American Colony, Jerusalem
The American religious foundation and philanthropy that informally became known as the American Colony of Jerusalem, was established in the Ottoman Empire in 1881 as a "Christian utopian society" led by American religious leader Horatio Gates Spafford and his Norwegian wife Anne Tobine Larsen Øglende. Largely concerned with providing social services, education, meeting spaces, and medical care, it became known for producing and publishing an important documentation, photographic series of the area of Jerusalem starting in the early 1900s. The community lasted until the 1950s.
History
After suffering a series of tragic losses following the
Although the American Colony ceased to exist as a
The Spaffords
In 1871,
Back in Chicago, the Spaffords tried to mend their shattered lives. In 1878, a daughter, Bertha, was born and, two years later, a son Horatio, who died in an epidemic of scarlet fever. Horatio left the Fullerton Presbyterian Church, which he had helped to build, organized a group of friends (dubbed "the Overcomers" by American press[2]), and decided to seek solace in the city of Jerusalem. After the birth of a daughter, Grace, in August 1881, the Spaffords set out for Jerusalem in a group of thirteen adults and three children.
In Jerusalem
Moving into rented quarters inside the
Horatio Spafford died of malaria in 1888, but the community continued to grow. Visiting Chicago in 1894, Anna Spafford made contact with the Swedish evangelist Olof Henrik Larsson. Finding they had much in common, the Swedes from Chicago decided to join Anna on her trip back to Jerusalem. Larsson also exhorted his relations and friends in Nås, Sweden, to go immediately to Jerusalem. As a result, 38 adults and seventeen children sold all their possessions and set off for the Holy Land to join the colony, arriving there in July 1896.
The colony, now numbering 150, moved to the large house of a wealthy Arab landowner,
Photography
Around 1900, Elijah Meyers, a member of the American Colony, began taking photographs of places and events in and around the city of Jerusalem.[4] Meyers's work eventually expanded into a full-fledged photographic division within the colony, including Hol Lars (Lewis) Larsson and G. Eric Matson, who later renamed the effort as The Matson Photo Service.[4] Their interest in archeological artifacts (such as the Lion Tower in Tripoli pictured here), and the detail of their photographs, led to widespread interest in their work by archeologists.[4] The collection was later donated to the Library of Congress.[5]
Plague of locusts
From March to October 1915,
World War I
When the Ottoman Empire entered World War I as an ally of Germany in November 1914, Jerusalem and Palestine became a battleground between the Allied and the Central powers. The Allied forces from Egypt, under the leadership of the British, engaged the German, Austrian and Turkish forces in fierce battles for control of Palestine. During this time the American Colony assumed a more crucial role in supporting the local populace through the deprivations and hardships of the war. Because the Turkish military commanders governing Jerusalem trusted the colony, they asked its photographers to record the course of the war in Palestine.[7]
The colony was permitted to continue its relief efforts even after the United States entered the war on the side of the Allies in the spring of 1917. As the German and Turkish armies retreated before the advancing Allied forces, the American Colony took charge of the overcrowded Turkish military hospitals, which were inundated by the wounded.[8]
The outbreak of World War I in 1914 brought great suffering to the country. All young men were
After the war
The colony also administered an orphanage to provide refuge for the many children torn from their parents during World War I. The charitable work begun by the Spaffords continues today in the original colony house abutting the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The Spafford Children's Center provides medical treatment and outreach programs for Arab children and their families in Jerusalem.[9][10]
Inner tensions within the American Colony led to the final demise of this utopian Christian community in the 1950s. Descendants of the Spaffords own a hotel outside the city's walls named the American Colony Hotel.
In fiction
Selma Lagerlöf's novel Jerusalem made the colony famous.
In photography
The book Österlandet is a visual record of Algot Sätterström's (inventor, painter) interaction with members of the American Colony Photographic Division Lewis Larsson, Erik Lind, Furman Baldwin and Eric Matson.
Jerusalem American Colony Cemetery
Located in Tabachnik Garden on the southern slope of Mount Scopus, next to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Another cemetery of the colony is located on Mount Zion.
See also
- Pro-Jerusalem Society (1918-1926) - Mr. John Whiting, member of the American Colony, was the Hon. Treasurer of the Society's leading Council, and the Spafford's adopted son Jacob was member of the Council
Jerusalem photographers
- 19th century
- Armenians in Israel#Photographers: see for Armenian photographers in Jerusalem since 1857
- Antonio Beato (c. 1832–1906)
- Felice Beato (1832–1909)
- Francis Bedford (photographer) (1816–1894)
- Félix Bonfils(1831-1885)
- Mendel Diness (1827–1900), the first Jewish photographer in Jerusalem during the 1850s
- James Graham (1806–1869), Scottish photographer who took some of the earliest images of the Holy Land (1853-1856)
- Khalil Raad (1854–1957), known as "Palestine's first Arab photographer"
- James Robertson (photographer) (1813-1888)
- de:Auguste Salzmann (1824-1872), French archaeologist, painter and pioneer of archaeological photography; photographed in Jerusalem in c. 1854
- Zangaki brothers, C. and G., worked out of Egypt c. 1860s-1890s
- 1900-1948
From the above various Armenian photographers in Jerusalem, and Khalil Raad.
