A History of the Amish: Third Edition

A History of the Amish: Third Edition

Authoritative, thorough, and interestingly written, A History of the Amish presents the deep and rich heritage of the Amish people with dozens of illustrations and updated statistics. The Amish, one of America’s most intriguingly private, unique, and often misunderstood religious communities, have survived for three hundred years! How has that happened? While much has been written on the Amish, little has been revealed about their history. This book brings together in one volume a thorough history of the Amish people. From their beginnings in Europe through their settlement in North America, the Amish have struggled to maintain their beliefs and traditions in often hostile settings. Chapters include: Migration and Persistence: The Amish in Europe, 1693-1801 - Settlement and Struggle in a New World: The Amish in Eighteenth Century Pennsylvania - Merging Traditions: Amish Mennonites and Mennonites in North America and Europe, 1870-1937 - Finding a Place in Modern America, 1900-1945 - And more! Now updated, the book gives an in-depth look at how the modern Amish church continues to grow and change. It covers recent developments in new Amish settlements, the community’s conflict and negotiation with government, the Nickel Mines school shooting, and the media’s constant fascination with this religious people, from reality TV shows to romance novels. Steven M. Nolt is a professor at Goshen College, where he teaches American history and Mennonite history. Over the past twenty years he has visited dozens of Amish communities in numerous states and in Ontario, doing numerous research projects. Nolt’s PhD is from the University of Notre Dame. He is the author or coauthor of a dozen books, most recently The Amish and Seeking Places of Peace , the North American volume in the Global Mennonite History series. He lives near Goshen, Indiana. A History of the Amish By Steven M. Nolt Skyhorse Publishing Copyright © 2015 Good Books, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-68099-065-2 Contents Acknowledgments, 1. A Reformation Heritage, 2. Amish Beginnings, 1693-1712, 3. Migration and Persistence: The Amish in Europe, 1693-1801, 4. Settlement and Struggle in a New World: The Amish in Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania, 5. A Time of Testing: The Amish in Europe, 1790-1860, 6. Prosperity and Promise in North America, 1800-1865, 7. Years of Division, 1850-1878, 8. Merging Traditions: Amish Mennonites and Mennonites in North America and Europe, 1870-1937, 9. Preservation and Perseverance: Old Order Amish, 1865-1900, 10. Finding a Place in Modern America, 1900-1945, 11. Conflict, Compromise, and Renewal, 1945-1975, 12. Peoplehood in the Midst of Modernity, Endnotes, Bibliography, Index, About the Author, CHAPTER 1 A Reformation Heritage "We have been united to stand fast in the Lord." — Anabaptist leaders, 1527 A peculiar people in a land of grand expectations For many Americans, the early 1960s seemed an era of buoyant optimism and impressive progress. Poverty rates were falling, life expectancy increasing, and modern medicine promised to end a host of dread diseases. A decade and a half of economic growth had boosted national and personal incomes to new heights and with it remarkable new consumer goods, from air conditioning to transistor radios. Weather satellites, jet airplanes, and other technological wonders gave people confidence that President John Kennedy was right when he vowed that humans would walk on the moon before the decade ended. Undergirding national prosperity was an expanding system of education and technical know-how, and the security that came from residing within the boundaries of a superpower whose global influence and military muscle supported an "American way of life." Cold war tensions could put people on edge, but in the years before a deepening war in Vietnam, the assassination of Martin Luther King, or the cynicism of Watergate, the spirit of the times was one of grand expectation. Near the crossroads community of Winesburg, in eastern Holmes County, Ohio, thirty-one-year-old Elizabeth Miller was not so sure. That year, Miller, an Old Order Amish farm wife and mother, penned several essays on church history and contemporary life. Apparently well-read and familiar with current events, Miller was nonplussed by many of the developments that others took to be progress. She had heard the puzzled questions often enough: "Don't [you] care for the use of electricity and the pleasure of owning an automobile?" "Surely Christ would not have led a homeless poor life as he did" if it wasn't "necessary for a follower of Christ to live a humble life" as well, Miller reasoned, but in a society celebrating abundance it was difficult to explain why her family did not seek "anything more than what is needed to live." Yet modernity bore more than curious questions. It had a coercive edge. Miller felt mounting pressure on Amish paren