Old Order Amish

Here at last is an authentic portrait of the Amish, in striking photographs and honest accounts of their daily concerns and enduring traditions. Photographer Lucian Niemeyer earned the trust and friendship of Amish families by helping to harvest crops on their farms in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, site of one of the oldest Amish settlements in North America. After "many backbreaking days" in the fields, he gained acceptance in a community that draws sharp lines of separation from the outside world--and has, by tradition, shunned photography. With the encouragement of his Amish friends who welcomed the chance to correct inaccurate accounts of Amish ways, Niemeyer began to assemble this honest and sensitive photographic record. He worked without filters or darkroom manipulations, using only natural light. The results are unprecedented--photographs of families, community gatherings, even the seldom seen interiors of Amish homes and schools. These unique images capture the deliberate simplicity and the natural beauty that characterize Amish life in Lancaster County. In the accompanying text, Donald Kraybill--author of the highly acclaimed Riddle of Amish Culture--tells the often surprising story of today's Old Order Amish. His introduction provides a sweeping overview of Amish life in North America and explains how a traditional people have managed not merely to survive but to flourish in the midst of modern life. In thirty-five "vignettes" throughout the book, Kraybill explains Amish views on issues ranging from "Childbirth" and "Women Entrepreneurs" to "The Riddles of Farm Machinery," "Sowing Wild Oats," and "The Politics of Separation." His concluding essay examines why modern observers are so drawn to the Amish and their traditional values.

Now back in print with a new essay, this classic of Iowa history focuses on the Old Order Amish Mennonites, the state’s most distinctive religious minority. Sociologist Elmer Schwieder and historian Dorothy Schwieder began their research with the largest group of Old Order Amish in the state, the community near Kalona in Johnson and Washington counties, in April 1970; they extended their studies and friendships in later years to other Old Order settlements as well as the slightly less conservative Beachy Amish. A Peculiar People explores the origin and growth of the Old Order Amish in Iowa, their religious practices, economic organization, family life, the formation of new communities, and the vital issue of education. Included also are appendixes giving the 1967 “Act Relating to Compulsory School Attendance and Educational Standards”; a sample “Church Organization Financial Agreement,” demonstrating the group’s unusual but advantageous mutual financial system; and the 1632 Dortrecht Confession of Faith, whose eighteen articles cover all the basic religious tenets of the Old Order Amish. Thomas Morain’s new essay describes external and internal issues for the Iowa Amish from the 1970s to today. The growth of utopian Amish communities across the nation, changes in occupation (although The Amish Directory still lists buggy shop operators, wheelwrights, and one lone horse dentist), the current state of education and health care, and the conscious balance between modern and traditional ways are reflected in an essay that describes how the Old Order dedication to Gelassenheit—the yielding of self to the interests of the larger community—has served its members well into the twenty-first century.

Train Up a Child explores how private schools in Old Order Amish communities reflect and perpetuate church-community values and identity. Here, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner asserts that the reinforcement of those values among children is imperative to the survival of these communities in the modern world. Surveying settlements in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, Johnson-Weiner finds that, although Old Order communities have certain similarities in their codes of conduct, there is no standard Old Order school. She examines the choices each community makes—about pedagogy, curriculum, textbooks, even school design—to strengthen religious ideology, preserve the social and linguistic markers of Old Order identity, and protect their own community's beliefs and values from the influence of the dominant society. In the most comprehensive study of Old Order schools to date, Johnson-Weiner provides valuable insight into how variables such as community size and relationship with other Old Order groups affect the role of these schools in maintaining behavioral norms and in shaping the Old Order's response to modernity.

This book tells a story which until now has not been available in such an interesting and comprehensive form. What holds these people together? Why are they growing in number? Where do they live? The Old Order Mennonites are less well known than the Amish, but are similar in many beliefs and practices. Some Old Order Mennonites drive horses and buggies. Others use cars for transportation. Conservative Mennonite groups vary a great deal, but in general espouse strong faith and family life and believe that how they live should distinguish them from the larger society around them. The author details courtship and wedding practices, methods of worship, dress, transportation, and vocation. Never before has there been such an inside account of these people and their lives. The author spent years conferring and interviewing members of the various groups, trying to portray their history and their story in a fair and accurate manner. An enjoyable, educational, inspiring book.

This first comparative study sketches the differences as well as the common threads that bind these groups together.

Lee focuses on the Weaverland Conference of Old Order Mennonites, a group formed in 1893 and now consisting of over 5,000 members. A large concentration of Weaverland Mennonites live in upstate New York near Seneca Falls, and Lee focuses his easily readable sociological study on that community. Individual chapters deal with the worship, rituals, rules, and discipline of the group, and with a number of recent defections to a more mainstream Mennonite Church located in the same area. Lee argues that Weaverland Mennonites are held together by their practices alone, rather than by a common underlying set of beliefs. --Choice Magazine

Offers an overview of the Amish and Mennonite communities in Indiana, describing the traditions, beliefs, and contributions of each community and discussing their impact on the state's history.

Examining how the Wengers have cautiously and incrementally adapted to the changes swirling around them, this book offers an invaluable case study of a traditional group caught in the throes of a postmodern world."--Jacket.