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The Strange Career of Johann Matthias Kramer: Transatlantic Migration, Language and the Circulation of Information in the Eighteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 June 2018

Mark Häberlein
Mark Häberlein*
Affiliation:
Universität Bamberg, Lehrstuhl für Neuere Geschichte unter Einbeziehung der Landesgeschichte, Fischstraße 5–7, 96045 Bamberg, Germany. Email: Mark.Haeberlein@uni-bamberg.de
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Abstract

This article examines the career of Johann Matthias Kramer, a language teacher and emigration agent, as a case study to illuminate the intersections between migration, colonialism, cultural transfer and the dissemination of information in the eighteenth century. Kramer’s career spanned diverse places and regions – his birthplace, Nuremberg, the commercial cities of Rotterdam and Hamburg, the university town of Göttingen and the North American colonies of Georgia and Pennsylvania – and it oscillated between two seemingly very different professions. The article argues, however, that both language teachers and emigration agents were highly mobile, usually lacked formal training, and had low reputations, but nonetheless helped to forge important social and cultural links.

Information

Type
Focus: Central Europe and Colonialism
Information
European Review , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 2018 , pp. 448 - 460
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2018 

Introduction

In 1746, the University of Göttingen was looking for a new instructor in the Italian language. After its founding in 1734, the university had quickly established itself as a leading institution of higher learning in ‘modern’ subjects. As living languages were not yet part of the standard academic curriculum, however, language instructors rarely obtained the status of professors. Instead, universities hired Sprachmeister – men who often lacked academic credentials, received meagre salaries (or none at all) and offered instruction to paying students. Many language instructors were native speakers and, while some were well-respected, others were of a more dubious character.Reference Hunger 1 , Reference Krapoth 2 The latter seems to have been the case with Göttingen’s early teachers of Italian; university officials spoke of ‘vagrant dissolute fellows’ and complained that one had absconded after collecting advance fees from his students, while another, a native of Ragusa, had caused scandals on account of his frivolous lifestyle. 3

When searching for a new instructor, therefore, Göttingen initially attempted to recruit a capable person, preferably a native Italian, from another university or court. When attempts to find such a person in Jena and Dresden had failed, a correspondent in Hamburg, identified as secretary Zwick, recommended a man named Johann Matthias Kramer. Kramer, Zwick reported, was the son of the well-known language teacher Matthias Kramer of Nuremberg, he had just announced the upcoming publication of a book on English grammar, and appeared well-trained in the Italian language. Moreover, Zwick described Kramer as a pious man seeking to lead a quiet life after many years of travelling in ‘almost every part of the world’. 4 The official in charge of the search, a Hanoverian councillor named Randohr, was excited about the prospect of recruiting the son of the famous Matthias Kramer, whom he had met many years before, and was convinced that Kramer would do better than his predecessors. 5

What the officials hiring Johann Matthias Kramer probably did not know was that his career was oscillating between two apparently rather different professions. Prior to his employment in Göttingen, he had not only worked as a language teacher, but also as an emigration agent recruiting German settlers for the infant colony of Georgia in British North America. He had travelled from his native Nuremberg to Philadelphia, then crossed the Atlantic back to Rotterdam and Hamburg, and his career would later terminate in Pennsylvania. This article traces Kramer’s transatlantic biography, illustrating the links between language, migration and the circulation of information in the eighteenth century. Although his professions as a language teacher and an emigration agent were seemingly quite different, they shared several structural similarities. Both language teachers and emigration agents were highly mobile, lacked formal training, and often had to adjust to new environments. Language instructors as well as emigration agents faced stiff competition, and while both served specific needs in an increasingly mobile society, they enjoyed rather dubious reputations.Reference Häberlein 6

