Amish
Will the Amish Support Conservative Politicians?
Republican leaders in Pennsylvania are hoping that the Amish of Lancaster County will strongly support Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election this coming November. An interesting news story last week in PennLive.com, an online companion to The Patriot-News from Harrisburg, reviewed the history of conservative voting by the Amish—when they decide to vote, that […]
Continuity and Change among the Amish
Many of the world’s foremost authorities on Anabaptist studies will gather at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania next month for this year’s conference on the Amish. According to a news report in LancasterOnline, over 60 speakers will attend the conference, titled “Continuity and Change: 50 Years of Amish Society.” Prominent speakers will include Steven Nolt, a […]
Hate (the Amish) Crimes
Early Sunday morning last week, a black pickup truck paused in front of an Amish farmhouse in central Ohio and an occupant fired a single shot through the dwelling from a high-powered firearm. The vehicle drove another quarter mile, paused in front of another Amish home and the occupant fired again, another single shot, through […]
Amish Rebuild with Alacrity
The media often report how the Amish form work groups after disasters strike in order to repair and reconstruct buildings that have burned down or blown away. The Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, exceeded even their own high standards over the past two weeks by rapidly rebuilding structures destroyed by a tornado. On Wednesday evening, […]
Encouraging Amish to Move to West Virginia
The Amish are hassled by American communities about the manure their horses drop, the outhouses they erect, the building codes they sometimes ignore, and the slow moving vehicle warning triangles some of them refuse to use. One Amish store in Pennsylvania was condemned because it did not sell American flags, much like hundreds of other […]
A Successful Amish Enterprise
Daniel Yoder, a 56-year old Amish man from Holmes County, Ohio, has built a thriving furniture business through his attention to quality manufacturing and good customer relationships.
The Amish Project Performed Once Again
How could the Amish immediately forgive a man who had just gunned down ten of their girls in a local schoolroom, murdering five and then killing himself? Within hours after the shooting spree, the parents and relatives of the victims expressed their compassion for the killer and his family. Their attitude of forgiveness stunned millions […]
The Study of Amish Women
Karen Johnson-Weiner, a prominent scholar from New York State, is studying the lives of Amish women during a semester-long fellowship at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. Professor Johnson-Weiner is currently a Snowden Fellow in the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at the college campus in Lancaster County. According to an article in LancasterOnline, she has […]
Positive Attitudes about the Amish in Wisconsin
Over 1,300 residents of Eau Claire County, Wisconsin, signed an appeal supporting local Amish objections to building code regulations, which they say violate their religious beliefs. The controversy over the rights of the Amish to observe their religion as they wish made headlines in western Wisconsin last week when the issue was raised at the weekly […]
Spoken Pennsylvania German Focuses Amish on Humility [journal article review]
One of the features of Amish society that fascinates outsiders is their use of a dialect referred to as “Pennsylvania German,” which is also frequently called “Pennsylvania Dutch.” A recent journal article by Steven Hartman Keiser, a faculty member in the Department of English at Marquette University in Wisconsin, describes the background and development of […]
