This is the seventh volume of a documentary history of the Harmony Society, 1785-1916, which built the towns of Harmony in Butler County, Pennsylvania, New Harmony in Indiana, and Economy in Pennsylvania. It covers the period from Frederick Rapp's to George Rapp's death, and takes its title from the fact that in previous volumes all business of the Harmony Society was conducted under the name of Frederick Rapp, the financial genius of the Harmonists, and the fact that with Frederick Rapp's death, George Rapp emerged clearly ...
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This is the seventh volume of a documentary history of the Harmony Society, 1785-1916, which built the towns of Harmony in Butler County, Pennsylvania, New Harmony in Indiana, and Economy in Pennsylvania. It covers the period from Frederick Rapp's to George Rapp's death, and takes its title from the fact that in previous volumes all business of the Harmony Society was conducted under the name of Frederick Rapp, the financial genius of the Harmonists, and the fact that with Frederick Rapp's death, George Rapp emerged clearly for all the world to see as the absolute manager of ???the only thing the children of the world respect: money.??? George Rapp proves to be not only the ???greatest communist of the age??? but also a shrewd capitalist who outwits President Andrew Jackson's veto of the United States Bank charter renewal by withdrawing the Harmony Society account in British gold and silver and burying it safely for the security of his Harmonists. Friedrich Engels, impressed by the success of George Rapp's Harmony Society in 1845 advises German labor as men without property to safeguard themselves against the threat of hunger resulting from unemployment to organize themselves into such communes. A Cincinnati attorney-at-law in a book published in London comparing the advantages of America and England proclaims that the day will come when ???the names of Rapp and B???umeler will be associated with those of Washington and Jefferson. Indeed future ages will regard the day on which the German socialists struck the axe into the American forest as one of the most memorable epochs in the annals of the world.??? French and German documents are given in their original language with English summaries or translations. This volume contains numerous German documents.
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