Center For PA German Studies
The Center for Pennsylvania German Studies was established at Millersville University in 1986 as a center for the study of the Pennsylvania German culture in America and as a clearing house for information on the Pennsylvania Germans.
The focus on the activities and collections of the Center will be on the various settlements of Americans which have come to be known as Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania Dutch, but chiefly on the non-sectarian groups, the Lutheran, Reformed (now United Church of Christ) and the Moravian church groups.
More than seven million people have immigrated to America from the German-speaking areas of Europe since the first permanent settlement was begun in 1683 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Thousands of German immigrants came to Pennsylvania from the Rhineland and neighboring provinces in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
What The Center Does
Scholars planning to work on a project in Pennsylvania German Studies are encouraged to contact the Center and inform the Center of their research.
High school and college students are encouraged to make use of the Center’s materials and those in the Special Collections Department in Ganser Library.
The Center welcomes all kinds of serious inquiries by mail, but genealogical matters will be passed along to others.
What You Can Do For The Center
The Center will gratefully accept gifts of books, old newspapers, letters, manuscripts, records and recordings, artifacts and other material pertaining to Pennsylvania German history and folk culture in America.
The Center has established a research support fund. All contributors, individual as well as corporate, regardless of size, are deductible as allowed by Federal and State income tax laws. Checks should be made payable to Millersville University/Center for Pennsylvania German Studies.