Star making forms

Date Made
DATE MADE: EARLY: LATE:
Medium
maple
Dimensions
LOA 18 1/2
Accession Number
985 a
Description
DESCRIPTION: One maple pyramid 2 5/8″ square at the base. This wooden point was used in making the Moravian Stars.
History
The many-pointed Moravian Star is the first symbol that comes to mind when many people think of the Moravians.
Evidence suggests the first Moravian stars were made in the 1830s in the Moravian community of Niesky, Saxony, (in what is now Germany) in the boys’ school. The design and construction of the original paper stars began as a geometry project for the students, but the star was quickly adopted by the Moravian church as a symbol of the birth of Christ and the star of Bethlehem. Traditional Moravian stars have 26 points, but some have as few as six and others have as many as 110 points! While many Moravian stars today are all white, traditionally, the stars were white, red, white and red, or yellow.
One of the students who learned to make the stars in school, Peter Verbeek, opened a bookstore in Herrnhut in 1880 where he began to sell paper Moravian stars and patterns for making them. Inspired by the popularity of the stars and patterns, his son Harry started the Herrnhut Star Factory which operated until it was damaged in World War II. Today the Moravian Church-owned Abraham Dürninger Company continues to make the paper stars in Herrnhut. Many other companies and organizations make other versions of the popular stars in more durable materials such as glass, tin, wood, and paper.
The star pattern and point molds pictured here descended locally and were used to make 26 point stars in Salem. Julius A. Leinback (1834-1930) is credited with making the first Moravian stars in Salem with wooden molds similar to the ones you see here, although making stars was not relegated to just one member of the Salem community.