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| RG 30/165 -
John Frederick Oberlin (1740-1826) |
| Biography |
 John Frederick Oberlin (1740-1826) was the man after whom the Oberlin Collegiate Institute [the school’s original title] was named. Oberlin never came to America. He was a pastor in an underdeveloped portion of the French border province of Alsace whose benevolent social work and interest in Sabbath Schools appealed to Oberlin College founders John J. Shipherd and Philo P. Stewart. Shipherd and Stewart read about Pastor Oberlin in a little book published in 1830 by the American Sunday School Union: The Life of John Frederick Oberlin, Pastor of Waldbach, in the Ban de la Roche (two copies in Special Collections). For a brief account of Oberlin’s career see “John Frederick Oberlin: A Bicentenary Address” by Ernest Hatch Wilkins (1940). For a full biography see John W. Kurtz, John Frederick Oberlin (Westview Press, 1976). See also "Oberlin's Namesake: John Frederick Oberlin" (multi-media presentation, Oberlin College Archives website, 2010). |
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