Amish

By John A. Hostetler

Mennonites, Pennsylvania Dutch, Pennsylvania Germans

Old Order Amish Mennonites in North America are a Germanic people with origins in the radical Swiss Anabaptist movement that developed between 1525 and 1536 during the Reformation. Among the Anabaptist groups who have persisted in their beliefs for over three centuries are the Amish, the Mennonites, and the Hutterites. These groups believe in adult baptism and pacifism, maintain a strict religious community and reject participation in the world to varying degrees. Their adherence to simple, or "plain," living is widely known. The Amish migrated to America from Switzerland, Alsace-Lorraine, the Palatinate (in what is now western Germany), France, and Holland. During the first period of their migration, between 1727 and 1790, approximately five hundred Amish, along with other Germanic groups, settled in Pennsylvania. Between 1815 and 1865, a second influx of three thousand Amish immigrated to Ohio, New York, Indiana, and Illinois.

In 1990 there were approximately 130,000 Amish living in twenty states and one province of Canada (Ontario). Seventy percent of all Amish live in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. At a 3 percent rate of population increase annually, the Amish are doubling their numbers every twenty-three years. This growth rate results from large families in which seven or eight children are typical.

The Amish speak a dialect of German among themselves, use biblical High German in religious services, and speak standard English with outsiders.

The Amish were established as a separate sect between 1693 and 1697 on the basis of religious principles that continue to guide their communities. These rules, laid down by Jacob Ammann, a leader of a dissenting faction of the Swiss Anabaptists, include shunning (the social avoidance of excommunicated members), ceremonial foot washing as part of the communion service, and simplicity in dress and grooming. In the early twenty-first century the rules are interpreted locally by the members of each congregation. The Amish, like other Anabaptist groups in Europe, suffered severe persecution and imprisonment. If they remained in their own countries, they were not allowed to own land and were denied citizenship. These restrictions prevented them from forming permanent settlements. As a result, those who stayed in their European homelands have largely been assimilated into the dominant religious groups there.

The bases for Amish existence as a distinct American subculture are their nonconformity in dress, homes, speech, attitudes toward education, and resistance to modernization and change.

The Amish adhere to traditions that include living in rural areas, using horses for farming, marrying within the group, and dressing in a manner reminiscent of seventeenth-century Europeans. The Amish lead lives that are socially distinct as well. Since the Amish are secure in their tradition of separation from the outside world, their relations with their non-Amish neighbors appear to be free of the judgmental attitudes of other separatist sects. Rules for Amish living prohibit more than an elementary school education, the ownership (but not always the use) of automobiles and telephones, and the use of electricity and modern conveniences. The Amish are aware of their position with respect to the large cultural environment. Farmers especially consider that using technological farm implements would have a devastating impact on their ability to maintain a separate society.

Conformity to the consensual rules (Ordnung) for behavior serves to unify Amish communities. Their religious perspective emphasizes commitment to a self-sufficient community of believers who reject worldly values. As part of a religious ethic based on their interpretations of Biblical scripture, the Amish ideal is to provide totally for members of their congregations throughout the life cycle. The Amish therefore remain committed to the home as the locus of their church services and for the care of the sick, the orphaned, the indigent, the elderly, and the mentally retarded. Important values that are the result of socialization in the home rather than in school are the ability to cooperate with others and to work as a contributing member to the society.

Outside industries have moved to Amish districts in Indiana and Pennsylvania in order to take advantage of their reputation for hard and reliable work. The Amish, though, tend to maximize their interactions with members of their group through the spatial arrangements in their communities, for example, while reducing interactions with outsiders. Like other rural communities, the encroachment of industrialization has diminished the possibility of isolation desired by the Amish.

The Amish are located in regions that are compatible with their ideal of continuing a farming life-style. Within a settlement, the church district encloses a certain area. The size of the district is determined by the number of persons who can be accommodated in a single farm dwelling for church services. About twenty-five to thirty-five married couples plus their children compose a district. The steady growth rate of the Amish population and the need for more farmland accessible to the younger generation for purchase have required movement to new settlements. Amish homes tend to be large, functional dwellings dedicated to simplicity. Interiors are neatly kept and, in compliance with church rules, there is minimal decoration or ornamentation other than quilts and decorative china. The emphasis is on functional space that will allow homes to become churches for the bimonthly Sunday worship.

