An Amish Paradox
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69. Although hunting tends to be a hobby pursued by teenage boys and men, it is not uncommon for preteens, including girls, to harvest deer. One father we interviewed described his nine-year-old daughter’s first buck, one of six deer his children killed that year. “It was more meat than we could eat,” he confessed.
70. This thirty-six-point whitetail deer turned out to be the fourth-largest in the world taken by a crossbow, in terms of antler inches. The term Lucky came from a special food source the deer had been eating, which had been planted to maximize the deer’s antler growth (Chris Kick, “Several Thousand Attend First Sportman’s Show in Charm,” Wooster (Ohio) Daily Record, February 4, 2007, www.the-daily-record.com [accessed April 20, 2009]).
71. Stevick, Growing Up Amish, 113.
72. Basketball is another competitive sport that is popular among young males. On April 13–14, 2007, Hiland High School hosted what was billed as the “first Annual Ohio Amish Basketball Tournament.” The teams were mainly from the Holmes County Settlement, and the tournament was publicized by word of mouth; T-shirts were sold at the event.
73. Sarah Skylark Bruce, “Amish Cream English,” Wooster (Ohio) Daily Record, July 26, 2007.
74. “Stores Sell Clothes for Amish Who Don’t Make Their Own,” Wooster (Ohio) Daily Record, October 15, 2006, D2.
75. At least one Indiana politician has backed Amish attempts to gain an exemption from the Department of Homeland Security policy of requiring photo identification when Amish who are American citizens cross the border to visit family members in Canada. See Sylvia A. Smith, “Souder Backs Amish on IDs,” Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080417/NEWS03/8041703 (accessed June 5, 2008).
76. Stevick Growing Up Amish, 122. For a history of Pinecraft, see Gingerich, The History of Pinecraft. For a description of Pinecraft in the popular press, see Christopher Evans, “A Piece of Paradise,” Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine, March 14, 2004, 11–18.
77. In their classic article, Schneider and Homans describe the American kinship system as “pushed to the wall” by other institutions and very small in its overall effects on social life (“Kinship Terminology,” 1194).
Chapter 5. The Changing Landscape of Learning
1. In The Yoder Case, Peters provides a complete account of the meaning and legacy of this legal decision.
2. Quoted in Keim, Compulsory Education and the Amish, 159.
3. Meyers, “Education and Schooling,” 101.
4. As of 2004–5, schools administered by the Amish numbered approximately 1,345 and served nearly forty thousand students in twenty-four states (Blackboard Bulletin, 2005).
5. Ohio Amish Directory, xviii–xxi.
6. Amish education committees in most states have drawn up guidelines for the operation of their schools. In Ohio, the guidelines are set forth in a small green, undated pamphlet, which addresses such issues as curriculum, attendance, discipline, ownership of schools, teachers, and administration (Bishops, committeemen, and others, Minimum Standards for the Amish Parochial or Private Elementary Schools of the State of Ohio as a Form of Regulations, Henry J. Hershberger, Chair of Committee, Apple Creek, OH).
7. Dewalt, Amish Education, 156.
8. See Hostetler and Huntington, Amish Children; Huntington, “Persistence and Change”; Harroff, Amish Schools of Indiana; Dewalt, Amish Education; Johnson-Weiner, Train Up a Child.
9. Johnson-Weiner, Train Up a Child, 124.
10. One way in which the emphasis on practical applications was manifested was in the case of a teacher who dismissed her students at the end of the day by naming specific chores (swept barn, washed dishes, wiped buckets, fed chickens, etc.) and asking who had done them. The students who said they had were then allowed to leave for home. Students are also assigned to do various classroom chores, such as sweeping, bringing water, monitoring the library, and so forth.
11. Olshan and Schmidt, “Amish Women and the Feminist Conundrum,” 229.
12. We did encounter a few teachers who had turned teaching into a career—a middle-aged male teacher who worked in a carpentry shop in the summer to supplement his income and an older widow who was a first-grade teacher in a school attended mostly by New Order Amish.