More generally, Johann Matthias Kramer’s career highlights some of the economic, social and cultural links between eighteenth-century central Europe and Great Britain’s Atlantic empire. More than 100,000 people from German-speaking lands crossed the Atlantic between 1683 and 1775, most of them arriving at the port of Philadelphia.Reference Wokeck 7 , Reference Wellenreuther 8 Enterprising individuals – German merchants in Philadelphia, travelling businessmen and emigration agents – sought to profit from this flow of migrants (Ref. Reference Wokeck7, pp. 59–112).Reference Fertig 9 – Reference O’Reilly 12 Moreover, several hundred merchants of German origin established themselves in London between 1660 and 1815 and spun commercial networks linking central European proto-industrial regions to North America and the Caribbean.Reference Schulte Beerbühl 13 Religious institutions and communities such as the Glaucha orphanage founded by the Lutheran pietist August Hermann Francke,Reference Wilson 14 – Reference Wellenreuther 17 Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf’s Moravian Brethren,Reference Engel 18 and the Mennonite community in Amsterdam,Reference MacMaster 19 , Reference Beiler 20 further contributed to the complexity of these transatlantic ties. They sent missionaries overseas, established regular transatlantic communication channels and engaged in business ventures of their own. While this account of Kramer’s career builds on these insights into central Europeans’ contributions to an increasingly interconnected Atlantic world, 21 it also seeks to add new facets to it.

Teaching Languages in Nuremberg

Among the numerous people who taught foreign languages in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Germany, Matthias Kramer (1640–1727) was certainly the most highly respected and most productive. Born into a Catholic family in Cologne, Kramer spent most of his life in Nuremberg, where he instructed the sons of patricians and merchants in French and Italian and compiled voluminous grammars, dictionaries, manuals and treatises for learners of these languages. His works were well-received, and his growing fame earned him a corresponding membership in the Prussian Academy of Sciences.Reference Bray 22 – Reference Kuhfuß 26 They also sold well and were frequently reprinted: Benjamin Franklin, for example, owned three of Kramer’s works.Reference Wolf and Hayes 27

But despite his reputation, Matthias Kramer found it hard to make a living from his profession. He never obtained citizen status in the imperial city, merely enjoying the right of residence. In his Entretien de la Méthode, a didactic work on language teaching published in 1696, he complained about the precarious circumstances of his profession. A decade earlier, Kramer had moved to Heidelberg with the hope of better prospects, but he returned to Nuremberg when the Palatinate was overrun and laid waste by French armies during the War of the Palatine Succession in 1689. Towards the end of his life, the octogenarian transferred to the noble academy in nearby Erlangen to improve his situation (Ref. Reference Bray22, pp. 54–55; Ref. Reference Glück, Häberlein and Schröder24, pp. 155–156, 192–193).Reference Schröder 28 , Reference Glück 29

Kramer’s financial difficulties were partly caused by heavy competition. More than two dozen teachers of French and Italian are documented in Nuremberg during his residence there. Although many stayed only briefly, they still cut into each other’s business. Several published their own learning materials, sometimes merely pirating other works (Ref. Reference Glück, Häberlein and Schröder24, pp. 175–181, 427–429). In 1693, Kramer published a polemical treatise against his colleague Johann Jakob Schübler. When Schübler, a native of Strasbourg who dabbled in various professions, published a manual that peppered French lessons with heavy doses of religious piety, Kramer was incensed by its bigotry and lack of didactic method. Schübler defended himself against Kramer’s ‘false rumours’ in a treatise of his own. Their controversy illustrates the intense competition among language teachers, even in a large city with a high demand for language skills among the local elites (Ref. Reference Glück, Häberlein and Schröder24, pp. 179–180).

While little is known about the early life of his son, Johann Matthias, he seems to have been trained by his father for the teaching profession. In 1719, father and son signed the dedication of Matthias Kramer’s Dutch–High German dictionary to the States-General of the Netherlands (Ref. Reference Bray22, pp. 22; Ref. Reference Völker23, p. 173). This dictionary was the first of its kind, and as the older Kramer was already in his late 70s, his son may have done much of the work and spent time in the Netherlands in preparation for it. Meanwhile, entries in the manuals of the Nuremberg city council suggest that the young Kramer was not exactly the quiet, peace-loving man that was later recommended to the Göttingen authorities. In 1715 he sued a native Italian for unpaid debts, and eight years later he was involved in a brawl (Ref. 24, p. 198). 30

