The Riddle of Amish Culture

by Donald B. Kraybill

  Invented in 1876, the telephone gradually entered American homes after the turn of the century. But even as late as 1940, only half of Pennsylvania farmers had one.12 Rejecting it early in the century, the Amish have gradually, in the words of one member, “allowed it to creep in and now everybody uses them—well, at least 99 percent!” The phone saga provides a fascinating example of the Amish ordeal with modernity.

  Surprisingly, a number of Amish purchased phones as they appeared in rural areas in the first decade of the century. Some early phones were homemade concoctions of lines strung between neighboring homes. An Amish historian estimates that “around 1908 the bishops decided that the phone should be put away and those involved in it just dropped it and tore the lines out.”13

  Amish leaders are not entirely sure why the bishops banned the phone, except that they made gossip too easy, were too handy, and were too worldly. Apart from the tag “worldly,” no religious injunctions are cited against the phone. However, its use was never banned. The Amish have readily used a neighbor’s phone for emergencies and have borrowed phones in nearby garages or shops for many years. The taboo against installing phones in houses, however, has held firm since the Ordnung forbade it around 1910.

  A complicating factor in the phone decision was the formation of the Peachey church. An Amish minister explained: “A group of people got a bit rebellious and they started to get telephones and this dragged along until 1909.” An Amishman who was thirteen at the time said: “The phone was one of the issues [in the division].”14 Whether phones helped to provoke the division or whether the dissidents installed them soon after they left the Old Order is unclear. What is certain is that the bishops rejected phones about the time that the progressive Peachey church left the Amish fold. And, among other things, some Peachey church members installed phones, which was reason enough for the Amish to permanently outlaw them. When asked about the prohibition, an Amish leader said: “It’s something that’s left over from 1909.” Regardless of the sequence of events, the liberals had adopted the phone, and thus the Old Orders could not accept it again without a severe loss of face. Permitting phones would be a de facto endorsement of the insurgents. In essence, the Peachey church functioned as a negative reference group—a model of worldliness that the Amish hoped to avoid.

  To explain the phone taboo solely as an intergroup face-saving ploy overlooks its deeper social meanings, however. The phone is a tool of modernity in both symbolic and substantive ways. It threatened to tie the Amish to the outside world and to erode social capital within. In the words of one analyst: “The telephone was a major means of alleviating the isolation of country life.”15 Lacking automobiles, good roads, electricity, radios, mass media, and regular postal service, many rural areas were insulated from urban influences. The telephone line was the first visible link to the larger industrial world—a real and symbolic tie that mocked the Amish belief in separation from the world. Phones literally tied a house to the outside world and permitted strangers to enter a home at the sound of a ring. Moreover, the telephone was the first form of communication technology available to the Amish—an entirely different order of technology from plows, planters, and other types of productive tools. Thus, in the context of an isolated, rural people, bombarded with new inventions, it was not a thoughtless reflex to dub the phone a “worldly object.”

  In a mobile cellular society, the phone connects people continents away, but for the Amish, bonded through face-to-face interaction, the phone posed a threat to internal communication. A phone decontextualizes conversation. It extracts talk from a specific social context where both speakers can observe symbolic codes. Friends can discuss intimate matters on the phone, but such conversations lack the rich nuances of body language, facial expression, and eye contact. In contrast to the spontaneity of face-to-face conversation, phone talk is more formal, abstract, distant, and mechanical. Phone talk conveys disembodied “half messages,” stripped of the symbolic codes of dress and gesture so critical to Amish communication. Young children find telephone conversations baffling because they require greater abstraction than face-to-face chatter. One can only imagine the other speaker’s location, appearance, and context. And one is never sure if the other person is mocking, winking, or, worse yet, doing things to relieve boredom, while giving the impression of listening. In all ways, phone conversations are “half messages” devoid of body language and contextual symbols.

  Phone talk is segmented, rational, and impersonal—an idiom of the mechanical language of modernity in form, tone, and structure. Amish who are unfamiliar with phones speak with awkward pauses and uncertain sentences when they call a nurse or physician.16 Phone conversations reflect distant, secondary relationships in several ways. The old adage “It’s easier to say ‘no’ on the phone than in person” reflects the greater social distance and lower accountability of phone conversations.

  In Amish society, face-to-face talk and spontaneous visiting are the chief forms of social interaction. They generate social capital. The Amish share death, birth, and wedding announcements as well as everyday news through personal visits. Telephoning reduces visiting. If one can phone, why visit? Although quicker and handier, the phone threatened to erode the core of Amish culture: face-to-face conversations. Thus, the restrictions on phones help to preserve separation from the outside world as well as social capital within.

  THE TELEPHONE SHANTY

  The ban on phones created problems in times of emergency. In the mid-1930s, several families approached church leaders and requested permission to share a phone. According to oral tradition, they argued that “in case of a fire or something, or an emergency, if someone needs a doctor, there’s no telephone nearby.” They pleaded with the ministers to have a “community phone.” “It was tolerated,” said an Amish leader, “and that was the beginning of the community phone.”

