Goschenhoppen Historians Folk Festival

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Goschenhoppen Historians 48th Annual Folk Festival "From Hearth to Cook Stove".

  • Friday August 9th from 12 noon to 8pm
  • Saturday August 10th from 10am to 6pm

The beauty of the Antes Plantation, with its 18th century restored four-story stone home, is the back-drop that is conducive to the authentic interpretation of the Pennsylvania German folk culture and is the ideal location to continue the tradition of the Folk Festival.

Since 1966, The Goschenhoppen Folk Festival has showcased the trades and home skills of the Pennsylvania Dutch in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, over 500 costumed volunteers recreate kitchens, parlors, trade shops, and itinerants to bring to life the hands-on skills from the past.

This family friendly event provides not just an exceptional educational experience, but also gives the
children an opportunity to try first hand the pleasantries of a former time. Dipping candles, creating a rag doll, petting a calf, sampling potato candy, or rolling a barrel hoop bring a sure smile. Moms and Dads will find a new appreciation of the appliances and gadgets that fill homes and garages today when the labor to make dinner or furnish a home in times past is demonstrated: blacksmiths, tinsmiths and whitesmiths sweat over the forges, farmers hoist heavy loads of grain into the horse operated fanning mill, and women make every meal from scratch. Needle workers show the painstaking process of garment construction – starting with the flax seed to the hemming of a linen shirt with all the steps in between.

The annual Goschenhoppen Folk Festival is always held in August on the 2nd Saturday and the Friday before. It is a non-commercial family oriented day in Goschenhoppen. Old fashioned Pennsylvania Dutch foods are for sale on the festival grounds. Volunteers, dressed in authentic costumes of the periods, use authentic tools in recreating traditional home skills, trades, pastimes, foods, and folk music. Stage programs and lectures, scholarly and entertaining, serious and humorous, in the PA Dutch dialect and in English, are presented throughout the day.

Since 1977 a Student Apprentice Program has introduced and educated countless numbers of school children to the traditional ways of Goschenhoppen. These young apprentices are included each year in festival activities.

Nothing has been left out to make your visit one that the entire family will enjoy. Fantastic foods are available to satisfy every appetite, ample seating under shade trees abounds and a new appreciation of our ancestors is priceless for all. For more information click here or call 215-234-8953.