Who Are the Amish?

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:41

This week we journey into a world of horse drawn buggies, plain dress and profound faith. But beyond the stereotypes lies a rich and evolving story of migration, community and quiet resistance to modernity.

So in this episode, I want to explore the history, the culture and the customs of this often misunderstood community as I ask, who are the Amish? Welcome to America, a history podcast.

I'm Niamh Heffernan and every week we answer a different question to understand the people, the places and the events that make the USA what it is today.

To discuss this, I am joined by a professor of history and Anabaptist studies and director of the Young Centre for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. There's a lot of S's in that.

He's also authored or co authored no less than 16 books on Amish, Mennonite and Pennsylvania German history and contemporary life, including the a concise introduction which we'll link to in the show Notes for anyone that's interested, a big welcome to the podcast. Stephen Knolt.

Steven Nolt: 00:02:06

Thank you. Delightful to be with you.

Liam Heffernan: 00:02:08

Yeah, I'm really glad that you're able to join me for this.

We're rapidly approaching the 100 episode mark of this show and we've not once talked about the Amish, so it was definitely on the bucket list of stuff to cover.

So I guess to kick us off, what would be really interesting to understand are the origins of the Amish and I guess that story up to when they migrated to America.

Steven Nolt: 00:02:32

Sure. So the Amish, as you indicate, are a religious group. They are a Christian denomination.

They have many of the attributes of an ethnic group, but they understand themselves primarily as a religious group at church.

And they would trace their origins to the time of the Protestant reformation, so roughly 500 years ago, and within that to the what we call the Anabaptist movement, which was a movement in the 16th century that advocated adult baptism rather than infant baptism. So for listeners familiar or unfamiliar with that concept, baptism is the rite of initiation into the Christian church.

And for a very long time in Western Europe, everyone with a few carve outs for Jews and some other dissenters, everyone was automatically, as it were, incorporated into the church through baptism at birth.

The Anabaptists were dissenters who said, no, you should only be part of the church if you choose to be a part of it, if this is a decision you make for yourself. So that's sort of what was particularly defining about the Anabaptists. They were also pacifists.

They had a view of the church that Was not very hierarchical or bureaucratic, but was very much oriented around local communities, not large structures. They had lay leadership, not leaders who were, say, trained in universities or seminaries. So that's the origin, basically, about 500 years ago.

What happens then in the next, say, 150, 200 years, is that precisely because the Anabaptists don't have any backing of the state or connections with universities and so on. It's very much a grassroots movement. They don't have any one single leader like a Martin Luther or a John Calvin.

They certainly don't have the structure that emerges with the Anglican Church.

And so Anabaptist groups emerge in different parts of Western Europe, mostly in the Rhine river, vast Switzerland, through the Netherlands, and they develop in somewhat different ways.

those groups that emerges in: 1693

n a generation or Two, by the: 1730

Liam Heffernan: 00:05:08

I find really interesting about what you just said is that Anabaptists were kind of born from a sort of slight resistance to this idea that you were born into the church. And yet my understanding of Amish now is that you are very much born into it.

And actually, there is an expectation that you will align with that community and that value system, which kind of feels like it's leaning into precisely the thing that it initially was pushing against.

Steven Nolt: 00:05:44

Yeah, I think you touch on something there that is maybe a bit of a paradox in which the Amish community today, as I mentioned, has many of the attributes of an ethnic group in which you can view it as being born into the Amish tradition. And certainly people are.

On the other hand, 80 to 85% of Amish children join the Amish church through baptism, which is quite a remarkably high rate of adherence for any religious group today in the United States. Nonetheless, there are 15 to 20% of children who don't.

So there are also, say, in a community here where I am in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in southeast Pennsylvania, which is the largest Amish settlement in the United States. There are several thousand people who grew up Amish who are not Amish as adults. So it's not as though there's a one.

You know, everyone's kind of railroaded into this. But the high retention rate does suggest a kind of socialization into a community that does perpetuate itself one generation after another.

Liam Heffernan: 00:07:04

And I guess, going back to Jakob Amman, what was it about his particular brand, I guess, of Anabaptism that. That attracted other people?

