“Beyond Books” opens Feb. 9 at Goshen College Library Gallery;
Exhibit features best from the Mennonite Historical Library Collection

GOSHEN, Ind. — Who knows what the appraisers on public television’s popular “Antiques Roadshow” would say is the value of these items – but you can be sure it would ring in quite high.

But in the upcoming exhibit “Beyond Books: The Best from the Museum Collection of the Mennonite Historical Library,” financial value is of little concern and cultural value is of the utmost.

“Beyond Books” opens Sunday, Feb. 9, in the Goshen College Library Gallery with a reception from 2 to 4 p.m. Most of the items are from U.S. Pennsylvania-German culture, are Mennonite and Amish related and have never before been exhibited.

The exhibit will feature cultural items including 18^th and 19^th century pieces of Pennsylvania fraktur, “show” towels decorated with traditional cross-stitch designs, folk (or “primitive”) paintings, decorated wood boxes, Amish quilts and furniture and a European pewter communion cup found in the ruins of Polish Mennonite churches following World War II.

Also on exhibit will be rare book cases containing treasures such as a copper engraving plate by artist Jan Luyken for the 1685 “Martyrs’ Mirror”; a handwritten paper note by an official in Zurich, Switzerland, on Nov. 16, 1525, that names Anabaptist leaders Felix Mantz, Conrad Grebel and Georg Blaurock and condemns them to imprisonment in the tower; and the only surviving first edition of the Amish songbook, the “Ausbund”, dated 1564. Both the “Ausbund” and the note have never been displayed publicly.

The arrival of the “Ausbund” in the Mennonite Historical Library (MHL) has quite a rich and interesting history, according to Joe Springer, MHL curator. Harold S. Bender, former professor of Bible and church history and author of The Anabaptist Vision, visited a bookseller in Harrisburg, Pa., during the summer of 1928 while collecting materials for the MHL. In looking through the bookseller’s stock, Bender found a curious volume containing several items bound together. In the middle of the volume was a collection of songs printed in 1564 that Bender recognized as a group of hymns written by Anabaptist prisoners that comprised a significant section of the hymnal later called the “Ausbund.”

Oral tradition tells us that Bender could neither hide his desire to purchase the volume nor come up with the bookseller's asking price for the full volume. After some haggling, the seller agreed to divide the volume’s content by cutting the binding and sold Bender the half with the 1564 hymnal in it for $10 (the original invoice is still in MHL’s files).

The story does not end there, said Springer. In the early 1940s, Robert Friedmann, an Austrian Jewish scholar who had converted to Anabaptism, was organizing and studying the rare books in the MHL and uncovered a fragment of a volume whose cover matched that found with the “Ausband.” Though Bender himself had probably purchased the fragment little over a year after his purchase of the hymnal, he had forgotten the fragment’s origin and never matched it up with the rest of the volume.

When the front and back covers are matched together, it is clear they are of the same binding; at least one other publication that must have been bound with it at some earlier point is still missing.

The Mennonite-Amish Museum Committee and the MHL sponsor the exhibit, with Faye Peterson, curator.

The exhibit will continue through April 30.

The Library Gallery, located on the lower level of the Wilma and Harold Good Library, is open from 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday, noon-6 p.m. Saturday and 1-11 p.m. Sunday.

Goshen College is a national liberal arts college known for leadership in international education, service-learning and peace and justice issues in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. Recognized for its unique Study-Service Term program and exceptional educational value, GC serves about 1,000 students in both traditional and nontraditional programs. The college earned citations of excellence among U.S. News & World Report, Yahoo! and Barron’s Best Buys in Higher Education. For more information, visit www.goshen.edu.

Editors: For information, contact Jodi Hochstedler at (574) 535-7572 or jodih@goshen.edu.

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