13. Several teachers acknowledged, however, that they had to monitor their students to make sure that children from one affiliation did not “mock” the dress or hairstyles of another. Overall, though, most felt that the arrangement served a positive purpose.
14. Johnson-Weiner, Train Up a Child, 105.
15. Johnson-Weiner (ibid., 26–30) discusses in some detail the fascinating conflict that resulted in two neighboring schools.
16. Dewalt’s Amish Education gives a detailed description of the variation among schools in each of the states served by Amish parochial schools.
17. Olshan (“Homespun Bureaucracy,” 199–213) describes Amish bureaucratic forms as “embryonic” when viewed against the characteristics of bureaucracy outlined by Weber.
18. Johnson-Weiner, Train Up a Child, 226. For a discussion of how the two major producers of Amish school texts—the Gordonville Print Shop and the Pathway Publishing Corporation—reflect different notions of what it means to be Amish, see Johnson-Weiner, “Publish or Perish.”
19. Huntington, “Persistence and Change,” 78.
20. Olshan, “Modernity, Folk Society, Old Order Amish,” 193.
21. Meyers, “Education and Schooling,” 102.
22. Buchanan (“The Old Paths”) notes that this concern was present among the Holmes County Amish from the very start of the parochial school movement.
23. Johnson-Weiner, Train Up a Child, 128.
24. Keim, “Chronology of Amish Court Cases,” 97.
25. This Amish elder pointed out that one result of that conflict was folk wisdom to the following effect: “If you do something stupid, do it in Holmes, not Wayne [County].”
26. Until recently, public schools could count on being chosen by Amish families who had children with special needs. But this “monopoly” is declining as more and more parochial schools have initiated services for special-needs children. According to a school psychologist who serves a district in Wayne County, parochial school teachers and parents have formed close relationships with public school counselors and local psychologists so that they could add special services to the parochial schools.
27. For her efforts, Mast was chosen as one of six “National Outstanding Principals” in 2006 by the National Association of Elementary School Principals.
28. At times, however, the divergence of Amish and English priorities creates tension in the community. For example, according to one longtime resident of Holmes County, “Hiland High School tried to raise funds for a gym but the Amish voted it down because the levy was for high school.” Considerable frustration in the community resulted, but in the end the funds were raised privately.
29. Meyers, “The Old Order Amish,” 392.
30. Since New Order families were overrepresented in our survey, this figure is probably higher than the average in the settlement. A member of the Amish Advisory Committee, which oversees parochial schools in the settlement, estimated that forty to fifty families were engaged in homeschooling in the settlement.
31. See, for example, Sennett and Cobb, The Hidden Injuries of Class; and Collins, Black Feminist Thought.
32. Kraybill (“Amish Informants,” 171) describes the complex motivations leading such individuals to speak out despite Amish prohibitions against pride: they enjoy being considered expert sources of Amish wisdom; they fear that journalists and other outsiders will misinterpret Amish culture if they do not speak out; and they themselves lead more progressive lifestyles (“one toe inside the Amish community and two feet out”) than most members of their communities.
33. Lamont, in her study of French and American workers (The Dignity of Working Men), found that working-class manual workers used moral criteria (being hardworking, responsible, havin
g integrity, etc.) to separate themselves from others, criteria that provided them with a sense of personal worthiness.
34. Lave, Cognition in Practice, 14.
35. Classes aimed at the Amish population are part of a larger outreach effort by the Holmes County Educational Foundation, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to helping Holmes County residents pursue further education opportunities.
36. Claudia Zimmerman, interview by David McConnell, January 11, 2005.
37. Johnson-Weiner, Train Up a Child, 120–21.
38. Dewalt, Amish Education, 135.
39. The festival, celebrating its thirty-second anniversary in 2008, raises about one hundred thousand dollars annually. See Paul Locher, “Serious Shopping, Serious Shoppers: Holmes Training Center Festival Draws Large Crowd,” Wooster (Ohio) Daily Record, May 13, 2007, B1–2.