Steven Nolt: 00:07:17

Yeah. So unfortunately, as historians, we don't know enough about Yaakov Amen. I mean, not as much as we would like to.

tters around the time period,: 1693

converts to Anabaptism about: 1680

They were still religious dissenters. They were outsiders. They were legally discriminated against. They faced a whole series of legal discriminations.

t the same time, by the later: 1600

And so there are sources that come from the official Swiss Reformed Church going out to local Swiss Reformed pastors, saying, look, you need to really emphasize that the Anabaptists are wrong, because we're getting word that sort of the common people in the countryside think that the Anabaptists maybe have something to teach the rest of us. So they're in this situation where they are sort of officially on the margins, but are increasingly being accepted.

And it's in that context that people are joining the Swiss Anabaptists, including Ammon and other members of his family. And with the, I suppose you'd say, proverbial zeal of a convert. Amen engages in a.

It appears that he leads a kind of internal renewal movement within the Swiss Anabaptist community, saying, don't be.

Let's not be lulled into thinking that we can make peace with the world, as it were, just because we're getting sort of positive press, we might say, from our neighbors. We need to renew this Anabaptist tradition.

And so Amen draws on some Dutch Anabaptist sources, some confessions of faith, and other doctrinal statements from Dutch Anabaptists to the north who had practiced a somewhat more rigorous approach of church discipline. Amen also advocated celebrating communion or the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist, different names and different traditions more frequently.

So there were a number of factors that. That were part of his religious renewal program.

We imagine that the fact that he was a convert to Anabaptism also Gave him a certain perhaps charismatic appeal. That is, he sort of personified elements of the tradition that were appealing to outsiders.

to compromise too much. So in: 1693

bit of the break so called in: 1693

But it's not as though all of these early so called Amish all lived together in one place. Some were in Switzerland, some were in Alsace, some were in what's now the Palatinate. So they're kind of dispersed group.

And so they certainly advocate church discipline in a particular way, but we don't know exactly how that was practiced. And the Amish, from their origin, they were not living in a tightly bounded geographic community. They were rather dispersed.

And we see that even in the first generations here in North America as well. They are somewhat geographically scattered at first.

Liam Heffernan: 00:11:28

The way that you described Jacob Aman as this sort of charismatic figure that borrowed these traditional values that appealed to people whilst kind of wrapping it in something that felt a little bit new and fresh. There's a lot of parallels there to how someone might describe the origins of a cult. And I just, I'm always very fascinated at how both are separate.

Religious denomination and a cult can start in such similar ways and yet go down completely different paths. So what was the difference there?

Steven Nolt: 00:12:03

Well, we could probably take some time, I guess, unpacking what is today the sociological definition of a cult, which actually is not my expertise and maybe we don't have time for.

But I would say one of the things to keep in mind is that Aman's approach to church discipline, what would have been distinctive about it at the time was not that Amen was advocating a rigorous church discipline because at the time really all Protestant and Catholic groups were doing so. I mean, the Swiss Reformed Church would have had a system of rigorous church discipline.

What was different for Amman was that this rigorous church discipline was not physically coercive. Right.

So that was what was distinctive about not that there was church discipline, but that unlike the church discipline that otherwise prevailed, which said, you know, if you don't do X, Y or Z, put you in jail, we confiscate your property, you could be flogged, and so on and so forth, Ammon's approach was to say, well, if you're not, you know, we have this commitment as a church to do these things.

And if you, you know, if you make that commitment and then you sort of go back on your word, as it were, the rest of the church will regard you in a very serious way, but will regard you as not a church member. And so there will be certain kind of social consequences. We won't engage in business contracts with you. We won't share a fellowship meal with you.

You won't be able to participate in communion and so on, but you're not going to be flogged, you're not going to be in prison. We're not going to confiscate your property.

Liam Heffernan: 00:13:44

So.

Steven Nolt: 00:13:45

So what was distinctive was not that they had kind of tight bonds of discipline, but that it was construed in physically nonviolent ways.

Liam Heffernan: 00:13:56

When did the Amish. Well, I guess sort of offshoot question. When did they first define themselves as Amish? But then when did they first make their way to America?

