Walter Otto Forster (1913-1997) Papers

The bulk of this collection contains W. O. Forster’s manuscript of his book Zion on the Mississippi, which grew out of his doctoral dissertation, “Settlement of the Saxon Lutherans in Missouri, 1839–1847: A Study in the Origins of the Missouri Synod,” submitted and defended at Washington University in Saint Louis in the early 1940s. The collection contains both typed and handwritten material with extensive notes and corrections, covering the history of Lutheranism in Germany and the U.S. for the period from 1800 to 1857. It also contains notes on source materials for Forster’s book and notes on areas of further research after the publication of the book, among other notes. This collection includes an outline of Forster’s dissertation and its bibliography, as well as rules for thesis writing. The collection also contains several documents written by other authors, such as facsimiles of court documents pertaining to Martin Stephan’s court cases, a map of the Saxon colonies in Perry County, Missouri, and other miscellaneous notes, newspaper clippings and more. The collection includes seven card file boxes, which contain citations and notes from various sources (books, journals, periodicals, newspapers) on which Forster based his research and which he used to write his book; material used in the book’s appendices, notes on various topics related to Saint Louis, religious denominations and pieces of music, among others.

NOTES The original order of the materials in this collection has been preserved for the most part; in two instances the original bulky folders were divided into two normal size folders.

Forster refers the reader to ten chapters of his draft manuscript, which do not correspond to the chapters of the final product, the book. For this reason we recommend consulting the manuscript together with the book.