Christ's Lutheran Church in 1912

Pastor Carl (Karl?) H. Yettru, replaced during this year (or next year?) by Edgar Sutherland, conducting services. The following are from the pastor's notes(1)

Quoted in Anderson, Mark J., For All the Saints: Christ's Lutheran Church, Woodstock, New York, 1806-2006 [Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2006], p. 211. (Close) for January 16:
Snowing. He walked almost to Mr. Herrick's [West Hurley Road, present-day Route 375] but returns to Woodstock.
And for February 22:
Icy--he did not go to Shultis' Corners.
And for September 4:
Congregational meeting. 10 members present. Just a quorum.

According to church historians Magda Moseman and Mark Anderson(2),

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 1912

This is a placeholder for information on our region during this year. The information will come soon. The footnote at the end of this sentence is also a placeholder; please don't click it.(2)

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The United States in 1912

[ William H. Taft ]

William H. Taft (Republican) was President. The 62nd Congress was in session. A dollar in that year would be worth $20.16 in 2006 for most consumable products.

Theodore Roosevelt, the former Republican president running on the Progressive Party ticket, would not speak out against lynching, even though he was "privately against it." Why? If he made lynching a campaign issue, he knew he wouldn't be "electable." Even Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist candidate, couldn't speak out from the hustings about the segregation and systematic disenfranchisement of black voters shaming and blighting our country: most of the workers his party hoped to see running the country didn't even want black workers in their unions.(3)

Frank Dwyer, "Say It Ain't So, Paul: Even the Great Krugman Is Lying about Florida, The Huffington Post, 27 May 2008. (Close)

North Carolina publisher Josephus Daniels, publicity chief for Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson (and who soon would become his Secretary of the Navy), stated just before the election that "the subjection of the negro politically, and the separation of the negro socially, are paramount to all other considerations in the South short of the preservation of the Republic itself."(4)

Ibid. (Close)

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 this decade at an average annual rate of 54,000. 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 292,800--five and a half times as much as the Old Immigrants' rate, about the same proportion as a decade earlier and about half in raw numbers. (The significant overall decline during the decade was a result of World War I.) The New Immigrants huddled together in large cities, such as New York City and Chicago.

This is a placeholder for information on the United States during this year. The information will come soon. The footnote at the end of this sentence is also a placeholder; please don't click it.(5)

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The World at Large in 1912

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Notes

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See also the general sources.