- Najib Anton Albina (1901–1983), master photographer of the Palestine Archaeological Museum
- Ze'ev (Wilhelm) Aleksandrowicz (1905–1992), photographed in Mandate Palestine in 1932-1935
- Ya'acov Ben-Dov (1882–1968), arrived in Ottoman Palestine in 1907
- here
- Zoltan Kluger (1896-1977), in Mandate Palestine and Israel between 1933–58
- Samuel Joseph Schweig (1905-1985), arrived in Mandate Palestine in 1922
- de:Herbert Sonnenfeld (1906-1972), German Jewish photographer, photographed in Mandate Palestine in the 1930s[11]
- Rudi Weissenstein (1910–1999), arrived in Mandate Palestine in 1936, author of iconic Israeli Declaration of Independence picture
References
- ISBN 9780521683159. Retrieved 2013-11-24.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-297-85265-0
- ^ Ford, Alexander Hume (1906). "Our American Colony at Jerusalem". Appleton's Magazine. 8 (6): 643–55.[permanent dead link]
- ^ a b c Hallote, Rachel, "Photography and the American Contribution to Early "Biblical" Archaeology, 1870–1920," Near Eastern Archaeology vol. 70, no. 1 (2007), 32-33.
- ^ Matson Collection catalog description, Library of Congress.
- ^ "The Locust Plague Of 1915 Photograph Album". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on 7 January 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
- ^ Photograph album, World War I, Palestine and Sinai, from the Library of Congress American Colony in Jerusalem Collection.
- ^ "World War I: American Colony in Jerusalem Exhibition. Library of Congress. Accessed January 10, 2011. Exhibition page contains primary sources of WWI digitized photographs and manuscripts". Loc.gov. 12 January 2005. Retrieved 2013-11-24.
- ^ "Brochure, Spafford Children's Center, Jerusalem. American Colony in Jerusalem Collection, Library of Congress. Accessed January 11, 2011". Hdl.loc.gov. Retrieved 2013-11-24.
- ^ "Spafford Children's Center, Organization's Website. Re-accessed November 25, 2023". Spaffordcenter.org. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
- ^ Beit Hatfutsot Photo Collections, The Herbert and Leni Sonnenfeld Collection, accessed April 2020
Bibliography
- Ariel, Yaakov, & Kark, Ruth. (1996). "Messianism, Holiness, Charisma, and Community: The American-Swedish Colony in Jerusalem, 1881-1933," Church History, 65 (4), pages 641-657. This article also discusses Swedish author and Nobel Prize for Literature winner Selma Lagerlöf's positive outlook toward the commune, including the influence it had on her when she wrote her novel Jerusalem.
- Dudman, Helga; Kark, Ruth (1998). The American Colony: scenes from a Jerusalem saga. Carta Jerusalem. ISBN 978-965-220-399-1.
- Fletcher Geniesse, Jane (2009). American Priestess: The Extraordinary Story of Anna Spafford and the American Colony in Jerusalem. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-27772-5.
- Vester, Bertha Spafford (1950). Our Jerusalem: an American family in the Holy city, 1881-1949. Doubleday. ISBN 0-405-10296-8. Memoir and family history by a daughter of the Colony's founders and its latter-day matriarch.
- ISBN 978-9963610402. A well-researched, critical treatment of the American Colony phenomenon.
External links
- Spafford Hymn Manuscript Peace Like a River / It is Well with my Soul - as originally penned by Horatio Spafford, at the site on the ocean where his children drowned in a ship collision.
- The Spafford Children's Center founded by the American Colony and named after its founders, Anna and Horatio Spafford. Still active today. 11/25/2023.
- The American Colony Archive Collections [email protected] website.
- The Colony Heritage Society An online meeting place for American Colony descendants and researchers, with image galleries, discussion forums and other tools. (Link is broken. November 25, 2023. No quick results in search.)
- The American Colony in Jerusalem at the Library of Congress website. Selected documents from the American Colony in Jerusalem Collection in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.
- Collection of Several Thousand photographs made by the American Colony Photo Department in Jerusalem (Later known as Matson Photo Service).
- Album MIZPAH: Publication of an album which was given to Herbert Samuel by the members of the American Colony in 1925. Israel State Archives site.
- The American Colony in Jerusalem Collection of Images in Watercolors including the original Ustinov Palm Tree.
- The American Colony Hotel website.