The history of the Filadelfia (128)
Schlaraffia Filadelfia is one of the oldest Schlaraffian chapters in North America. It was founded in 1895, carries the chapter number 128 and has cultivated the German language, humour, the arts and friendship in the greater Philadelphia area for more than one hundred and thirty years.
1895 — founded with the support of the mother chapter Nova Yorkia
On 7 November 1895 the colony Filadelfia was founded, with the permission of the Allmutter Praga in Prague and on the recommendation of the mother chapter Nova Yorkia in New York. That one chapter founds another and vouches for it is the customary path in Allschlaraffia: every chapter has a mother, and every mother stands by her daughter.
Two years later, in 1897, the Allmutter Praga proceeded to issue the bull of sanction, since no objection had been raised within the set period. The colony had become a full chapter.
1903 — castle consecration and the Order of the Owl
In November 1903 the chapter solemnly consecrated its newly decorated castle. On that occasion the Allmutter Praga conferred the Order of the Owl on the Filadelfia, an honour a chapter earns not through age but through what it achieves.
A meeting point of the American chapters
The Filadelfia was early on more than one chapter among many. In May 1913 it celebrated the personal jubilee of its long-serving head with many guests from the American chapters. Such a celebration marks twenty-five years in the game, counted from the day of admission.
In 1936 the Filadelfia hosted the first All-American Conference of the American chapters, combined with a formal celebration. For the first time the chapters of the continent came together in one place to discuss their common affairs.
In December 1980 the diamonds to the Grand Jubilee Order were conferred in the Filadelfia, one of the highest distinctions Allschlaraffia knows and one that presumes half a century of Schlaraffian service.
2008 — the Schlaraffian Council of North America at the Penn Castle
The chapter has kept its role as a meeting place into the present day. In March 2008 the Schlaraffian Council of North America held its sixtieth session at the Pennburg, the Penn Castle of the Filadelfia, named after William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania.
German company in Pennsylvania
The Filadelfia is closely bound to the German heritage of Pennsylvania. Meetings are held in German; anyone who speaks the language or would like to learn it, and who enjoys music, wordplay and good company, is welcome as a guest. The first visits are free and without obligation.
The historical notes in this section come from the electronic Allschlaraffian Reychs Archive (eARA) and are documented in the volumes of the German Schlaraffen newspaper.
History of Schlaraffia
🦉 Schlaraffia in figures: founded 1859 · over 200 Reyche worldwide · 5 continents · one language · one spirit: humour, friendship and art.
The cradle: Prague, 1859
It began with a handful of artists and men of letters in the Prague of 1859. Actors, poets, painters — people who wanted to set the gravity of the times aside for a few hours in order to laugh, to play and to keep friendship together. They simply called their circle Schlaraffia.
The name was the programme: the fabled land of Cockaigne, that country of lightness and joy, was to become real for a few hours. No class distinctions, no everyday hierarchies — only play, humour and art.
The game spreads
The idea travelled fast. Soon further Reyche arose in other cities of the German-speaking world: Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich. With the wave of German emigration in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Schlaraffia crossed to the New World as well.
New York, Buenos Aires, São Paulo — wherever German-speaking emigrants found a new home, they founded a Schlaraffen-Reych too. The bond of a shared language and a shared game held them together, across every distance.
Schlaraffia survives the storms of history
Two world wars, political upheavals, prohibitions — Schlaraffia has come through much. In Germany and Austria the work of the Reyche was restricted or forbidden during the war years. But as soon as peace returned, the Reyche came back to life. That will to endure is no accident: where real friendship rules, it finds a way.
Worth noting: while in Europe some Reyche paused for a time, Schlaraffia overseas carried on unbroken. The Allschlaraffia — the worldwide umbrella — held the whole together.
The Allschlaraffia — the worldwide union
All the Schlaraffen-Reyche of the world are joined in the Allschlaraffia. This umbrella sets the common rules, assigns the Reych numbers and sees to it that a Schlaraffe from Tokyo is at home at once in a Sippung in Frankfurt.
In doing so the Allschlaraffia keeps up something that has grown rare in the modern world: a fellowship founded on values rather than on profit or networking. Humour, friendship and art are not empty words here; they are practised at every Sippung.
Become part of our history?
Write the next chapter with us. A visit without obligation is enough.
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