40. Dewalt and Troxell’s case study of an Old Order Mennonite school in Pennsylvania found that successful resistance to mainstream schooling was largely due to “economic self-sufficiency, residential independence, and complete control of their own schools” (“Mennonite One-Room School,” 308).
41. This is precisely the argument Cowles makes in his recent study of an Old Order Mennonite community: that achieving “transformative community” through control of one’s own schools represents a “third way” in minority education. Cowles further notes that George Spindler pointed out in 1997 that the Amish “have done exactly what is logical according to the anthropologist viewing the relationship between education and culture” (“Charting a Third Way,” 391.
42. Keim, Compulsory Education and the Amish.
43. Johnson-Weiner, Train Up a Child, 128.
44. Stambach, “The Silence Is Getting Louder.” Andy Weaver churches, by contrast, do prohibit public school attendance and homeschooling. It is also extremely rare for the Swartzentruber Amish to engage in these alternatives to parochial schooling.
Chapter 6. Work Within and Outside Tradition
Epigraph: Lisa Abraham, “Keeping It Natural,” Akron Beacon Journal, May 28, 2008, D2.
1. See, for example, Lowery and Noble, “Changing Occupational Structure”; Donnermeyer and Cooksey, “Demographic Foundations”; Kraybill and Nolt, Amish Enterprise; Donnermeyer and Cooksey, “On the Recent Expansion.”
2. Holmes County contains a majority of the settlement’s population, is the economic hub of the settlement, and is the major site for tourists in “Amish country.” Consequently, we have chosen to focus on this county because in many ways it is the heart of the settlement.
3. Bender, “Animal Production.”
4. U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2002 Census of Agriculture (Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2003), vol. 1, chap. 2, table 2.
5. Donnermeyer and Cooksey, “Demographic Foundations.”
6. Kraybill and Nolt, Amish Enterprise; Meyers and Nolt, An Amish Patchwork.
7. This report comes from a conversation with a local real estate businessman who has worked with the Amish in the Holmes County Settlement for several decades.
8. Office of Strategic Research, Ohio County Indicators (Columbus, OH: Ohio Department of Development, June 2007), 52.
9. See Chris Leonard and Bobby Warren, “Marketing Destinations,” Wooster (Ohio) Daily Record, February 28, 2008, E12.
10. The demographic data are drawn from Office of Strategic Research, Ohio County Profiles: Holmes County (Columbus: Ohio Department of Development, 2004); Office of Strategic Research Ohio County Indicators (Columbus: Ohio Department of Development, June 2007); U.S. Census (2007), USA Counties, General Profile: Holmes, Ohio, http://censtats.census.gov/cgi-bin/usac/usatable.pl?State=&County=3907 (accessed May 3, 2009).
11. U.S. Census Bureau, “2005 Industry Code Summary, ZipCode Business Patterns,” http://censtats.census.gov/cbpnaic/cbpnaic.shtml; click on the “Censtats Databases” site, then in the “Zip Code Business Patterns” enter the appropriate zip codes (44610 and 44687) (accessed July 6, 2009).
12. The statistic is from “Marketing Destinations,” Wooster (Ohio) Daily Record, February 28, 2008, E12.
13. Shasta Mast, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, Holmes County, Ohio, interview by Charles Hurst, October 26, 2006.
14. Vendor, June 14, 2006, 19. The Vendor is an advertising pamphlet published every two weeks by Green Valley Printing, Brinkhaven, Ohio, for the Amish community.
15. The dependency rank is based on the percentage of a county’s total personal income that comes from transfer payments. Office of Strategic Research, Ohio County Indicators, June 2007.
16. Measuring a family’s economic standing can be very tricky, and statements about it must be interpreted carefully. First, in contrast to many eligible English families, whose incomes are increased by money from social security or welfare, Amish families do not receive money from these sources, a factor that depresses their incomes. Second, money income does not include the value of homegrown food, which is a partial substitute for income. Third, when families state household income in a survey, it is not always clear whether they are reporting gross or net income. Fourth, studies by the Internal Revenue Service suggest that wealthy individuals and those who receive government benefits sometimes underreport their incomes. Fifth, and perhaps most important for assessing Amish economic standing, income is a very narrow measure of a family’s “class” or economic position. A significant proportion of Amish economic resources lies in the value of their land and their businesses, assets that are not captured by the income measure. A family may have meager income but possess nonmoney assets that strengthen their “class” position.
