The Riddle of Amish Culture

by Donald B. Kraybill

  Renno, John R.

  1985 Comp. Brief History of the Amish Divisions in Lancaster County. Danville, Pa.

  Reschly, Steven D.

  2000. The Amish on the Iowa Prairie, 1840 to 1910. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

  Ressler, Martin

  1978 “A Song of Praise.” Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage 1(October):10–13.

  1986 “American Continuance of European Origins in Mennonite, Hutterite, and Amish Music Functions.” Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage 9(January):6–10.

  Revised Regulations and Guidelines for Old Order Amish Liability Aid

  1977 Gordonville, Pa.: Gordonville Print Shop.

  Rice, Charles S., and John B. Shenk

  1947 Meet the Amish: A Pictorial Study of the Amish People. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

  Rice, Charles S., and Rollin C. Steinmetz

  1956 The Amish Year. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

  Rohrer, David

  1974 “The Influence of the Pennsylvania German Dialect on Amish English in Lancaster Co.” Mennonite Research Journal 15(July):34–35.

  Roth, John D.

  1993 Trans. and ed. Letters of the Amish Division: A Sourcebook. Goshen, Ind.: Mennonite Historical Society.

  1994 “Common Origins of Mennonites and Amish to 1693.” In Tradition and Transition: An Amish Mennonite Heritage of Obedience 1693–1993, edited by V. Gordon Oyer. Metamora, Ill.: Mennonite Heritage Center.

  Rule of St. Benedict in English, The

  1982 Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press.

  Rules and Regulations of Old Order Amish Church Aid

  1983 Gordonville, Pa.: Gordonville Print Shop.

  Rules of a Godly Life

  1983 Translated by Joseph Stoll from the German, Geistliches Lustgartlein Frommer Seelen. LaGrange, Ind.: Edwin L. Lambright.

  Schlabach, Theron F.

  1988 Peace, Faith, Nation: Mennonites and Amish in Nineteenth-Century America. Vol. 2 of The Mennonite Experience in America. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press.

  Schowalter, Paul

  1957 S.v. “Martyr.” In The Mennonite Encyclopedia 3:521–25. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press.

  Schreiber, William I.

  1962a “The Hymns of the Amish Ausbund in Philological and Literary Perspective.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 36(January): 37–60.

  1962b Our Amish Neighbors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  Schwieder, Elmer, and Dorothy Schwieder

  1975 A Peculiar People: Iowa’s Old Order Amish. Ames: Iowa State University Press.

  Scott, Stephen

  1981 Plain Buggies: Amish, Mennonite and Brethren Horse-Drawn Transportation. Intercourse, Pa.: Good Books.

  1986 Why Do They Dress That Way? Intercourse, Pa.: Good Books.

  1988 The Amish Wedding and Other Special Occasions of the Old Order Communities. Intercourse, Pa.: Good Books.

  Seguy, Jean

  1973 “Religion and Agricultural Success: The Vocational Life of the French Anabaptists from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 47(July):179–224.

  1980 “The Bernese Anabaptists in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines.” Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage 3(July):2–9. Translated by Mervin Smucker.

  Shirk, Eli M.

  1939 Comp. Report of Committee of Plain People Making Pleas for Leniency from Depressive School Laws. Ephrata, Pa.

  Siegel, Bernard J.

  1970 “Defensive Structuring and Environmental Stress.” American Journal of Sociology 76(July):11–32.

  Smith, Elmer L.

  1961 The Amish Today: An Analysis of Their Beliefs, Behavior, and Contemporary Problems. Pennsylvania German Society, vol. 24. Allentown, Pa.: Schlechters.

  Smucker, Esther F.

  1995 Good Night, My Son: A Treasure in Heaven. Elverson Pa.: Olde Springfield Shoppe.

  Smucker, Mervin R.

  1988 “How Amish Children View Themselves and Their Families: The Effectiveness of Amish Socialization.” Brethren Life and Thought 33(Summer):218–36.

  Snyder, C. Arnold

  1995 Anabaptist History and Theology: An Introduction. Kitchener, Ont.: Pandora Press.

  Songs of the Ausbund, Vol. 1

  1998 Millersburg, Ohio: Ohio Amish Library, Inc.

  Standards of the Old Order Amish and Old Order Mennonite Parochial and Vocational Schools of Pennsylvania

  1981 Gordonville, Pa.: Gordonville Print Shop.

  “Statement of the Bishops of the Old Order Amish Church of Lancaster County Regarding Attendance in Public Schools.”