Steven Nolt: 00:14:05

Yeah. So when and how do the Amish define themselves as Amish is, again, interesting, a question that it's a little hard to pinpoint. Exactly.

o we usually use this date of: 1693

And we know from some outsider sources, that is, sources from officials in that area, that they identify various groups, Anabaptists, and they refer to one of the groups as being associated with Yaakov. Amen.

And they say things like, they are known to dress in particularly coarse clothing, meaning not refined, fine fabric, that the men have longer beards. These would have been things that were not wholly out of the picture, but would have signaled that.

That these are people who are not aiming to be placing themselves higher on the social ladder than would have been common at the time.

And, of course, in Switzerland and in parts of the Rhine valley, there were still what we call sumptuary laws on the books that actually regulated how anyone could dress. Now, these had sort of fallen out of favor in England in the 14th century already.

But in the Rhine valley, there were still these persistent sumptuary laws. And so you were supposed to dress in ways that comported with your station in life.

expelled from royal Alsace in: 1712

We don't know where or when he died exactly. Some members of his group end up moving into other parts of what's now eastern France, like Montbillard.

. And then very quickly after: 1712

ally is happening. But by the: 1730

n firmer ground if we say the: 1730

tion colonies that started in: 1681

t then certainly in the early: 1700

They are initially referred to often in the English documents as some version of the Amish, Mennonites. In other words, they are seen as sort of an Anabaptist variation.

The term Mennonite is a Dutch Anabaptist term, but it would have been the term across the English Channel that was most known in England. And so the Anabaptists who arrived are labeled as Mennonites, even if they're not coming from the Netherlands.

But that's just the term that English folks know. And then the Amish are recognized as a group that is some variation of that and are so known as Amish Mennonites.

They first settle in what's now Berks county, which for your listeners maybe doesn't mean much, but this is sort of northwest of Philadelphia.

northwest. And so by the late: 1700

end up here by, let's say the: 1790

tly in the US Midwest between: 1817

Liam Heffernan: 00:19:13

So how did Amish populations fluctuate, particularly in those early years?

Steven Nolt: 00:19:18

se very early families in the: 1730

Some of that is because there seems to be in colonial Pennsylvania a certain amount of fluidity between the Amish and the Mennonites, between these different Anabaptist groups. There are Amish young people who join radical pietist group known as the Brethren.

There's some kind of back and forth between again what become Amish and what become Mennonites.

nity, if we jump ahead to the: 1840

So the growth is pretty slow early on, mostly because there are people coming and going and it would seem to be mostly going.

Liam Heffernan: 00:20:29

I guess that's a question that still applies today actually is how do the Amish recruit? Which is maybe not the right word because you hear a lot about people leaving Amish communities and joining normal life.

I put in air quotes, but you don't hear an awful lot about people choosing to join the Amish community.

Steven Nolt: 00:20:51

Yeah.

So if we're talking today 21st century and you're asking about individuals joining the Amish for from a non Amish background, like someone like you or me, could we join the Amish church? The answer is yes, we could join hypothetically. And in fact there are a few such cases, but not very many.

You know, in the course of the 20th century there are probably fewer than 100 people. And I don't think we even have a master list.

But we were trying to at one point we several researcher here at the Young center who's sadly passed away. But he was trying to compile a list in the 20th century of individuals who joined Amish communities. He got up to about 50 people.

He was not, you know, he knew that wasn't exhaustive. But that was through the course of the 20th century. So there aren't that many people who ever joined the Amish from non Amish backgrounds.

But there would have been, again, not lots more joining, but proportionally, I guess you could say more joining in the 19th century when some of the linguistic differences and other cultural differences may not have been as great.

So you do have a number of German immigrants who join Amish communities in the 19th century, and the overall Amish population is much smaller at that time. So again, not lots of people joining, but proportionally, I suppose, somewhat more common in the 19th century.

Liam Heffernan: 00:22:19

Yeah.

Do you think as well, because the Amish are slightly more self sufficient, you know, they're not particularly, you know, well integrated into, you know, the wider society that there are like language barriers? Because having come over from Europe, I imagine many Amish people spoke and maybe do still speak Dutch, German and other European languages.

Steven Nolt: 00:22:46

Yeah. So language would be one of the important markers today.

All Amish people today are bilingual in a version of German that's known as Pennsylvania Dutch or Pennsylvania German, as well as English.

