Bibliographical Essay

Basic Bibliographies

An indispensable guide to basic source material for any study of European Anabaptist and Mennonite origins exists in A Bibliography of Anabaptism: 1520-1630 (Elkhart, Indiana: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 1962), a compilation by Hans J. Hillerbrand. In this work sources are listed according to geographic areas, persons, and topical studies. Hillerbrand's highly rated work can be supplemented by reference to George H. Williams' "Studies in Radical Reformation (1517-1618): Bibliographical Survey of Research since 1939" in Church History, XXVII (1958), 46-69. A concise summary of the literature of the American Mennonites in order of publication is found in Harold S. Bender's Two Centuries of American Mennonite Literature: A Bibliography of Mennonitica Americana, 1727-1928 (Goshen, Indiana: Mennonite Historical Society, 1929). This bibliography periodizes the literature and includes the schismatic and smaller groups. Both published and unpublished material on the Amish will be found listed in John A. Hostetler 's Annotated Bibliography on the Amish (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Mennonite Publishing House, 1951). An analytical subject index lists general works, settlement histories, church doctrines and practices, literature, language, art, hymnology, biographies, popular articles and pamphlets, and modern scientific studies. The work is enhanced by ample annotations. Emil Meynen's Bibliography on German Settlements in Colonial North America, Especially on the Pennsylvania Germans and Their Descendants, 1683-1933 (Leipzig: Otto Harrasowitz, 1937) contains an unequaled compilation on printed source materials and includes not only the German pietists of early Pennsylvania but lists sources on Germans (including Mennonites and Amish) in Ohio counties.

While Meynen's work furnishes perspective on Pennsylvania Mennonites and Amish in the German communities of colonial America, a larger focus is found in Edwin Scott Gaustad's Historical Atlas of Religion in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1962). In this work are numerous maps, charts, graphs, lists of sources, and essays which cover America's pluralistic religious scene. Holmes County, Ohio, is the only county of the Ohio and Eastern Mennonite Conference which has a population of at least 50 percent of Mennonite and Amish membership according to Gaustad's map on religion in America in 1950.

Three more important bibliographic guides must be cited. Peter G. Mode's Source Book and Bibliographical Guide for American Church History (Menasha, Wisconsin: Banta Publishing Company, 1921) covers the scope of American

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