The Gesellenvereine (usual translation Journeymen's Unions) were German Roman Catholic societies set up in the nineteenth century. They were originated by Adolph Kolping, surnamed the Journeymen's Father (Gesellenvater). They had for aims the religious, moral, and professional improvement of young workers.
In 1849 Kolping was appointed assistant-priest at the Cologne Cathedral. With friends, ecclesiastics and laymen, he founded a Gesellenverein, and began free instruction through it. The Cologne society soon acquired its own home, and opened there a refuge, or hospice, for young travelling journeymen.
Kolping was energetic and eloquent both as speaker and writer. He visited frequently the great industrial centres of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Hungary. In a short time societies of young Catholic journeymen were formed in many Rhenish towns, in Westphalia, and finally throughout the German-speaking world.
When Kolping died (4 December 1865), the Gesellenverein numbered about 400 branch unions. In 1901 they had reached the number of 1086, with a membership of 80,000 journeymen and 120,000 master-workmen. They existed in many other European countries, also.
Besides providing for Catholic doctrine, the societies conducted classes (book-keeping, arithmetic, drawing, literary composition, music, natural sciences, etc.) In the larger cities there were free classes in crafts. Instruction was designed especially for those workmen who aimed at establishing a business of their own. The principal publication was the Kolpingsblatt.
In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities, briefly worded free imperial city, was used from the fifteenth century to denote a self-ruling city that had a certain amount of autonomy and was represented in the Imperial Diet. An imperial city held the status of Imperial immediacy, and as such, was subordinate only to the Holy Roman Emperor, as opposed to a territorial city or town which was subordinate to a territorial prince – be it an ecclesiastical lord or a secular prince.
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages and High Middle Ages when Jewish settlers founded the Ashkenazi Jewish community. The community survived under Charlemagne, but suffered during the Crusades. Accusations of well poisoning during the Black Death (1346–53) led to mass slaughter of German Jews and they fled in large numbers to Poland. The Jewish communities of the cities of Mainz, Speyer and Worms became the center of Jewish life during medieval times. "This was a golden age as area bishops protected the Jews resulting in increased trade and prosperity."
Joseph Hergenröther was a German Church historian and canonist, and the first Cardinal-Prefect of the Vatican Archive.
Adolph Kolping was a German Catholic priest and the founder of the Kolping Association. He led the charge for providing and promoting social support for workers in industrialized cities while also working to promote the dignities of workers in accordance with the social magisterium of the faith.
August Reichensperger was a German Catholic politician from the city of Koblenz.
Socialist Sunday Schools (SSS) were set up to replace or augment Christian Sunday Schools in the United Kingdom, and later the United States. They arose in response to the perceived inadequacy of orthodox Sunday schools as a training ground for the children of socialists and the need for an organised, systematic presentation of the socialist point of view to teach the ideals and principles of socialism to children and young people.
The Peasant War in Germany by Friedrich Engels is a short account of the early-16th-century uprisings known as the German Peasants' War (1524–1525). It was written by Engels in London during the summer of 1850, following the revolutionary uprisings of 1848–1849, to which it frequently refers in a comparative fashion. "Three centuries have flown by since then," he writes, "and many a thing has changed; still the peasant war is not as far removed from our present-day struggles as it would seem, and the opponents we have to encounter remain essentially the same."
The Duchy of Nassau was an independent state between 1806 and 1866, located in what is now the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. It was a member of the Confederation of the Rhine and later of the German Confederation. Its ruling dynasty, now extinct, was the House of Nassau. The duchy was named for its historical core city, Nassau, although Wiesbaden rather than Nassau was its capital. In 1865, the Duchy of Nassau had 465,636 inhabitants. After being occupied and annexed into the Kingdom of Prussia in 1866 following the Austro-Prussian War, it was incorporated into the Province of Hesse-Nassau. The area today is a geographical and historical region, Nassau, and Nassau is also the name of the Nassau Nature Park within the borders of the former duchy.
Johannes Flintrop was a prominent Roman Catholic critic of the Nazi Party who died in the Dachau concentration camp.
Franz Xaver Dieringer was a Catholic theologian, b. 22 August 1811, at Rangendingen (Hohenzollern-Hechingen); d. 8 September 1876, at Veringendorf. He was a professor of dogma and homiletics at the University of Bonn.
The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Spring of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history.
The People's Association for Catholic Germany was a German political party founded on 24 October 1890 by Mönchengladbach manufacturer Franz Brandt and Catholic theologian and member of the Reichstag Franz Hitze, with participation by politicians Ludwig Windthorst and Franz Graf von Ballestrem. Its origins lay in Cologne but the founders chose Mönchengladbach as its base. Their aim was to counter the Social Democratic Party by addressing social problems from a Catholic standpoint.
Adam Franz Lennig was an ultramontane German Catholic theologian. He was born and died in Mainz.
Alban Isidor Stolz was a German Roman Catholic theologian and popular author.
The Piusverein was a Roman Catholic society, founded in 1848 in Germany, and named for Pope Pius IX. Its political direction was conservative and ultramontanist, and its purpose to form a bridge between Catholics and the political classes. Other societies under this name were subsequently set up, in German-speaking countries.
The Society of St. Charles Borromeo (Borro-Mäusverein) is a German Catholic association for the encouragement and diffusion of edifying, instructive, and entertaining literature. It was founded in Bonn, in 1845, by Franz Xaver Dieringer, one of the professors of the Catholic theological faculty at Bonn, August Reichensperger, and Freiherr Max von Loe. It ran a book club, and free reading rooms in large cities. From 1902 the society issued a periodical, originally called Borro-mäusblätter, later Die Bücherwelt.
The Kolping Park and Chapel is a religious facility previously located at 47440 Sugarbush Road in Chesterfield Township, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1996. On September, 28th 2016 the chapel was moved to the Chesterfield Historical Village at 47275 Sugarbush Road.
The Communist League was an international political party established on 1 June 1847 in London, England. The organisation was formed through the merger of the League of the Just, headed by Karl Schapper and the Communist Correspondence Committee of Brussels, Belgium, in which Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were the dominant personalities. The Communist League is regarded as the first Marxist political party and it was on behalf of this group that Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto late in 1847. The Communist League was formally disbanded in November 1852, following the Cologne Communist Trial.
The German Association of the Holy Land is a Roman Catholic organisation, which aims to strengthen the relationship between Christians in Germany and the Holy Land. Since the union was founded in 1895 in Rhenish Prussia, it is treated as a legal entity under the protection of the Federal Republic of Germany, based on a government decree signed on 11 March 1895. The Association’s main office is based in Cologne.
The Minoritenkirche or Church of the Immaculate Conception is a Catholic church on the Kolpingplatz in Cologne. Built in the 13th century, it is now used by the Franciscan and the Kolpingwerk social association.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Gesellenvereine". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company. The entry cites: 