Skip to main content

Happy Easter

Written by delta on . Posted in News.

The GAHF wishes you and your family a happy Easter.

Easter as it is celebrated in the United States today has been shaped in many ways over the centuries by traditions brought over from Germany.

While colored and decorated eggs, often symbolizing rebirth, have been part of Easter and other festivals around the world for centuries, the folklore of an Easter bunny hiding Easter eggs was first noted in 1682 by the German physician Georg Franck von Franckenau. It would then take another century for this holiday tradition to reach America.

Pictures from Pennsylvania dating from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, drawn by German-Americans Johannes Bolich and Johann Conrad Gilbert, show that the Easter bunny had made its way to the US. Easter celebrations were not widespread at this time as religious holidays were still celebrated in a Puritanical fashion. By the late 19th century, these traditions became widely popular across the country and the first official Easter Egg Roll occurred on the White House South Lawn in 1878.

We wish you a wonderful Easter weekend as well as much joy and happiness during this season of renewal and rebirth.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Bunny
http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/easter-bunny-like-the-belsnickle-owes-american-roots-to-the/article_c83915ba-c3f8-11e3-a2ec-0017a43b2370.html
http://www.afanews.com/articles/item/1193-easter-at-winterthur-the-pennsylvania-german-origins-of-an-american-tradition#.WPETJfIvzew
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/origins-of-the-white-house-easter-egg-roll