So Pennsylvania Dutch, again, also known as Pennsylvania German, is a German language, let's say Some people call it a dialect, but linguists debate that. Anyway, I'll just call it a language. It's a German language that actually formed or coalesced in Pennsylvania.

That's why even if you're, say, living in the Midwestern state of Iowa, the Amish are still said to speak Pennsylvania Dutch, not Iowa Dutch.

Pennsylvania Dutch was a language that coalesced here in the 18th century from the sort of wide array of Rhine Valley German immigrants who come to Pennsylvania.

that are brought here in the: 1700

And it's spoken at that time by all sorts of people from a religious perspective. Most speakers of this new German Pennsylvania Dutch language are religiously Lutheran or Reformed or Catholic.

Only a small number are Mennonites or Amish.

What happens is in the 20th century, with sort of the anti German sentiment in this country, particularly around World War I and then again World War II, most everyone else stopped speaking Pennsylvania Dutch.

And so today Amish and some conservative Mennonites are, you know, this language is associated with them, but historically it was much broader, broader than they were. So today Pennsylvania Dutch would be one of the ethnic markers, I guess. You'd say of the Amish.

Nevertheless, all Amish people are also bilingual and certainly fluent in English and actually have been. I mean, were also in the 19th century as well. That's not a new development.

And something else that we might touch on later is the Amish school system, the Amish education system. Amish schooling is conducted entirely in English. The Pennsylvania German language is alive and well among the Amish.

It's everyone's first language verbally, but in terms of reading and writing, as well as speaking. But. But in terms of reading, writing, and speaking English is. Is. Is also common.

Liam Heffernan: 00:25:26

Yeah. Well, I mean, let's.

,: 1700

Steven Nolt: 00:25:49

So the Amish would describe themselves again, first and foremost, as a Christian church.

And so they would list their beliefs in ways that in some ways would strike many Christians as very similar beliefs in the Trinity and rituals of baptism and communion and so on and so forth, heaven and hell and so on. But some of the things that then are particularly distinctive about the Amish would be their emphasis on.

They would say, applying their beliefs or their faith in everyday life. So Amish beliefs or theology, we might say, is very practical. It's less abstract. It involves imitating Jesus, they would say.

And as they understand that that means a life of humility, that means a life of not attracting attention to oneself, being a servant, letting others go first. So emphasis on submission. So the. The German term there is Gelassenheit, although in Pennsylvania Dutch, it's more. The term is ofgeber to give over.

So again, using the image of Jesus, who they believe is divine, but gives up that role to come to earth and become a mere mortal, and then to actually give his life over to be killed. This idea of submission, submission to God is very important and so not drawing attention to oneself.

So humility, submission, those are some of the things that are then particularly distinctive about Amish life. And it plays out in ways, say, around technology. So the Amish are known today, if they're known for anything, for their.

What appears to be resistance to the use of modern technology. From the Amish perspective, they don't set out to resist technology. Technology is not the problem. Technology is not evil.

Technology is not not bad in itself. Where this comes from, from. From their perspective is that technology accentuates individual autonomy. Technology has. Many technologies have a way of.

Of accentuating or. Or advancing individual, individual pursuits, individual choices, individual autonomy. And if.

If your emphasis, if your understanding of spirituality is one that emphasizes. Emphasizes submission, submission to God, submission to the church, submission to tradition and so on, then individual autonomy is the problem.

So, for example, riding in a car is, I mean, has never been an issue for the Amish. It's not like there's a. Like you shouldn't ride in a car or cars are bad.

But owning a car and having a driver's license allows you your own choice, your own, your own individual whim to travel anywhere you want to, whenever you want to, without having to cooperate with anyone or consult with anyone or work together with anyone. So the problem with a car is not the automobile. It's the individual autonomy with which it's engendered.

And so we see certain kinds of manufacturing technologies in Amish businesses might be readily accepted, but other kinds of entertainment technologies or the more Internet technologies that accentuate individual choice are deemed especially problematic. That would also be related to the Amish opposition to photography.

They don't view photography as inherently problematic, but to the degree that individuals might pose for a picture or try to present an image of themselves in a sort of staged or posed way, that's a problem. So Amish people don't necessarily object to being photographed as such, but they will not pose for a picture.