Rotterdam and North America

After his father’s death, Kramer turned his back on his native city. In October 1731, his name appears on a list of recently arrived immigrants from Rotterdam in Philadelphia,Reference Strassburger and Hinke 31 where increasing numbers of Germans were being registered at the time. We do not know how long Kramer stayed in America, but he was back in Rotterdam in 1737, where he is identified as the secretary of Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, the charismatic leader of the pietistic Moravian Brotherhood.Reference Jones 32 , Reference Diekmann 33 Under Zinzendorf’s guidance, the Moravians established missions on the Danish Virgin Islands and ventured to Georgia in the 1730s.Reference Sensbach 34 , Reference Davis 35 Georgia had been founded as a haven for poor British and foreign Protestants in 1732 and was governed from London by a board of trustees. While the colony’s founders emphasised philanthropic concerns and prohibited slavery and the consumption of alcohol, Georgia was also conceived as a military bulwark against Spanish Florida and a vehicle of British commercial and imperial expansion. Initial plans to promote the cultivation of wine, tropical fruits and mulberry trees for silk production failed, however, and the trustees faced increasing pressure to permit the introduction of slavery (Ref. Reference Wellenreuther8, pp. 250–254; Ref. Reference Davis35, pp. 7–10).Reference Spalding 36 The first German-speaking settlement, Ebenezer, had been founded by Protestant exiles from the arch-bishopric of Salzburg, whose transatlantic migration had been mediated by the Augsburg pastor Samuel Urlsperger and the London-based Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. While Ebenezer became well-known in Germany due to reports written by its energetic pastor Johann Martin Boltzius and printed under Urlsperger’s auspices, the settlement suffered from high mortality rates and remained dependent on outside assistance (Ref. Reference Jones32, pp. 13–21, 35–43, 114–192).Reference Haver 37 , Reference Pyrges 38

On 29 April 1737, the Georgia Trustees discussed a proposal by Johann Matthias Kramer ‘to translate some Part of the Book call’d Reasons for Establishing the Colony of Georgia’, a promotional tract, ‘into High Dutch [German] at the Trust’s Expence’. Kramer also offered to recruit German settlers for Georgia and guide them from Worms to Rotterdam, the major port of embarkation, ‘at the said Persons Expence’. The Trustees decided to contract with the Rotterdam merchant firm Hope & Co to transport 60 German passengers aged 12 and upwards to Georgia. Their passage would be paid either by the Trustees or by indenturing the passengers in the colony (Ref. Reference Jones32, p. 68).Reference Candler 39 Hope & Co were among the leading firms transporting German settlers to British North America, and while recent research has revised the notion that they may have monopolised the market, there were repeated complaints about the poor conditions and the ill-treatment of passengers on their ships (Ref. Reference Wokeck7, pp. 72–74, 111; Ref. Reference Jones32, pp. 68–69). 40 Thus, Johann Matthias Kramer teamed up with a company of mixed reputation.

In June 1737, Kramer reported from Rotterdam that he had not yet been successful in recruiting 60 ‘able bodied Servants’ for Georgia because all prospective immigrants hoped to be transported to Pennsylvania free of charge. The Germans’ preference indicates their awareness of the positive image of Pennsylvania and the problems associated with the Trustees’ fledgling province. Yet Kramer remained confident that some Germans might eventually be won over:

But, since the Number of Such Poor, as cannot pay for their Passage is very great, it’s doubtfull, whether they will be all carried over, consequently when they at last shall not Know how to shift They might possibly be persuaded to go to Georgia. (Ref. Reference Candler39, vol. 21, p. 418)

Since Hope & Co had informed him that they could not afford to transport merely 60 passengers to Georgia, Kramer suggested raising the number to 140 or 150. As he would need two months to gather such a large shipload, Kramer requested an advance to cover his expenses. When he learned that the Trustees were unlikely to heed his suggestions, he travelled to Krefeld to pursue his business interests and spend the winter there (Ref. Reference Jones32, pp. 69–70; Ref. Reference Candler39, vol. 21, pp. 418–423, 435–436; vol. 29, p. 200–201, 203–204).

Kramer’s Account of Georgia

The book that Kramer had proposed to translate in 1737 was eventually published nine years later as Neueste und richtigste Nachricht von der Landschaft Georgia in dem Engelländischen Amerika by the university print-shop in Göttingen. Publishing this work in Göttingen had other advantages for Kramer besides the printer’s proximity to his new home: censorship regulations were comparatively lax, and the university town was part of the Electorate of Hanover, which was ruled by King George II of Britain (Ref. Reference Diekmann33, p. 130).

