This course has been filled.

An illustrated, chronological talk on the westward migration of the Lenape population of the Delaware Valley, from the arrival of Swedish, Dutch, English, and German-speaking settlers beginning in 1620 until after the French and Indian War (1755-63).

About the instructor: Dr. John L. Ruth

With family roots in Bern and Zurich, Switzerland, John Landis Ruth was born in 1930 on a farm 29 miles northwest of Philadelphia, and was ordained a minister in the Mennonite Church at the age of 20. His Ph.D. thesis at Harvard University was titled “English Hymn-Writing in America, 1640-1800.” After teaching English and American literature at Eastern University and Universität Hamburg, he turned to film documentaries on the Amish and Hutterites, and narratives of eastern Pennsylvania Mennonite life, including “Maintaining the Right Fellowship” (1984) and “The Earth is the Lord’s” (2001). In 1971 he and his fraktur-artist wife, Roma Jeanette Jacobs, returned with their family to his birth community and homestead, from where he served as associate pastor of the Salford Mennonite Church from 1972 to 1994, and led historical tours in Europe for 45 years.