Cresheim Farm

This book is a work of political archaeology. It focuses on the people and events at a particular colonial farm in Germantown, Pennsylvania; their stories provide a micro and macro view of economic, social, demographic, and agro-ecological change.
Cresheim Farm shows how one mostly unknown but strategically placed piece of land-home to an extraordinary array of people, including early anti-slavery and anti-Nazi activists, the first woman editor of the Saturday Evening Post and a robber baron-can tell, affect and reflect the history of a nation. The writing is historically grounded and academic, future-oriented, deeply researched, and immediate. Cresheim Farm serves as a lens through which to observe and understand social forces, such as the launching point of freedom and democracy movements, white privilege, slavery, and genocidal westward expansion. The past lives on in all of us.

Antje Ulrike Mattheus grew up in post-World War II West Germany and came to the US at 18 to be an organizer for the United Farmworkers Union. She has worked with a range of community, academic, direct action, and anti-violence programs to address white supremacy, race, class and gender inequalities. She has innovated grassroots adult education and empowerment programs and co-founded White People Confronting Racism, which has been conducting anti-racism workshops for white people since 1995. She enjoys restoring old buildings.

Introduction PART I: Origins 1 The Unami Lenape: Conquest, Genocide, Resistance, and Survival 2 Colonization of Germantown: The Krefelders Arrive 3 The Mennonite Tyson Family: The Dawn of Cresheim Farm 4 Cresheim Farm Buildings as of 1703: Imprinting the Land with Fences and Stones PART II: Colonization and Whiteness 5 The Mennonite Conrads Family: Outsiders Become White and Middle Class 6 Discontent Before the Revolution: Class and Caste 7 Cresheim Farm Buildings as of the 1770s: A White American Institution 8 Germantown During the Revolution: A Battle and A White House PART III: Manifest Destiny and Class Struggle 9 Colonel Roumfort: Military, Law, and Order 10 The Gowen Empire: Upper Class Life in the Gilded Age 11 Franklin Gowen: An Anti-Union Activist 12 The Gowen Housing Estate: The End of Farming PART IV: Race, Gender, and Activism 13 Adelaide Neall: A Suffragette in Publishing 14 Elizabeth and Robert Yarnall: Quaker Peace Activists 15 Slavery and the Underground Railroad in Germantown 16 Workshop of the World: From Sparkle to Rust 17 Black and White: Activists in Germantown 18 The Mattheus-Kairys Family at Cresheim Farm