The work contains translations of the royal commissioners’ reports on the nature of the colony and an account of prospective settlers’ rights and privileges (cf. Ref. Reference Diekmann33, pp. 128–147). 41 On the title page, Kramer stated that he had annotated these sources with information obtained during his ‘many years’ in America. The preface affirmed Kramer’s competence to provide an exact account of the province due to his extended stay in America and his familiarity with the Georgia Trustees’ publications. This information was of particular relevance in these ‘hard and miserable times’, when numerous families had fallen into poverty and when many European Protestants were suffering from discrimination and persecution. 42 These Protestants were assured that King George II had decided out of pure clemency to offer them asylum in Georgia. The monarch offered to transport those who could not afford the passage free of charge and supply them with everything necessary for a fresh start in the New World. Amidst the havoc wrought by God’s judgement on the world, the province of Georgia appeared like an open door to the enjoyment of liberty of conscience and material prosperity.Reference Kramer 43

The Neueste und richtigste Nachricht provided detailed information on Georgia’s geographic location, topography, government, towns and settlements, native and immigrant population, climate, natural products, flora and fauna. Thus, readers learned about the composition, rights and responsibilities of the Georgia Board of Trustees and read about the Salzburger settlement of Ebenezer, which allegedly benefited from its central position in the Indian trade (Ref. Reference Kramer43, pp. 13–23). Moreover, Kramer emphasised the colony’s rapid progress, fertile soil, healthy climate and pleasant location, comparing it to the environs of Aleppo, Antioquia and Smyrna (Ref. Reference Diekmann33, p. 144; Ref. Reference Kramer43, pp. 20, 32–34). Among the country’s natural products, silk – which supposedly compared favourably with Italian silk – seemed to offer particularly bright prospects and might support thousands of poor families. A list of prices illustrated the cheapness of victuals (Ref. Reference Kramer43, pp. 34–35, 45–47). Kramer also claimed that King George II was doing everything in his power to guarantee the colony’s safety and protection, emphasising that it was on peaceful terms with the local Indians and had formed an alliance with the Creek nation (Ref. Reference Kramer43, pp. 27–31; cf. Ref. Reference Diekmann33, p. 137).

The account of the province’s rights and privileges emphasises that each settler who could pay for his own passage would receive 50 acres of land. Indentured servants were entitled to 20 acres after the end of their term. Poor settlers were transported to Georgia free of charge and were supplied with everything they needed until they could support themselves. Those who lacked financial means were expected to work as indentured servants for five years or until they turned 25. The Trustees had promised that families who indentured themselves would not be separated and would be maintained adequately. Noblemen who brought their own labourers were entitled to 500 acres. Moreover, immigrant children born in Georgia would have equal rights with English natives, and all Christians except Roman Catholics enjoyed liberty of conscience (Ref. Reference Kramer43, pp. 48–61). 44

Kramer subsequently elaborated on the prospects that the colony held for Germans. While Europe offered few opportunities for distressed and persecuted Protestants, the new settlement beyond the Atlantic promised abundant land, freedom of religion and low taxes. The colony needed all kinds of labourers; settlers might easily support themselves and would find a ready market in England for their products. Georgia even seemed to offer prospects to people who had never worked with their hands – e.g. scholars such as Kramer himself, who were struggling to make ends meet on the margins of German academic life. Finally, the colony’s perpetual summer reportedly compared favourably with Pennsylvania’s frosty winters, which hampered commercial exchange. Silk, wine, oil, rice, cotton, indigo, sugar, tea, coffee, pepper, oranges and lemons could only be cultivated in a southerly climate (Ref. Reference Kramer43, pp. 61–77; cf. Ref. Reference Diekmann33, pp. 135, 138).

In the final section, Kramer discussed potential colonists’ qualifications and the conditions of the voyage. The British monarch and the Trustees were not interested in attracting a ‘useless’, idle and immoral rabble, but were offering a fair deal to poor people determined to support themselves by hard labour and lead god-fearing lives. Contemporaneous distinctions between deserving and undeserving poor and a Protestant work ethic clearly underlie these passages. Regarding the ocean voyage, prospective colonists were encouraged to travel to Rotterdam in the autumn and report to the Trustees’ commissioners there, who would take care of all the necessary arrangements (Ref. Reference Kramer43, pp. 77–88; Ref. Reference Diekmann33, pp. 139–140). Kramer, whose profession as a language teacher made him aware of linguistic barriers, also assured readers that the colonists’ unfamiliarity with the English tongue would be unproblematic due to the Trustees’ foresight and the existence of a German-speaking settlement in Ebenezer (Ref. Reference Diekmann33, p. 147). 45

While Kramer’s pamphlet did contain reliable information, he mixed it with unsubstantiated claims – e.g. about possible mines of gold, silver, other valuable metals and precious stones (Ref. Reference Kramer43, p. Reference Pyrges38) – and systematically excluded the problems which troubled the infant colony. Thus, he did not mention the high mortality rate and factionalism among the early settlers, the struggles between Trustees and settlers over the introduction of African slavery, or the military conflict between Georgia and neighbouring Spanish Florida that had broken out in 1739 (Ref. Reference Spalding36, pp. 25–44; Ref. Reference Wellenreuther8, pp. 254–260).