They don't have family photos hanging on their walls, in their houses, or that sort of thing.

Liam Heffernan: 00:29:47

Yeah, but do you think, though, that as the world becomes more technologically advanced and more connected, that a sort of a resistance to compromise from that viewpoint could actually put the Amish church at risk of sort of disappearing altogether?

Steven Nolt: 00:30:07

It's a good question. So first of all, I need to underscore that there is a certain amount of diversity in the Amish population.

So I've been, you know, some of the examples that I'm giving might. Might seem like they are, you know, kind of universal descriptions of Amish life.

But there are 3,000, actually more than 3,000 local Amish church congregations across. Across the US and Canada. So. So there's a certain. There's not, not, you know, dramatically wide diversity, but there is a range.

There is something of a spectrum from the most, let's say culturally traditionalist to relatively less traditionalist Amish groups. So, you know, I use the example of the car, the automobile. That's. That's actually one of the things that is fairly broadly generalizable.

But when it comes to a Lot of the details about what technologies are used.

If we're talking technology that you're going to find considerable variation across the 400,000Amish people, that includes children, but 400,000 plus Amish people in the United States. So that's one thing to note.

The other is that when it comes to technology, again on that subject, there is a lot of negotiation, there is a lot of adaptation, much more so than just sort of saying, no, we're not, you know, engaging with any of these things. Amish people today, in many places, again, I have to use these qualifiers like many and most and some and things like that.

But, you know, Amish people for the most part are not geographically isolated and they're not even entirely socially isolated, particularly as adults. I mean, Amish children in most places attend Amish private schools.

Although again, just to illustrate the variety, there are some large Amish communities in which many Amish children attend, you know, mainstream public schools, although they, they would end that schooling after eighth grade. But nonetheless, they have a lot of non Amish peers.

Here in Lancaster county, many Amish men are involved in the rural volunteer fire companies, you know, in which they work with their non Amish neighbors as emergency technicians and responders and things like that. Many Amish families, actually, I think we can in this case say the percent, exact percentage varies from community to community.

But nationally, a majority of Amish households are not farming. They are involved in some sort of retail businesses or small manufacturing pursuits or things like that.

And so they have non Amish customers and clients and delivery people. And so they are on a, on a regular, on a daily basis, they are interacting again in English with their non Amish neighbors and customers and so on.

And so these sorts of interactions have, you know, sort of, sort of necessarily result in a kind of ongoing negotiation of how technology, to go back to that subject, how technology is engaged and used or not used. So as, as society increasingly becomes increasingly technologized, does that signal the, the possible end of Amish society?

You know, I don't think so. Of course, you know, as a historian, I'm not about predicting the future.

But, you know, the Amish community continues to grow and has at this point, I don't, I don't, I don't see it. I don't see it dying out. When it.

Again, when it comes to questions of technology, there are certain things that if we look back historically, we see, okay, well, these are things that, in which there was some sort of change that was kind of demanded, maybe by government made government regulation. So for example, for farmers selling milk, suddenly you.

In the early: 1970

Others adapted and adopted, purchased the refrigeration technology that was necessary, even though that hadn't been their pattern before.

And another option was to continue with dairy, reject the new refrigeration technology and sell their milk for making cheese, because that had a different cooling process. So these kinds of technological changes that come into Amish life are not without precedent.

And the Amish people respond to them in different sorts of ways.

Liam Heffernan: 00:34:56

This is probably an impossible question to answer, but is there even such a thing anymore as a typical day in the life of an Amish person?

Steven Nolt: 00:35:06

Well, no, not in the case.

Not in the sense of, you know, all Amish people get up and go out and milk the cows and have this day on the farm, because the majority of Amish people aren't farming.

And even Amish people who are farming today, depending where you are in the United States, are increasingly not engaged in dairy farming, but are engaged in producers farming. And there are a variety of reasons for that.

One is just the sort of the economics of the milk market in the United States that have nothing to do with the Amish, that have made it very difficult for small dairy farms to persist as the dairy industry has consolidated in really large scale ways. And the other is that there's in recent years been a turn towards interest in local produce that's not. Not shipped halfway around the world.

