Welty and Sprunger (Berne, Indiana, USA)

Welty and Sprunger, a bookstore and later a publishing agency, at Berne, Indiana, the forerunner of the Mennonite Book Concern, was organized as a partnership in 1884, named for the brothers Joel and Daniel Welty, and S. F. Sprunger, the pastor of the Berne Mennonite Church. The Welty brothers had opened the bookstore on 9 May 1882, with chief emphasis on religious books. In the fall of 1884 the General Conference (General Conference Mennonite Church) established a conference publication agency, called the "Christliche Central-Buchhandlung der Allgemeinen Conferenz der Mennoniten." It used several bookstores as outlets, among them the firm of Welty and Sprunger, and the firm name continued to appear on the title page of some publications immediately following the conference publishing agency name. In 1893 the name was changed to Mennonite Book Concern and Welty and Sprunger disappeared. Joel Welty was the manager from 1884 on. In the fall of 1884 Welty and Sprunger loaned the conference $1,000 for three years as a capital fund with which to establish the conference publishing agency. In 1889 Welty and Sprunger appeared without the conference publishing agency as the publishers of the Sonntagschul-Lektionen.

Author(s)	Harold S Bender
Date Published	1959

Cite This Article

MLA style

Bender, Harold S. "Welty and Sprunger (Berne, Indiana, USA)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1959. Web. 23 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Welty_and_Sprunger_(Berne,_Indiana,_USA)&oldid=78741.

APA style

Bender, Harold S. (1959). Welty and Sprunger (Berne, Indiana, USA). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 23 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Welty_and_Sprunger_(Berne,_Indiana,_USA)&oldid=78741.

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Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 916. All rights reserved.

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