Within the genre of promotional literature on British North America, Johann Matthias Kramer’s pamphlet can be grouped with several treatises advertising settlement opportunities to the north and south of Pennsylvania. Penn’s colony had been the focus of several German-language treatises published between 1682 and 1702 and by the 1730s had a well-established reputation as a place of opportunity for German-speakers. Information about Pennsylvania flowed back to Europe in letters and oral testimony from travelling businessmen and recruiting agents (Ref. Reference Wokeck7, pp. 23–34; Ref. Reference Diekmann33, pp. 23–78). Entrepreneurs and land agents seeking to promote settlements in Virginia, the Carolinas, Maine and Nova Scotia started to publish a new series of promotional tracts in the 1730s (Ref. Reference Diekmann33, pp. 90–209), but as each of these projects ran into logistical difficulties, negative reports sent back to Europe brought transatlantic migration to them to a halt. Eventually, only Pennsylvania generated a self-sustaining migration flow.

The German settlement in Georgia shared the fate of similar projects in Virginia, Carolina and New England. The Salzburger town of Ebenezer was reinforced by several hundred migrants from southwest Germany in the middle of the century, some of whom may have been enticed by Kramer’s pamphlet. Yet the arrival of these newcomers, who did not share the Salzburgers’ religious convictions and communal values, raised internal tensions, and contributed to the dispersion of the settlement. Germans in Georgia often encountered a grim reality of material hardship and dissension that was far removed from the optimistic vision of liberty and abundance that underlay Kramer’s Neueste und richtigste Nachricht (Ref. Reference Jones32, pp. 136–170).Reference Roeber 46

Teaching and Publishing in Göttingen

When Johann Matthias Kramer accepted the teaching position in Göttingen in 1746, he had been promised an annual salary of 100 Talers. It was expected that tuition fees would supplement this fixed income. 47 In a letter to the university’s curator Gerlach Adolph von Münchhausen, however, Kramer stated in January 1749 that he found it difficult to make ends meet. Although he was doing his best, charging very moderate fees and living frugally, there were too few students interested in learning Italian to support him and his family. He therefore appealed to Münchhausen’s clemency and submissively asked for a raise. 48 But his petition met with the blunt answer that instructors’ salaries were fixed and additional funds were not available. 49

Meanwhile, Kramer tried to make extra money from having his teaching materials printed. In 1750, he published Lettere miscellanee curiose è galanti, a bilingual compilation of formulaic letters based on the work of Niccolò di Castelli. A native of Lucca, Castelli had become secretary to the Elector of Brandenburg, professor of modern languages at the University of Halle, and a prolific author of language manuals. 50 Kramer’s version of Castelli’s manual, originally published in 1728, comprised 400 letters for a variety of occasions – introduction, salutation, recommendation, consolation, reverence, friendship, admonition, thanks etc. Written in a flowery baroque style, the formulaic letters emphasise the necessity of addressing each person according to his or her social rank and station in life.Reference Kramer 51

A few years earlier, Kramer had also published a work for learners of English. His Kurzverfaßte Anleitung zur Englischen Sprache (1746) was based on William Sewel’s Compendious Guide to the English Language (1705), and the title page claimed that it aimed especially at women and persons without a higher education. As contacts between England and Germany were intensifying, Kramer argued, people of both sexes who lacked academic training were required to learn the language. His Kurzverfaßte Anleitung was one of only 27 works for German learners of English published between 1700 and 1770 – a time when knowledge of the language was far less common in Central Europe than a familiarity with French or Italian. The work contained a grammar, sample dialogues and letters, a list of idioms and a dictionary. The dialogues focus on everyday situations, including a merchant’s conversation with his servants and an exchange between two ladies. Kramer obviously intended to familiarise readers with colloquial English, while translation and knowledge of grammatical rules were of secondary importance.Reference Kramer 52 , Reference Klippel 53