  1950 22 February. Typescript.

  Steering Committee

  1966–2000 Minutes of the Old Order Amish Steering Committee. Vols. 1–6. Gordonville, Pa.: Gordonville Print Shop.

  Steinfeldt, Bernice

  1937 The Amish of Lancaster County. Lancaster, Pa.: Arthur G. Steinfeldt.

  Stevick, Richard

  2000 “Amish Youth: The Critical Years.” Manuscript.

  Stoltzfus, Amos J.

  n.d. Ein bericht wie es sich begeben hat das der bahn zwichen die Hausgemein und die Kirchgemein gekommen ist in der Conestoga valley, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (A report on how the ban between the house church and the church group came about in the Conestoga Valley, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania). Translated by Noah G. Good.

  1984 Golden Memories. Gordonville, Pa.: Pequea Publishers.

  Stoltzfus, Grant M.

  1954 “History of the First Amish Mennonite Communities in America.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 28(October):235–62.

  Stoltzfus, Louise

  1994 Amish Women: Lives and Stories. Intercourse: Good Books.

  1995 Two Amish Folk Artists: The Story of Henry Lapp and Barbara Ebersol. Intercourse, Pa: Good Books.

  1998 Traces of Wisdom: Amish Women and the Pursuit of Life’s Simple Pleasures. New York: Hyperion.

  2000 The Story of Tourism in Lancaster County, PA. Lancaster, Pa.: Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.

  Stoltzfus, Victor

  1973 “Amish Agriculture: Adaptive Strategies for Economic Survival of Community Life.” Rural Sociology 38(Summer):196–206.

  1977 “Reward and Sanction: The Adaptive Continuity of Amish Life.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 51(October):308–18.

  Studer, Gerald C.

  1984 “The Dordrecht Confession of Faith, 1632–1982.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 58(October):503–19.

  Swartz, David

  1997 Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  Tan, Tay Keong

  1998 “Silence, Sacrifice and Shoofly Pies: An Inquiry into Social Capital and Organizational Strategies of the Amish Community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.” Ph.D. diss., John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

  Thompson, William E.

  1981 “The Oklahoma Amish: Survival of an Ethnic Subculture.” Ethnicity 8:476–87.

  Umble, Diane Zimmerman

  1994 “Amish on the Line: The Telephone Debates.” In The Amish Struggle with Modernity, edited by Donald B. Kraybill and Marc A. Olshan. Hanover: University Press of New England.

  1996 Holding the Line: The Telephone in Old Order Mennonite and Amish Life. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

  Umble, John S.

  1948 “Memoirs of an Amish Bishop.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 22(April):94–115.

  Vocation on the Farm

  1956 A Statement of Principles of a Church Vocation in Agricultural Practice by the Old Order Amish Church of Pennsylvania. Strasburg, Pa.: Homsher Printing.

  Wagler, David

  n.d. Are All Things Lawful? Aylmer, Ont.: Pathway Publishers.

  Weaver, J. Denny

  1987 Becoming Anabaptist: The Origin and Significance of Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press.

  Weaver-Zercher, David

  2001 The Amish in the American Imagination. Baltimore: Johns H
opkins University Press.

  Weber, Max

  1947 The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: Free Press.

  Wickersham, James P.

  1886 A History of Education in Pennsylvania. Lancaster, Pa.: Inquirer Publishing.

  Wilson, Bryan

  1970 Religious Sects. New York: McGraw-Hill.

  Woolcock, Michael

  1998a “Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology. Palo Alto, Calif.: Annual Reviews Inc.

  1998b “Social Capital and Economic Development: Toward a Theoretical Syntheses and Policy Framework.” Theory and Society 27:151–208.

  Yoder, Don

  1997 “Two Worlds in the Dutch Country.” Pennsylvania Folk Life 46(3): 102–8.

  Yoder, Elmer S.

  1987 The Beachy Amish Mennonite Fellowship Churches. Hartville, Ohio: Diakonia Ministries.

  Yoder, John Howard

  1973 Ed. and trans. The Legacy of Michael Sattler. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press.

  Yoder, Paton

  n.d. “Amish Church Affairs in the Nineteenth Century.” Typescript.

  1979a Eine Wurzel: Tennessee John Stoltzfus. Lititz, Pa: Sutter House.

  1979b “‘Tennessee’ John Stoltzfus and the Great Schism in the Amish Church, 1850–1877.” Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage 2(July):17–23.