Farming is the occupation desired by most Amish. All family members are integrated into an agricultural way of life. Beginning at an early age, the young assist in farm and household chores. The Amish keep their farms small enough to be handled by the family unit. Family-size farms have consistently been productive, serving to meet the needs of the community rather than to earn large profits. Farms average between fifty and ninety-six acres; the larger acreage occurs in midwestern areas rather than in eastern regions such as Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The lack of concern with high-income productivity is evident in Amish farmers' choosing to concentrate on raising livestock in small numbers and on growing a variety of crops. Farm size is limited not only by the amount of land that can be managed by one family but also by the prohibition on the use of electricity.

On New York farms, if tractors are used at all, they provide the power source for other types of farm machinery. Often these vehicles are outdated and have steel wheels instead of rubber tires. In some parts of Ohio, for example, the prohibition on technological dairy farming has meant the abandonment of farming, resulting in a change in the nature of the Amish community.

Some nonfarming Amish work within their communities, serving traditional needs such as the repair of farm and household equipment and operating horse-and-buggy trades.

Work outside of farming in some regions has become increasingly necessary because of the declining availability of affordable land. Ironically, however, nonagricultural employment has also created the financial security that allows many young families to remain within the Amish fellowship. Newer occupational opportunities include service industries and shops where Amish work for non-Amish ("English") employers, often saving their earnings to buy a farm. More women are now being trained as teachers for Amish schools.

The Amish depend on outsiders for medical and legal services. When making loans to Amish clients, bank managers rely on the system of mutual aid for church members to back up buyers who become financially overburdened.

Mainly, women are employed in the home. Besides attending to children, house, garden, and chickens, the Amish woman also sews clothes for her family, cooks and cans food, and engages in quilt and rug making and embroidery. Both sexes handle household finances; children have both parents as role models for learning behavior appropriate to Amish society. Members of the congregation, both male and female, work cooperatively to build and rebuild houses and barns.

The Amish are often forced to migrate to areas where cheaper farmland is available. They save to buy additional farms for their children, giving young married couples financial and other forms of assistance in establishing their own farms. It is not uncommon for members of the community to provide low-interest loans to young people starting out.

The Amish tend to maintain social relations mainly but not exclusively with members of their group. In-group marriages and kinship solidarity reinforce the family-based social structure. Amish marriages occur in what is essentially a large kin group. The extent of intermarriage that has resulted in the intermingling of genealogies for more than two centuries is evident in various Amish localities by the relatively few surnames. In naming their children, Amish parents may recognize both maternal and paternal sides of the family. Children have their fathers' surnames and middle names that are often their mothers' maiden names.

Several hereditary diseases have been studied among Amish populations. Although they are not a single, genetically closed population, the Amish have separate inbreeding communities within the larger group. The inbred character is indicated by the history of their migration patterns, by the unique family names in each community, and by the distribution of blood types. Of at least twelve "new" recessive diseases ascertained, several are especially pronounced: dwarfism, a rare blood cell disease, hemophilia, muscular dystrophy, and diseases associated with metabolism. The low rate of some hereditary diseases that are common in the general population has also been noted.

Amish couples are expected to remain married to the mates they select as young adults. The Amish church depends on the biological reproduction of its members rather than on acquiring new members through proselytization. There is thus a strong commitment to marrying within the church, although females tend to move outside the district since males usually inherit the family farm. Despite the fact that mate choice is limited to other church members, the young people do not necessarily choose to marry close relatives. The high inbreeding of the Amish population results not from marriages between first cousins but from the inter-marriages that have occurred over generations within a genetically isolated group.

Baptism into the church is preliminary to marriage. Courtship tends to be a private matter prior to the wedding announcement by the minister. A wedding, on the other hand, is a public affair celebrated in anticipation of certain benefits that will accrue to the entire community. Members of the congregation see the marriage as an end to a sometimes spirited adolescence and expect to have the couple's home as a new place for the Sunday service; they also look forward to more children who will be raised in the Amish way. Guests give household gifts; parents may provide livestock, furniture, and equipment to help the young people get started.

Where a newlywed couple resides depends on the opportunity to continue farming in the traditional manner. This may mean working in a factory until enough savings have been accumulated to invest in a farm of their own. If the couple remains on the family farm, their parents may, at retirement, move to a separate house on the property and eventually leave the management of the farm to the younger couple. No provision is made for divorce, nor is separation a part of Amish expectations for conformity to church-based rules of behavior.

As previously mentioned, each family member contributes to the working of the family farm. Although married couples share in the responsibilities of child rearing and of running the household and farm, the prevailing authority rests with the husband.

Land tends to be kept within families and is usually passed on to sons rather than to daughters and to younger rather than to older sons.