And so there's, whether it's restaurants or grocery stores, more of an interest in local produce. So that's become a more profitable approach for all sorts of small farmers, not just the Amish.

One part of Amish life that would remain rather typical, that you could say would be sort of a typical day in the life of an Amish parishioner would be on Sunday. So elements of Amish religious life have been the most probably persistently traditional. In some ways.

That's because there's least government intrusion or oversight. I don't want to say intrusion, and I don't want to present government in a negative way.

But there's not unlike sort of economic elements or educational elements of life in which there's a certain level of outside involvement, voluntary or involuntary when it comes to Sunday morning Amish church services, Amish church life, religious life, ritual life has remained relatively unchanged. So if you go to Amish churches. Of those, say, 3,000Amish congregations in the United States.

First of all, they are meeting for worship every other Sunday. So this is a practice that we think goes back to the colonial era. We can't exactly pinpoint it, but would be rooted in difficulties of rural travel.

pattern. So let's say there's: 1500

They are, by and large using this, with just a few exceptions. They're using the same hymnal, a Reformation era hymnal known as the Alspund. They're using the same hymnal, they're singing the same hymns.

The second hymn on a Sunday morning is always the same hymn known as the Lobleed. They have a lectionary of scripture texts that are read throughout the year.

That's the same sort of the format, we might say liturgy, they wouldn't use that word. But the format of Sunday morning. So in terms of religious life, those sorts of things are very much the same. But in terms of your.

The rest of the week, whether you are an Amish business owner engaged in retail trade, mostly to non Amish customers, or maybe you're an Amish business owner who mostly just works with Amish customers because you're, say, making straw hats or you are working in a. You're working in construction.

A lot of Amish men today work in construction, in roofing and building and working, working as masons and bricklayers and things like that.

And so you may be building for other Amish people, you may be getting in a van and driving quite a distance, being taken by a non Amish contractor for whom you work to go and do work at a non Amish commercial site somewhere quite distant from where you live. So, yeah, in that sense, what is a typical Amish life on, say, a Wednesday in October is going to be quite different, depending where you are.

Liam Heffernan: 00:39:08

So then, I guess, thinking a little bit broader, what are the sort of typical sort of social and familial structures in Amish life?

Steven Nolt: 00:39:18

So there are two main authorities, let's put it that way, in Amish life. One is the family and one is the church.

And again, given their Anabaptist background, children are not, strictly speaking, under the authority of the church because they haven't yet chosen to join the church through baptism.

So as you're growing up in an Amish family in Amish society, after you reach the age of 16, and this is largely based on long standing rural tradition in America that's much broader than the Amish. When you reach age 16, you begin to move out from under the authority of your parents in some ways, not entirely, but, you know, somewhat.

They give you a looser reign. You're basically being encouraged to form a peer group rather than, you know, spend all your time with your parents and siblings.

But you've not yet in Amish society, joined the Amish church through baptism. That usually happens between, say, ages 18 and 20. Amish people generally get married at roughly ages 20, 21, 22.

And you have to be a member of the Amish church to be married in the Amish church.

So typically people who are thinking of joining the Amish church and marrying the Amish church are again baptized roughly ages 18 to 20, because they're probably going to get married age 21, 22, 23, something like that.

So there then is this in a sense, a somewhat liminal space between say, ages 16 and 18 to 20 in which you've begun to move out from under the authority of your parents, but haven't yet moved under the authority of the church. And that sort of social and chronological space in one's life is a time when Amish young people experience a certain degree of independence.

It's known in Pennsylvania Dutch as wmspunger, meaning running around, which Amish is just sort of a term that refers to socialization, peer group socialization. It's been widely misrepresented in popular media.

It's not a time when Amish young people move out of their parents house or move off to a city or suddenly like adopt a radically non Amish way of life. It just means that they continue to live at home, they're living with their, with their parents.

They are undoubtedly, well, not undoubtedly, but very likely working for an Amish employer if not continuing to.

If they're not on a farm and working for their parents, they're probably working for an uncle or a older brother in law or, you know, another Amish person working in their store or working as a, as a, as a builder. And so they're spending their, they're spending their days with other Amish people.

