Shannon L Smith

The Salzburger Collection Shannon L Smith

This catalogue records the survival of a remarkable book collection from a remarkable immigrant community in eighteenth-century Georgia. The German-speaking Salzburgers, religious exiles from their homeland, first came to America in 1734, settling in the Savannah area, at Ebenezer, Georgia. The collection catalogued here includes volumes brought to Georgia by the first groups of Salzburger settlers. The earliest book in the collection is dated c. 1615 and the latest in 1828. The collection has been kept together over succeeding generations, providing an insight into the religious culture and Lutheran pietism of the Ebenezer community. The collection is now housed in the James R. Crumley, Jr., Archives, in Columbia, South Carolina, the regional archives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.