Individuals are prepared for all stages of life, including aging, under Amish patterns of socialization. The primary goals of child rearing are the acquisition of practical skills, the instilling of responsibility to the Amish community, and an emphasis on respect for hard work. Young people may be hired out to relatives or other church members after they are trained on the family farm and in the household. Parents often allow adolescents to explore the outside world and test the boundaries of Amish identity. Family and community may therefore overlook the ownership of radios, cameras, even automobiles, by young people as well as their going to the movies and wearing non-Amish clothes. Such deviations are ignored in order that the young may freely decide on marriage and membership within the church community. About one-quarter leave the church, but most join more progressive Amish or Mennonite churches.

Amish communities are not entirely self-sufficient. Support for state and local government may be given through voting and paying taxes, but church rules prohibit them from participating in politics as officeholders. They also comply with church rules forbidding military service and government assistance in the form of insurance or subsidies.

Resistance to compulsory school attendance beyond the eighth grade is perhaps the most controversial issue that has brought the Amish into direct confrontation with state and local authorities recently. Amish in certain communities were subjected to fines and imprisonment because they rejected secondary school education for their children. Finally, the dilemma was resolved in the 1972 Supreme Court decision Wisconsin v. Yoder et al., which found that laws that required Amish children to attend school beyond the elementary level were a violation of their religious convictions. Conflicts between Amish and mainstream American goals in education were not an issue when one-room schoolhouses were the norm in a primarily rural United States. Today, the change to consolidated schools and to a de-emphasis on basic skills has prompted the Amish to establish their own schools. According to Hostetler there are more than seven hundred one- and two-room schools that uphold Amish traditions and lifestyles.

Old Order Amish churches are not organized around a central authority. Rather, the church districts serve as the governing units for each congregation. Men who hold the offices of deacon (Armen Diener), preacher (Diener zum Buch), and bishop (Volle Diener) are chosen by lot from among the members of the congregation themselves. The three ministers have charge of various aspects of church activities. The bishop performs baptisms and marriages; the preacher assists in the communion service and delivers the bimonthly sermon when asked; the deacon is responsible for distributing funds to the needy. Bishops meet informally to discuss matters pertaining to their congregations, and visiting by congregants also helps maintain bonds between church districts.

When a member breaks a moral or church code, the minister presents the question of discipline to the congregation. It is the church community that has the final decision. Shunning (Meidung), an extreme censure placed on violators, requires that no church member engage in social dealings with the individual until the ban is lifted.

The Amish conceive of their church-community (Gemeinde) as being composed of those who are truly repentant and duly baptized. Members are joined communally in an effort to become righteous Christians and reject worldly values. Amish moral imperatives also account for their desire to be close to the soil and to nature.

The communion service to celebrate the Lord's Supper is held twice a year in the fall and spring. Preparations for communion include prayer, meditation, and fasting. As part of the service, the ceremonial foot washing, introduced by Ammann in the seventeenth century, takes place as a sign of fellowship.

Women combine quilt making and visiting as an acceptable means of artistic expression. Other forms of artistic endeavor, like photography, are forbidden. Whitewashed houses with decorative paint trim and brightly colored flowers are also evidence of artistry among the Amish.

The Amish have access to a variety of practitioners, including folk healers as well as modern physicians and surgeons. They also consider the reputation of practitioners and, taking for granted the competency of providers, they select ones whom they feel they can trust.

Death is a solemn occasion, but is accepted as a matter of course. The dead are usually buried on the third day after death. Respect for someone who has died is often shown in a large funeral attendance. Funeral establishments may be asked to prepare the body, but afterward, church members dress the body at home in special garments. Preparation of the grave, notification of the ministers, and selection of pallbearers are duties that are divided between more or less distant relatives, friends, and neighbors of the deceased. Amish bereaved are comforted by their belief in heaven and life after death. Although the Amish want to be ready for Judgment Day, they are not especially preoccupied with the nature of an afterlife.

Gallagher, Thomas E., Jr. (1982). Clinging to the Past or Preparing for the Future? The Structure of Selective Modernization among Old Order Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International.

Hostetler, John A. (1980). Amish Society. 3rd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Hostetler, John A. (1980) "Amish." In Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, edited by Stephen Thernstrom, 122-125. Boston: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press.

Keim, Albert N., ed. (1975). Compulsory Education and the Amish: The Right Not to Be Modern. Boston: Beacon Press.

Kraybill, Donald B. (1989). The Riddle of Amish Culture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

McKusick, Victor A. (1978). Medical Genetic Studies of the Amish. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

This culture summary is based on the article "Amish" by John A. Hostetler in the Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 1, North America. 1991. Timothy O'Leary and David Levinson, eds. Boston, Mass.: G. K. Hall &Co.