But it does mean that on say a Friday night or Saturday night, instead of staying at home and visiting grandma and grandpa with your parents, you're going to be socializing with other Amish peers. And that may or may not involve activities that you wouldn't do as a church member. Although in many cases there's nothing that happens in Rospringa.

That wouldn't be, that wouldn't be acceptable for a church member.

But there are cases where going to a movie or spending time at the bowling alley or in some cases alcohol infused parties, I mean these are certainly things that do happen in some cases and sometimes and have attracted a certain amount of, understandably attracted a certain amount of media attention because of the apparent disconnect.

But that's sort of then been taken to another level and understood, understood as Amish teens reach age 16 and they move to Los Angeles and like take on a non Amish lifestyle, which is not actually something that happens.

Liam Heffernan: 00:43:14

Yeah, that's definitely something that's been sort of mythicized a little bit by reality tv, I think.

I guess looking a little bit earlier in someone's life, you mentioned that even if they went to public school that they'd be taken out of it by eighth grade. So what does an Amish education look like?

Steven Nolt: 00:43:33

Yeah, so historically Amish children attended rural public schools.

And again, I know perhaps the term public school has a different meaning in the UK than it does here, but here public school would be the publicly funded, general, local, tax supported school, not a private school. So Amish children would have participated, participated in the local public school system with their non Amish rural peers.

of those schools up until the: 1930

There was something of a two tiered system to public education in the US before, well, roughly before World War II, but anyway, in which rural schools tended to be small and often stopped at 8th grade urban schools, the system was more expansive and went through grade 12.

And in rural areas you would have had to pay extra or arrange transportation or have had parents who really wanted to encourage education beyond 8th grade to make arrangements for you to go to some sort of larger town or city to continue your schooling.

the Amish up through say the: 1940

What happens after roughly World War II and that actually doesn't have the war didn't really have anything to do with it.

But like roughly around that time is that there's an effort to try to equalize education across the United States, at least regionally and then later racially and in other ways.

And so there's an effort to Create high schools, grades 9 to 12 in rural areas, to encourage, if not enforce attendance through 10th grade and to update the curriculum, particularly in public schools in rural areas.

And it's at that point that Amish parents, and they're not the only people at first, but they're the most persistent critics and, and opponents of this move.

They believed that the education that they had been receiving for generations was adequate for the way of life that they saw as a humble and unassuming life.

onflict centered on the years: 1949

And the Amish parents said, look, we don't have any. We don't have any complaints about, about the public education system that we've participated in. We just want to continue it as it has been.

And so in: 1955

nsylvania is using this circa: 1950

There have been some updates to Amish school textbooks, but basically it's a focus on reading, writing, all in English, because again, that was the public school system at that time. So it's, it's an English curriculum.

Reading, writing, grammar, penmanship, mathematics, up through pre algebra, geography, certain amount of history and science. Not a lot. The day begins with a reading from, short reading from the Bible and a silent prayer.

, rural public schools before: 1950

There is no Amish schools, do not have a religion class because again, they're trying to replicate the public school curriculum. They're not in that sense creating a typical parochial school.

So nowadays Amish children would be attending Amish schools that are entirely composed of Amish peers, unlike say, their great grandparents who would have gone to a public school with a lot of non Amish children. So in that sense, Amish life change is Always multi directional in history.

And so what we see, for example, in Amish life is that there is both, shall we say, an opening and closing of Amish society that's happened in the last 50, 60 years simultaneously.

That is, even as Amish economics has become much less closed to use that language, it's much more varied with non Amish customers and clients and so on. Amish education has become somewhat more closed.

So, you know, in: 1950

Today, Amish young people are attending an Amish school with only Amish beers, but then later enter an adult work world that is filled with non Amish co workers.

So whether or how Amish society is changing, where and when there is greater or greater integration with American society or separation from American society, these things are not moving all in the same direction. They're moving in different and sometimes countervailing directions at the same time.

Liam Heffernan: 00:49:41

Doesn't it get to a point, particularly when we think about education, where staying the same eventually becomes moving backwards?

Steven Nolt: 00:49:51

Yes, although. So, yes, in the sense of the grades one to eight curriculum, certainly that would be the case.