  1987a Tennessee John Stoltzfus: Amish Church-Related Documents and Family Letters. Lancaster, Pa.: Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society.

  1987b “The Structure of the Amish Ministry in the Nineteenth Century.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 61(July):280–97.

  1991 Tradition and Transition: Amish Mennonites and Old Order Amish, 1800–1900. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press.

  1993 “The Amish View of the State.” In The Amish and the State, edited by Donald B. Kraybill. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

  Yoder, Paton, and Elizabeth Bender

  1979 “Baptism as an Issue in the Amish Division of the Nineteenth Century: ‘Tennessee’ John Stoltzfus.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 53(October):306–23.

  Yoder, Paton, and Steven R. Estes

  1999 Proceedings of the Amish Ministers’ Meetings 1862–1878. Goshen, Ind.: Mennonite Historical Society.

  Zook, Lee J.

  1993 “Slow-moving Vehicles.” In The Amish and the State, edited by Donald B. Kraybill. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

  INDEX

  affiliation, 13

  Beachy Amish, 14, 26, 190

  defined, 14

  New Order, 14, 15–16, 37, 233

  Old Order, 14, 15

  age roles, 82

  agriculture. See farming

  air conditioners, 54, 295

  air power. See under power, sources of

  alcohol abuse, 146, 147, 325

  Amish: beliefs of, 1–3, 22, 28, 119

  compactness of, 107–8

  concessions by and to, 312–13

  divisions, 8, 9, 25–26, 188–90, 197, 199, 215, 232–33, 237, 306

  growth of, 14, 16–17, 317, 335, 337

  history of, 7–10, 26, 30, 96

  modern, 17–18, 320–22

  new commercial class of, 263–67

  and non-Amish, 22, 157–58, 270–72

  personality of, 33–36

  population of, 14, 16–17, 240, 259, 261, 317, 336

  use of professionals by, 269, 313. See also affiliation: Old Order; tourism

  Amish Aid Society, 101–2

  Amish Disaster Committee, 104

  Amish Liability Aid, 102

  Amish National Steering Committee, 102–3, 276, 286

  Ammann, Jakob, 7, 8

  Anabaptists, 3–7, 30, 95

  and Amish, 137, 157, 169, 173, 189, 294

  beliefs of, 5–6, 28, 116

  in Netherlands, 4, 6

  persecution of, 4, 6, 7, 8, 21, 44, 122, 238

  in Switzerland, 4, 5, 6–7, 8

  appliances, home, 31, 33, 84, 197, 295, 315

  freezers, 114, 210, 233, 314

  microwaves, 18, 54

  apprenticeship, 174, 178, 258, 285, 308

  art, 47–48

  attrition rate, 16

  auctions, 152, 156, 157

  Ausbund (hymn book), 5, 27, 116, 122

  automobile. See cars

  ballgames, 89, 145, 146, 150, 152, 271, 302, 305

  ban. See excommunication

  baptism, 94, 95, 112, 116–19, 135

  adult, 4, 6, 29, 68, 92, 147, 186, 321

  age of, 117

  barn raisings, 12, 21, 33, 101, 142–43, 154–55, 260

  Beachy Amish church. See under affiliation

  beards, 8, 33, 63, 65, 68

  Beiler, Ben, 199, 200, 201, 223, 225

  Beiler, Jonas, 223

  Beiler, “Tinker” Dan, 199

  Bennett, William, 184

  Bible, 47, 56, 57, 99, 159, 167, 273

  Amish view of, 4, 28, 37, 38, 44, 137, 161, 173, 239, 301

  and church/world dualism, 44–45

  New Testament, 6, 126

  reading of, 120, 178, 189

  and sermons, 120, 123, 126

  bicycles, 2, 24, 114, 213, 302, 305

  birth control, 88, 243, 317

  birth rate. See family: size

  bishops, 96, 176, 264

  and church districts, 92, 94, 98, 99

  leadership of, 39, 53, 82, 189, 306

  and mechanization, 203, 230, 233, 237

  role of, 94, 101, 103, 104, 107, 108, 117–19, 126, 128, 132, 298

  and school controversy, 165, 169

  seniority system for, 98–100

  and use of telephones, 191, 195

  Bishops’ Meetings, 94, 98, 99, 126, 306

  Blackboard Bulletin (magazine), 181

