages 141-144. Good+.

Johann Rapp founded the Harmony Society, a Christian theosophy and pietist society, in Germany in 1785. Persecuted by the Lutheran Church and the government, he moved the group to the United States in 1803. Rapp's followers were called Harmonists or Rappites. They settled in Pennsylvania for a time, relocated to Indiana for several years, and eventually resettled in Pennsylvania in a town they named Economy after the idea of Divine Economy.
Rapp led the commune, with all property held in common and celibacy required. Eventually, as seems inevitable for Utopian societies, arguments erupted, schisms followed, and the Society splintered. This book gives a detailed history of the Society, its religious principles and customs. It "includes a chapter on this Society's earlier establishment in Indiana" [Howes]. The Streeter Sale copy brought $325.
FIRST EDITION. Howes W445. Streeter Sale 4278. Item #25361

Price: $650.00

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