What one then sees today with Amish entrepreneurs, Amish business owners, people in manufacturing, is that there's a lot of, well, Amish people are in general autodidactic and they are learning quite a lot and self training, reading a lot.

And so the idea of learning and adapting, particularly around technical skills, or again I mentioned, again this is maybe more specific here in Lancaster, but Amish men who are involved with the volunteer fire companies and working as EMTs, emergency medical technicians, you know, they are continuing to learn and engage in a variety of ways. But yes, the formal curriculum for children grades one to eight is quite static.

But it would be a mistake to think that Suddenly at age 14, you're no longer learning or learning new things. But Amish life again is more oriented towards practical pursuits.

And so the idea of a general curriculum is less a factor than continuing to learn in the particular areas in which one is working and living as an adult.

So there are the equivalent of like Amish trade shows, you might say that around different industries, agriculture, but also in other, in which lots of people come together and there are seminars and people are sharing information and learning, they're outside speakers. And so there continues to be a lot of learning. But in terms of schooling in a sort of formal schooling way, you're Right.

The curriculum has remained very much the same.

Liam Heffernan: 00:51:51

I think from everything that we've discussed in the last hour or so. I think one thing that's become really clear to me is firstly that we all too often reduce our perception of Amish into a quite reductive stereotype.

And it's actually more nuanced than that.

But when we think about Amish and sort of modernity, I think there's really something to be said for how true to their values the Amish are and how authentically they live to that.

Especially when you contrast Amish life to these sort of big, commercially minded mega churches that, I mean, you could argue borderline exploitative, but when you, when you compare and contrast, you know, two religions in that way, actually that there's something to be said for this very honest life that, that the Amish lead.

Steven Nolt: 00:52:46

Yeah, I mean, I, I never, I, I don't want to ever present Amish life in a sort of any kind of romanticized way. And so there certainly are, there, there, there are without a doubt challenges and difficulties and problems with Amish life.

And one of the, one of the challenges for Amish community life and Amish churches functioning at the small scale local level that they do is that, yeah, there is a certain amount of just the sort of social group pressure that exists in small scale communities where everyone knows each other and it's rather impossible to be anonymous.

And that certainly has its downside for people who choose not to become Amish or for some people who choose to become Amish and then later leave because it's suffocating.

On the other hand, as you mentioned, the social experiment that we in the west have engaged in in the last century and a half, very large scale social organizations that bring people together and then separate them by age and ability, whether that's our schooling system or whether that's the system of senior care facilities or whatever, certainly also has its own set of, set of problems and its own isolating nature.

And so we can talk about Amish society being isolating, but there are also many ways in which, shall we say, mainstream modern society isolates people in various ways.

Liam Heffernan: 00:54:28

I mean, I think we need a whole episode to discuss each of these things more.

You know, we've only just sort of touched on lifestyle and education, on religion, on other aspects of Amish culture, but it's been a fascinating kind of, I guess, intro into Amish life. So, Stephen, I can't thank you enough for joining me.

For anyone listening anything that we've mentioned as well, I'll leave links to in the show notes so you can find out more and learn more if you want to. And I would encourage that. But Stephen, if anyone wants to connect with you, where can they do that?

Steven Nolt: 00:54:58

So we have the Amish studies website at Elizabethtown College, so you can, I suppose you can put the link with the show notes, but Elizabeth Town Colleges here in Pennsylvania, the Young center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, and then within that there's a separate section about Amish life with population statistics and some frequently asked questions and things like that.

Liam Heffernan: 00:55:24

Right? Yeah. And I will put links to that in the show notes for sure. And yeah. Thank you again for joining me on the podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Steven Nolt: 00:55:32

Thanks for having me. I enjoyed it.

Liam Heffernan: 00:55:33

Thank you.

And for anyone listening, we'll hopefully squeeze in a little bonus recording after this for you to enjoy as well, just after a few days after the main episode.

And if you do enjoy listening to the podcast, as always, leave us a rating and a review and give us a follow as well, if you don't already, so that all future episodes appear in your feed.

And there's also links in the show notes if you really love what we do to support the show, which makes everyone involved incredibly, incredibly grateful. So thank you all for listening. Thank you to Stephen for joining me and goodbye.