17. See John Horton, “Counties Caught in Conundrum: Getting the Amish to Take Food Stamps,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 18, 2006; and Susan Green, “Graduate Researcher Links Amish Demographics, Food Stamp Participation,” available at Ohio University’s Web site, www.ohio.edu/outlook/05-06/September/3f-056.cfm.
18. Kraybill and Nolt, Amish Enterprise.
19. Bumgardner, Romig, and Luppold, “Wood Use.”
20. Ibid., 7.
21. Kreps et al, “The Impact of Tourism.”
22. Paula Schleis, “Dreams Given Form in Wood,” Akron Beacon Journal, September 30, 2007, D3.
23. Kraybill and Nolt, Amish Enterprise.
24. This information about Amish reluctance to advertise was learned in a conversation with two of the employees of Graphic Publications in Berlin, Ohio.
25. Max Weber, in The Protestant Ethic, discusses the distinction between “rational” and “traditional” approaches to work and profit within capitalism. A businessman with a rational perspective is more aggressive, seeks out markets and customers, and strives to grow, while a tradition-oriented businessman waits for customers to come to him and is interested only in making enough money to maintain his current lifestyle.
26. Kline and Beachy, “History and Dynamics,” 17.
27. Max Weber discusses how various branches of Protestant religion perceive work and its proper nature. Weber argues that the more ascetic sects associated with or closest to Calvinism viewed work as a calling from God in which the individual is expected to adopt work as an internalized ethic aimed at serving God and the community (The Protestant Ethic).
28. Gemeinde Register, October 20, 2002, 1. The Gemeinde Register is a biweekly paper for the Ohio Amish community and is published in Baltic, Ohio. It contains church service information, notices about meetings and showers, and classified ads.
29. Quoted in Joe Milica, “Rapid Growth Brings Change to Amish Community,” available online at www.oacountry.com/Changing-Amish.html (accessed January 28, 2008).
30. Rosabeth Kanter pioneered research that focused on the effects of being in a minority on boundary creation and performance expectations in organizations. Higher-than-average expectations to perform, increased awareness of and accentuation of cultural and social boundaries between groups, and expectations to fulfill stereotypical roles are
some of those consequences. See Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1977).
31. This estimate was given by a Swartzentruber bishop.
32. This information comes from Byler, “The Geography of Difference.”
33. Kanter, Men and Women; see also Robert Jackall, Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).
34. Kraybill and Nolt, Amish Enterprise.
35. Lowery and Noble, “Changing Occupational Structure.”
36. Ibid.; Donnermeyer and Cooksey, “Demographic Foundations.”
37. Any conclusions about the precise occupational distribution among the Swartzentruber Amish would be largely speculative. Throughout the book, we are using a Swartzentruber bishop’s estimate that about 70 percent of Swartzentruber Amish are in family farming. Since Swartzentrubers are not listed in the Ohio Amish Directory, there is not as much known about this group as about other Amish orders. As one Swartzentruber bishop commented, “We don’t want to put [ourselves] out to the world by putting names in the Directory.” A New Order respondent said he thought that the Swartzentrubers also objected to the use of numbers, which is interpreted as a sign of arrogance and pride.
38. John Horton, “Holmes County Breeders, Activists Battle over Kennels,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 13, 2006, A1.
39. Ibid.
40. Holly Zachariah, “Amish Accused of Running Dog Mills,” Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, April 22, 2007, C1-C2.
41. Anderson, Frosch, and Outlaw, “Economic Impact.”
42. Ibid., 7.
43. This conclusion is based on estimates drawn from membership data of the North American Deer Farmers Association and the Whitetail Deer Farmers of Ohio.