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Description
A group of German Moravians, religious reformers increasingly in pursuit of expanding their influence through missionary work, settled in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1741 with the plan to establish their church overseas. Within their community, the Moravians implemented a familial congregation in the form of the Choir System. The Choir System in Moravian Bethlehem was divided and categorized according to age, sex, and marital status. The Choirs were designed to encourage the formation of small groups who would cater to the spiritual needs of their members. For Moravian women, this provided the opportunity to live under an increased expansion of choice. Shortly after the establishment of the small Moravian community, the Bethlehem Female Seminary was founded, and members of the Single Sisters' Choir were positioned there as instructors. As a missionary community, the seminary was designed to offer a formal education for the children of the missionaries. As the town evolved, the seminary grew to meet the growing demand for conformed education. In 1786, in response to outside demand, the seminary was opened to non-Moravians. This thesis traces the construction of identity and the expansion of choice for the members of the Single Sisters' Choir and the Bethlehem Female Seminary. It seeks to expand the normative expectations established by Moravian leadership and incorporate their behavioral lived experiences. Additionally, this study offers a change in the historical narrative of Moravian Bethlehem by examining the institutions as liminal spaces that provided the inhabitants room to develop identities. This project aims to add psychological methodologies to understand how the experiences of the participants affected their individual identity, their liminality, and their psychological development.
