Biography

Son of a Stras­bourg teach­er, Ob­er­lin earned a doc­tor­ate in theo­lo­gy at the uni­ver­si­ty in his home­town.

In 1767, he be­came pas­tor of a re­mote and bar­ren re­gion in the Stein­tal (Ban-de-la-Roche), a val­ley in the Vosges on the bor­ders of Al­sace and Lor­raine. Ob­er­lin set him­self to bet­ter the ma­ter­i­al and spi­rit­ual con­di­tion of the in­ha­bi­tants.

Directing him­self to their spi­rit­ual con­di­tion, each month he preached three ser­mons in French and one in Ger­man.

He be­gan his work for their ma­ter­ial im­prove­ment by build­ing roads through the val­ley and erect­ing bridg­es, in­spir­ing the pea­sant­ry to the en­ter­prise by per­son­al ex­am­ple.

He prac­ticed me­dicine among them, found­ed a sav­ings and loan bank, and in­tro­duced an im­proved sys­tem of ag­ri­cul­ture. Substantial cot­tag­es were erect­ed, and va­ri­ous in­dus­tri­al arts in­tro­duced.

He found­ed an itin­er­ant lib­ra­ry, orig­in­at­ed in­fant schools, and es­tab­lished an or­din­a­ry school at each of the five vil­lag­es in the par­ish. In the work of edu­ca­tion, he re­ceived great as­sist­ance from his house­keep­er, Lou­isa Schep­pler (1763–1837).

His or­phan asy­lums were the be­gin­ning of the ma­ny Ob­er­lin­ver­eine for the pro­tect­ion of child­ren.

Oberlin Col­lege in Ob­er­lin, Ohio, is named af­ter him.