Sounding Moravian Identity at the Salem Centennial of 1866

In January 1866, Moravians in Salem, North Carolina, began formulating plans to celebrate the community’s centennial. Cognizant of their restrained financial resources in the wake of the American Civil War, the community resolved to “get up a celebration in every respect, both outwardly and inwardly.” While organizers’ visions revealed novel approaches to many aspects of the two-day-long affair, Edward Leinbach’s approach to the musical components of the celebration bore out in ways that left enduring marks on a community in need of revitalization, growth, and a renewed sense of community. While dutifully honoring the past, the program Leinbach devised and executed performed Moravianism in distinctly new ways that foreshadowed the cultivation of a postbellum Southern Moravian identity.