  After 1940, community phones gradually appeared. Telephone shanties—which often resemble outhouses in size and appearance—are typically found at the end of lanes or beside barns and sheds. Several families share the phone and its expenses. With an unlisted number, the phone is primarily used for outgoing calls to make appointments and conduct farm business. Loud call bells that amplify the ring are prohibited in some districts to restrict incoming calls. Community phones in public shanties were widely accepted by 1980. But the growing use of phones was not easy. “We had a good bit of trouble with these telephones,” said a bishop. Other members worried that the phone would split the church.

  In the mind of one Amish grandmother, telephones were still “on probation” in 1986. Nevertheless, many Amish were calling one another. Friends or business associates scheduled routine times when they were “handy” to receive calls, and “appointments” were often made in advance. The principle of separation from the world was expressed by using unlisted numbers.

  The Amish give various reasons for permitting community phones: (1) the lack of nearby non-Amish neighbors in densely populated Amish areas, (2) the embarrassment of farmers dragging barn dirt and smells into non-Amish homes, (3) the need to make appointments with doctors, (4) the need of farmers to call veterinarians and feed dealers,17 (5) the need of businessmen to order supplies, and (6) the need to contact family members living in other settlements or on the outer edge of the Lancaster community.

  A businessman places a call in the phone shanty adjacent to his shop.

  Over the years convenience, economic necessity, and a sprawling settlement have created ingenious arrangements that brought phones within easy reach. Although still forbidden in homes, telephones are widely used today. Church districts vary on the placement of phones in shops and barns. Districts in the conservative southern end have a stricter policy on phones. But in the heart of the settlement, with shops galore, telephones abound. Many farmers have a private phone in the barn, tobacco shed, or chicken house, usually tucked away from public view. Lacking a radio, some farmers routinely call the national weather service for forecasts every
morning.

  The strongest pressure for phones comes from business owners. Some bishops permit phones inside shops, but many require adjacent telephone shanties. Sometimes the caller can literally reach through a window to use the phone. By the turn of the twenty-first century, many entrepreneurs were printing phone numbers on their business cards and brochures, an unheard of practice only a few years earlier. A successful businessman who uses a state-of-the-art electronic cash register explained why he does not have a telephone: “The bishop said that he’d really rather that I didn’t have one if it’s just for the sake of convenience, unless I have to. So I use a neighbor’s answering service since [a phone] isn’t really necessary and since the bishop is on top of the list of the people that I respect.”

  A growing number of families have private phones outside their homes. An Amish family living in a double house rents a phone from their “English” neighbors on the other side. Many people have a phone in a shanty adjacent to their home, shop, or barn. Two single sisters living in a small village installed one in their small horse barn. One person said her uncle has a hidden one in his home, and “his father would turn in his grave if he saw it.” Although the phone remains outside the home, many families now have one on their property. Indeed, in the words of one Amishman, “Community phones are history.”

  By the turn of the twenty-first century, heated discussions focused on the use of answering machines, voice mail, fax machines, and cell phones as well as the installation of phones in offices. Although church elders frowned on answering machines because these required electricity, they were lenient with voice mail provided by the phone company. The church discourages cell phones, but many contractors use them to coordinate mobile work crews on several jobs. In fact, one person said, “Cell phones are springing up everywhere.” The church has steadfastly maintained its taboo on phones in private homes, but that line is difficult to enforce with the portability of cell phones, which makes them especially troublesome.

  THE TELEPHONE BARGAIN

  Apart from the historic forces that shaped the interdiction against phones, present-day explanations for banning them from homes hinge on two issues: separation and community integration. The Amish believe that a home phone separates but that a community phone integrates. When asked why the Amish are afraid of the phone, one member said: “If you have a phone in the house and you have growing children, as they get older, why then you’re going to have one child who wants one up in her bedroom and the other one who wants an extension in her bedroom and it just goes on and on and it separates the whole family” (emphasis added). A grandfather explained: “If you have a place of business and need a phone, it must be separate from the building, and if it’s on the farm it must be separate from the house. It should be shared with the public so that others can use it. It’s just not allowed in the house, where would it stop? We stress keeping things small and keeping the family together” (emphasis added).

  Some men contend that with phones in homes women would “waste a lot of time in endless chatter.” A businessman described the practice as a buffer against interruptions: “If we had a telephone up there in the shop, I would just be bothered all the time. I just don’t want any up there. It needs to be separate from the building.” Said one mother, “A phone in the house would just be a nuisance.”

  The Amish do not consider the phone a moral evil that will lead to eternal damnation. Their question is “If we ‘give in’ on the phone, what will be next?” They have a good grasp of the social consequences of the phone for family life—gossip, individuation (multiple phones), and continual interruptions. A ringing phone would spoil the natural flow of family rhythms. The Amish worry that phones would pull families apart by encouraging attendance at meetings, scheduling appointments, and spending less time together. Phones not only permit unwanted visitors to intrude into the privacy of a home at any moment, but they also impose a technological structure on the natural flow of face-to-face interaction.

