[Births and Baptism] Geburts und Tauf Zeugniss

Pottsville, Pennsylvania: Printed by Georg Philipp Lippe ("Schuylkill Demokrat"), 1859. Broadside, 13" x 9"; sheet size, 17" x 14". Text within hand-colored ornamental border, blanks completed in manuscript. CONDITION: Very good, light creasing, a few small stains at margins, short tears, loss to upper-right corner, some oxidation to coloring; no losses to the text or border. CONDITION: Very good, light creasing, a few small stains at margins, short tears, loss to upper-right corner, some oxidation to coloring; no losses to the text or border.

A delightful Pennsylvania-German birth and baptism certificate featuring a hand-colored "typotecture" border incorporating elements of the fraktur tradition.

This broadside records the birth, on 29 June 1859, of one Allen Albert, the son of one David Bemer and his wife Maria (née Miller). The text is enclosed within an ornamental border consisting of the "architectural" elements typically found in the style of printing aptly termed "typotecture" by Richard Sheaff and the cherubs and angels found in most fraktur birth and baptism certificates. The whole is surmounted by a federal eagle.

George Philipp Lippe (1816-1882) immigrated to the United States in 1849, evidently as part of the wave of immigration caused by the Revolution of 1848. He settled in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, where he established himself as a printer, moving to Philadelphia in the 1860s. The inclusion of the eagle at the top of the broadside is an unusual element for a birth and baptism certificate and may be an indication of the patriotic regard of Lippe and his fellow recent immigrants for their new country.

Electronic copy only in OCLC. A google search locates a single original at Franklin & Marshall College, also hand-colored.

REFERENCES: Earnest, Russell and Corinne. Flying Leaves and One-Sheets: Pennsylvania German Broadsides, Fraktur and Their Printers (New Castle, Delaware, 2005), p. 226 (for Lippe biography); "German Settlement in Pennsylvania : An Overview" at The Historical Society of Pennsylvania online.