Christ's Lutheran Church in 1910

Pastor Carl (Karl?) H. Yettru, from Hartwick Seminary, conducting services. According to church historians Magda Moseman and Mark Anderson(1),

Quoted from Moseman, Magda, and Anderson, Mark, eds., Perspectives and Patterns: Christ's Lutheran Church, 1806-1976 [Woodstock, NY: self-published monograph, 1976]. (Close)
The new church building was illuminated by a large, ornate chandelier hanging in the center of the chapel. It was balanced by a counterweight. Miss Florence Peper recalls helping her mother light the circle of kerosene lamps. The chandelier was pulled down with a long hook and the task took about ten minutes.
During these years, with the buildup of tensions in Europe, members of German-speaking Lutheran congregations--and German speakers in general in the United States--were subject to hate crimes by other Americans. English-speaking Lutherans did not want to be "stewed in the same kettle" as the German-speaking Lutherans; they wanted to make it known to the general population that they were not German but rather American, that they did not support the Kaiser and his policies. At the same time, many German-speaking Lutherans were making their own moves to dissociate themselves from the Fatherland. An example of a German-speaking congregation was the Atonement Lutheran Church in Saugerties. The congregation of Christ's Lutheran Church in Woodstock had been English-speaking since its founding.

[ View looking up Mill Hill Road ]

Above is a postcard view of looking up Mill Hill Road in the earliest years of the twentieth century. Our church is in the distance on the left of the road, the parsonage on the right. (To enlarge the view, click it.) There is no Joyous Lake or Denny's or CVS (Grand Union), no Woodstock Meats, Catskill Mountain Pizza, or Cumberland Farms to interrupt the view.

The Woodstock Region in 1910

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The United States in 1910

[ William H. Taft ]

William H. Taft (Republican) was President. The 61st Congress was in session. (The midterm elections that year would elect the 62nd Congress.) A dollar in that year would be worth $20.91 in 2006 for most consumable products.

Only 8.8% of Americans 17 years and older were high school graduates; this number was three eighths again as many as a decade earlier, however. During this year, about 156,000 Americans graduated from high school (more than two thirds again as many as a decade earlier), 37,199 from college (a third again as many as a decade earlier). The median school years completed by Americans overall was 8.1 years.

Immigrants from the British Isles and western Europe (especially Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany)--the so-called "Old Immigrants," most of them boasting a comparatively high level of literacy and accustomed to some level of representative government, who were either Protestant (most of them) or Catholic, were arriving during the preceding decade at an average annual rate of 106,900. The "New Immigrants," those from southern and eastern Europe (especially Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia), largely illiterate and impoverished, who tended to be either Catholic, Orthodox, or Jewish and who had little experience with representative government, were arriving at an annual rate of 578,900--five and a half times as much as the Old Immigrants' rate, more than a threefold proportionate increase from a decade earlier and more than a threefold increase in raw numbers. The New Immigrants huddled together in large cities, such as New York City and Chicago.

There were 76 reported lynchings in the United States during this year; 67 of the victims were black, 9 of them white. (Apparently what terrible things that happened to Native Americans or to Asians did not get counted.)

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The World at Large in 1910

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Notes

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