  The phone deal that the Amish negotiated is an ingenious arrangement. They have agreed to exclude it from homes, while allowing limited use for commercial purposes. The bargain incorporates key understandings in the fine print: (1) It upholds the historic taboo and thus keeps faith with tradition. They can say, “As always, we don’t approve of home phones.” (2) It saves face with the splinter group of 1910 by demonstrating that the Amish have not drifted into the worldliness of the liberal churches. (3) It preserves the natural rhythms of face-to-face interaction in home and family. (4) It encourages cooperation through the use of community phones. (5) It permits the development of small industries that are critical for the economic viability of the Amish community. (6) It symbolizes key Amish values—separation from the world, establishing limits, shunning convenience, preserving family solidarity, and respecting past wisdom. (7) It controls technology. These understandings keep the phone at a distance and limit its use. The Amish are its master rather than its servant.

  The phone story is an intriguing parable of human interaction with technology—a demonstration that technology can serve the community without dominating it. The inconvenience of walking to an outside phone or taking messages from an answering service is a daily reminder that membership in an ethnic community exacts a price—a reminder that things that are too handy and too convenient may lead to sloth and pride. The phone agreement is a way to uphold tradition and absorb change, to appease the traditionalists as well as the entrepreneurs who need phones for economic survival. It is a deal that allows the Amish to have their cake and eat it too—preserving tradition while bending to economic pressures.

  THE RIDDLE OF ELECTRICITY

  Electricity is conspicuously absent from Amish homesteads. Newer Amish homes with contemporary decor have pleasant kitchens and modern bathrooms. But electrical appliances—microwaves, air conditioners, hair dryers, dishwashers, toasters, mixers, blenders, can openers, electric knives, TVs, VCRs, CD players, and computers—are missing. Bottled gas is used to heat water and to operate modern stoves and refrigerators. Homes, barns, and shops are lit with gas-pressured lanterns hung from ceilings, mounted on walls, or built on mobile cabinets that hold pressurized tanks of gas.

  The Amish use electricity in several ways. Flashing red lights on the back of buggies warn approaching traffic. Electric fences keep cattle in pastures. The milk in bulk tanks is stirred by electric motors. Battery-operated alarm clocks buzz before dawn. The elderly read by small, battery-operated lamps. Electric welding machines abound on Amish farms. Carpentry crews use electric power saws at construction sites. Battery-operated tools fill many shops. The solution to this baffling maze of electrical use is found in tradition, intergroup relations, economic pressure, and conscious decisions to avoid worldly entrapments. A brief overview of electrical usage in the larger society sets the stage for the Amish story.

  The Edison Electric Company began operations in Lancaster City in 1886. Arc lights soon illuminated streets, and some six thousand incandescent bulbs were eventually burning in homes and businesses. From 1890 to 1900, hotels and businesses used electric motors for power, and soon electric trolley cars were replacing horse-drawn “buses.”18 But for the most part, electricity stayed within city limits in these early years. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, power lines gradually crept into the countryside along major roads. Some outlying towns began operating their own power plants, but many rural areas still relied on kerosene lamps. In 1924, only 10 percent of non-Amish farms had current for lights and appliances. By 1930, there were 10,000 private electric plants on farms, but most Pennsylvania farmers still milked by lantern light.19

  Several types of electrical services had emerged by the 1930s. First, cities and boroughs had independent generating plants. Second, many farms and businesses in rural areas operated small Delco or Genco electrical plants. These private plants provided homeowners with electricity from batteries charged by a generator powered by a gasoline engine. Third, farms along main roads
began hooking up to public power lines as they gradually became available. Finally, many remote areas remained in the dark. By 1946, however, 80 percent of the non-Amish farmers were using electricity.

  COPING WITH ELECTRICITY

  Although the Amish hedged on using electricity from public utility lines, they had been using batteries for many years. Batteries were used to start gasoline engines that powered washing machines, water pumps, and feed grinders. Flashlights were also acceptable. Batteries were self-contained and unconnected to the outside world. They were handy but not “too handy,” and they posed no threat to the Amish community. However, the church soon began to frown when light bulbs were hooked to batteries.

  With a gasoline engine for power, Amishman Isaac Glick rigged up a generator with an electric light in about 1910.20 He used the light to check the fertility of eggs in his hatchery business. The church, without a firm policy on electricity, did not censure Glick’s light. Several years later, Glick’s sons used batteries to hook up a light in their barn. One son stated: “The church ‘got wind of it’ and Father was brought to task in a church counsel meeting. After that, Daddy didn’t want us to use the light.” However, other Amish farmers were lighting their horse stables with bulbs connected to batteries without incurring the church’s wrath. Thus, prior to World War I, the Amish attitude toward electricity was still in flux.

  The menacing shadow of the 1910 division hovered over the Amish once again as they coped with the use of electricity. Indeed, the split in 1910 made it easier for the Amish to address the issue because the progressive Peachey church welcomed electrical innovations. Its members installed small Delco plants and generated their own electricity for lights and motors. An Amish minister described the electrical taboo: “An order was established that was not changed until the bulk milk tanks came in the late 1960s. The Peachey church had it [electricity], and that just about ruled it out for us.” Once again, like the telephone decision, the readiness of the liberal group to welcome electrical lights helped the Amish say no.21