Johann Matthias Kramer was a member of the presbytery of the Reformed congregation in Göttingen, which was allowed to hold private worship services in the Lutheran town.Reference Hammann 54 In a letter to the rector of the university written in June 1753, he claimed that he had successfully continued his teaching career there on account of his long experience and easy method of instruction. Nonetheless, his advancing age and failing health were diminishing his usefulness; therefore he asked to be relieved of his duties at the end of the present term. 55 The university officials granted Kramer’s request after being informed that his age was making itself felt in his lessons. 56 Embarking upon the final stage of his career, Kramer now joined the stream of transatlantic migrants to Pennsylvania once more.

Pennsylvania: The End of Kramer’s Career

In late 1754, the trustees of the Academy of Philadelphia – an institution of higher learning founded on Benjamin Franklin’s initiative in 1749 57 – were informed that ‘Mr. Cramer[,] a Gent[lema]n from Germany[,] is very capable of teaching the French and German Languages, and that he is now out of Employment’. They appointed a committee consisting of Richard Peters, Benjamin Franklin and the physician Thomas Bond ‘to enquire more particularly into his Qualifications, and to treat with him concerning his teaching these languages in the Academy.’ A month later, Bond reported that he and Franklin deemed Kramer qualified for teaching French, German and Italian; moreover, he appeared ‘well skill’d in Musick and some Kinds of Painting.’ While Kramer proposed to teach four hours a day for an annual salary of 60 pounds and give private lessons in the Academy building besides, the trustees preferred to hire him full-time for 100 pounds. His employment with the Academy did not last long, however: in May 1755 the trustees informed Kramer that they had ‘no further Occasion for his Services’ but were ‘willing to allow him a Gratuity of a Quarters Wages.’ When Kramer requested an extension of his contract until the following spring, they affirmed in July 1755 that ‘his being longer employ’d in the Academy was unnecessary’. 58

After the Philadelphia Academy had turned him down, Kramer tried his luck as a private instructor. In October 1755, he published an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette announcing his intention ‘to open a School […] for the instruction of Gentlemen and Ladies in […] the French, Italian, and German languages.’Reference Seybolt 59 , Reference Zeydel 60 Despite his appeal to both sexes, resonance seems to have been limited, as nothing more is known about Kramer’s whereabouts after that date.

Conclusion

While Johann Matthias Kramer’s career as a language instructor and emigration agent was unusual, it was not unique. A decade earlier, Joseph Crellius had announced in the Pennsylvania Gazette that he ‘designs to open his winter Evening School […], where the German Language will be taught (Ref. Reference Seybolt59, p. 418). Like Kramer, Crellius combined several trades. He briefly operated a printing press and eventually joined the ranks of the emigration agents, travelling to Germany in 1750 in order to recruit settlers for the government of Massachusetts and the Boston merchant Samuel Waldo, who owned extensive tracts of land on the Kennebec River in present-day Maine. In Frankfurt, Crellius teamed up with the Württemberg court councillor Heinrich Ehrenfried Luther and published a promotional pamphlet advertising settlement opportunities in northern New England. Historian Bernard Bailyn characterises him as an ‘unscrupulous Pennsylvania German shopkeeper […] carrying on various dubious operations in Germany’.Reference Bailyn 61 , 62

The case of Joseph Crellius underlines some of the aspects that this essay has elaborated for Johann Matthias Kramer: while the expansion of British North America and the transatlantic movement of German settlers called for the services of multilingual, highly mobile and adaptable men who might act as brokers between different ethnic and linguistic groupsReference Häberlein and Keese 63 and initiate processes of cultural transfer,Reference Eßer 64 these men often had turbulent careers and dubious reputations. Despite their skills, men such as Crellius and Kramer ultimately remained outsiders in the world of business and education and failed to carve out profitable niches for themselves. Throughout his life, Kramer remained dependent on patronage – from paying students, university administrators and colonial governments – which he never managed to retain for more than a few years.

Mark Häberlein is professor of early modern history at the University of Bamberg, Germany. His recent publications include The Practice of Pluralism: Congregational Life and Religious Diversity in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1730–1820 (2009) and The Fuggers of Augsburg: Pursuing Wealth and Honor in Renaissance Germany (2012).

References

References and Notes

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