  Die Botschaft (The message; weekly newspaper), 56, 154

  Brethren groups, 15, 16

  Bruderschaft Library, 104

  Buddy Bunches, 146, 150, 151, 154. See also gangs

  The Budget (weekly newspaper), 154

  buggies, 73, 74–79, 227, 314–16

  and Amish identity, 2, 70, 74, 76, 79, 218, 288, 293

  vs. cars, 73, 146

  changes in, 77–79, 306, 313

  cost of, 78–79

  and related industries, 77, 255

  as symbol, 55, 76–77, 318

  travel by, 50, 259

  types of, 74–75

  use of, 1, 17, 33, 54

  bulk tanks. See farm machinery

  Bush, George H. W., 184

  Bush, George W., 275

  business, 131, 178, 209, 264

  advertising in, 313, 323

  Amish, 219, 254–59, 314, 315

  vs. farm, 309–11

  and Gelassenheit, 53, 109–10, 308

  history of, 230–32, 238–45

  success in, 256–59, 265–67

  and telephones, 195, 196

  business enterprises, 243–59, 309

  businessmen, Amish, 57, 136–37, 239–40, 248, 256, 269, 270, 272

  and Amish culture, 254, 258, 260, 263, 310–11

  and telephones, 52, 194–95, 196

  calculators, 1, 45, 113, 299, 304, 320

  carpentry, 205–6, 219, 240, 252

  carpeting, wall-to-wall, 115, 295, 298

  carriages. See buggies

  cars, 15, 25, 96

  agreement about, 220–22

  Amish fear of, 216–17

  as “Amish taxis,” 217–19, 220

  banning of, 16, 26, 213, 222

  driving of, 104, 190

  and gangs, 145, 147

  hiring of, 125, 214, 215, 304, 315

  hiring of drivers for, 218, 219, 220

  and individualism, 216, 217

  Model T, 215, 216

  ownership of, 1–2, 24, 26, 71, 115, 136, 140, 213–17, 219, 220, 301, 314, 320

  riding in, 24, 217, 302

  selective use of, 188, 190, 214, 215, 219, 314

  Casey, Robert P., 289


  Catholic Church, 3, 4, 6

  central heating, 108, 115

  Charming Nancy (ship), 9

  chemicals: fertilizers, 18, 230, 269, 296, 313

  insecticides, 18, 313

  pesticides, 18, 269, 313

  childhood, 144

  four stages of, 82

  child labor, 284–86

  children, 55

  birthing of, 20–21, 144

  and farming, 163, 317

  and plastic toys, 45

  rearing, 38, 80, 81, 144, 161, 261

  and size of families, 16, 33, 261

  spanking of, 33–34, 38, 325

  training of, 33, 34, 122

  and work, 46, 47, 85, 87, 88, 285–86, 314. See also schools

  Christian Aid Ministries, 157

  Christianity, 28, 30, 37, 323

  the church, 4, 28, 50, 267, 280, 308

  authority of, 97, 121, 139–40, 315

  congregations of, 13–15, 94

  as covenant community, 6, 30

  and government, 272–73, 277

  as mobile sanctuary, 95–98

  and obedience, 22, 30, 38, 119, 120, 325

  submission to, 119, 122, 128

  and the world, 44–45, 271, 277

  Church Aid, 103–4

  church buildings, 95–96

  church districts, 13, 91–95, 99, 100, 315

  church services, 89, 91, 119–25, 128

  format of, 132, 190

  and hats, 121–22

  in homes, 119, 315

  seating patterns in, 123–24

  singing in, 51, 120, 122, 123, 124, 128

  cigarettes. See smoking

  civic involvement, 157–58, 270–72

  Clinic for Special Children, 105, 156

  clocks, 50, 51, 52

  clothing, 57–70, 124, 126, 316, 318, 321, 329

  changes in, 45, 68–69

  colors of, 61, 115

  fastenings for, 2, 8, 61, 63, 65, 69, 70, 125

  meaning of, 57–60, 66

  of men, 63–65, 66, 67, 68

  of Mennonites, 16, 67

  sneakers, 45, 62, 68

  as symbol, 54, 55

  of women, 60–63, 66

  for work vs. dress occasions, 66–67

  of youth, 67–68, 145. See also hard hats; men: hats of; synthetic materials

  communication: circle letters, 154

  face-to-face, 192–93, 196, 197, 259

  oral, 108

  and technology, 192. See also telephones

  communion, 94, 95, 96, 125–28, 131, 140, 149

  community: building, 37, 158, 259, 323

  commitment to, 3, 29–32, 34, 35, 39, 52, 211, 220, 260, 315, 319, 321, 330, 331