History of Schlaraffia Filadelfia
Around the year 1890 a few Schlaraffen met in Philadelphia and decided to open up an ‘Uhunest’, a new chapter of Schlaraffia. As you can read in the history of Schlaraffia the ‘Uhu”, the eagle owl (bubo bubo) is the symbol and mascot of Schlaraffia. These brave knights founded a ‘Stammtisch’ (a table at a local establishment for a group of like-minded men). They began looking for new members of the Stammtisch and soon found some. After a short time the Stammtisch became a ‘Field Camp’, the next step to become a chapter. After some more time there were enough members in the ‘Field Camp’ to become a Colony, the last step to become a full chapter, called ‘Reych’. The ‘Colonie Filadelfia’ was recognized by Allschlaraffia® and was founded on November 7th in 1895. After a bit more than a year the colony became a Reych and therefore a full chapter of Allschlaraffia.
From there on the Schlaraffen met (sippten) on a regular basis once per week on a Friday from the beginning of October through the end of April in the ‘Pennburg’. (Burg is the German word for castle).
Down through the years we have had many interesting and illustrious members, but perhaps the most important was Ritter (Knight) Tex der Universale. During WWII, when prejudices in America ran high against people of German descent, he asked a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the Philadelphia area to visit Schlaraffia Filadelfia. In short, Rt. Tex was instrumental in convincing Congress and the U.S. government that Schlaraffia had no political goals and was in no way a threat to national security. As a consequence, Schlaraffia in America was allowed to stay open nationwide and continued to meet freely and happily throughout those difficult times.
During the war years, members of Schlaraffia came as refugees from Europe to the US. They brought with them paraphernalia and artifacts which would have been otherwise lost forever. Our Pennburg has some of these items on display today.
After the war, when there was peace again and life began to return to normal, the Schlaraffia organization in Europe was rekindled with help from members from North America. In a fairly short time, the organization was once again flourishing throughout Europe.
After 1950 many people and whole families came from Europe to the US to build a better life. As part of that wave of immigration, many interested men found their way to the Philadelphia chapter of Schlaraffia. At one point Schlaraffia-Filadelfia had about forty members. Some of them were musicians in the Philadelphia Orchestra who came from a German speaking area. Once there were five such musician members at the same time.
Although our membership is somewhat smaller today, we continue to attract interesting and talented men from all walks of life who relish speaking in German, and revel in the founding principles of Schlaraffia: Friendship, Humor and the Enjoyment of the Arts.