By Thuy Dinh, revised by Jordan Wilson

To America

The European Amish

The European Amish derived from an early group of south German and Swiss Christians who rejected infant baptism, often called the Anabaptists. Under Jakob Ammann, the first Amish communities formed in Alsace, France and the surrounding area of Bern, Switzerland. Faced with segregation and persecution for their beliefs, a group of Amish seized the opportunity to move to North America, in search of a new home with freedom of worship and immense farmland.¹ 

The First Wave to Pennsylvania (1730s)

The first few hundred Amish settled in Pennsylvania in the 1730s. Some decades later, they had established a string of communities from eastern Ohio to southeastern Iowa.² 

The Second Wave to the West (1815-1860)

The second wave of Amish emigrants sailed for North America between 1815 and 1860. Skyrocketing land prices in eastern America forced most nineteenth-century Amish to head west, as part of the larger westward movement of American farmers. Some landed in New York City and travelled west from there. Others followed the European cotton ships to New Orleans, completely bypassing the East coast, and traveled up to the Mississippi River to new home in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio.³ 

The Sacred Occupation

For the Amish, farming is not simply a means of livelihood, but rather a lifestyle. Agriculture is regarded as “a religious tenet”, and they believe that the tilling of soil is a divine duty directed by God. Through farming, God allows them daily contact with creation and the cycle of life, death, and renewal. The Amish’s contact with the material world is by the sweat of their brow.⁴ This spiritual connection to the soil is rooted in their experience in Europe, where they gained a reputation as innovative farmers known for their land stewardship and animal husbandry. Denied of land ownership, the European Anabaptists had to practice intensive cultivation on the land they rented. Restoring exhaustive land slowly became a tradition.⁵ 

Commonwealth and self-sufficiency were the priorities in the Amish society. Farming was the main occupation to sustain the community. The Amish did not farm to make money, but to produce for their family and the community with minimum interference from the world.⁶ A standard Amish farm in Wayne County averages 109 acres, much smaller than the average 434-acre American farm.^7,8 Amish farmers favor general farming with a diversity of crops. They practice crop rotation, use animal manure, lime, and other fertilizers to maintain soil fertility and conservation. A family farm usually raises livestock of various kinds and cultivates a diversified vegetable garden. The production of milk and cheese, fruit, cereals, and meat ensure partial self-sufficiency.⁹ 

Today, many Amish farms focus on dairying. Farmers usually sell their products at roadside stands. They refuse government subsidies, which, for them, is an erosion of conscience and motivation. The money made from farming is spent on the upkeep and expansion of the farm. What is left will be saved for buying additional ones for their children.¹⁰ Until the mid-twentieth century, Amish farming was generally in the form of a small family operation, using horse-drawn machinery, not far from a standard American farm before the era of mechanization and chemical fertilization.

The Struggle with Modernity: Resistance

The second half of the twentieth century marked a turbulent time for the Amish. The period witnessed major changes in the face of American agriculture. Average farmers shied away from small-scale, family farms and joined the era of corporate-scale mechanization. The Amish, a people known for their determined resistance against changes, did not emerge from this difficult time unscathed.¹¹ 

Two innovations that the Amish strongly resisted were tractors and electrification. In the 1940s, when most American farmers had switched to tractor-farming, the Amish were still sticking to their famous way with horses. However, their opinion was not unanimous when it came to other new farm technology. Agricultural implements like the steel plow and garden tiller were highly controversial.¹² Many church bishops were not sympathetic with this trend. Some cited the transparency of farming as the reason. Because farming practices were visible to the community, all the values and regulations governing Amish agriculture would also be public, rendering it even more resistant to change. Any modifications of these core values were a threat to the Amish identity.¹³ 

Pictured left: Horse-farming is still predominant in Amish agriculture.

The combination of economic and demographic pressures of the last century squeezed many Amish off the farm. The population explosion left families with scarcely any farmland for their children. Urbanization caused skyrocketing land prices, making farming an expensive enterprise, even on a small scale.¹⁴ In the Wayne-Holmes settlement, more than two-thirds of Amish men have left the plows behind.¹⁵ Forced off the farm, they had to seek employment in various other fields like factory work and business management.¹⁶ Working off the farm is a negotiated choice for many Amish women. Some churches are opposed to women leaving home for work. In families that still work together on the farm, when the husbands took off-farm jobs, the wives were often required to make up for their work; meanwhile, if the women left home for work, their on-farm responsibilities remained unchanged.¹⁷ For a highly conservative group like the Amish, modernization brings inevitable changes that threaten not only their means of livelihood but also their cultural identity, what has long been shielding them from the outside world. 

Pictured right: The horse and buggy, an Amish trademark. The use of different materials like rubber tires and LED lights sparked much tension among different Amish affiliations.

The Struggle with Modernity: Acceptance & Compromise

In their struggle with modernity, the Amish must draw the appropriate line to protect themselves from complete assimilation into the outer world while still being open to constructive changes.¹⁸ Reaction to technology among affiliations vary. The more traditional Amish, like the Swartzentrubers, rely on small, low-tech, and labor-intensive operations. At the other end, those like the New Order Amish have LED lights, use automatic milkers, and advertise their business on the Internet.^19,20

The Amish negotiate the adoption of new farm technology within the bounds of their church’s principles. Their choices are a balance between higher productivity and the preservation of their beliefs and values. The Amish built their own horse-drawn machinery when commercial suppliers switched to tractors. In the 1960s, some state health boards required dairy farms to cool milk in refrigerated bulk tanks. Some Amish farmers, in lieu of electricity, used diesel-powered refrigeration units. More traditional groups settled for selling Grade B milk to cheese plants, which did not require rapid cooling.²¹

Pictured left: An Amish windmill water pump seen on the Yoder’s Amish Home Tour. Small technological innovations like this can be found in more open Amish affiliations like the Old and New Order.

Despite the major trend of increasing off-farm employment, at the dawn of the 21^st century, thousands of Amish families still work in agriculture, by embracing alternatives to traditional farming. These have included cheese making, produce auctions, greenhouses, intensive grazing and organic farming. Ohio had no certified organic dairy farms in 1997, but a few years later, there were over a hundred, 90% of which were Amish and Old Order Mennonite.²² 

It can be misleading to label Amish farms as being invariably small-scale, organic, and sustainable. While they cannot completely avoid the path of industrial agriculture, Amish farming has retained the tradition of minimizing its environmental impact and external institutionalization. 

Against many predictions about their downfall as a bygone people under the pressure of modernization, the Amish have found unique ‘Amish’ ways of adapting to the ever-changing world within the bounds of their core values. At the heart of the largest settlement in the world, the local Amish are thriving in their encounter with modernity. 

“Preserving a Way of Life”: The Green Field Farms

In 2003, a group of twenty Amish leaders of the Wayne-Holmes Settlement found themselves asking, “How to remain Amish in the 21^st century?”. In the face of new “social ills” threatening the Amish cultural identity, it was imperative that they adapt to the changing economic contexts of the new century while still holding onto their agrarian roots. According to one member of the cooperative’s board, “it’s not about organic, food, sales, or product. It’s about preserving a way of life”.²³ The Green Field Farms (GFF) was founded towards this end. 

This Ohio-based Amish organic farming cooperative comprises small-scale Amish farms in the Wayne-Holmes Settlement. Serving as a bridge between Amish farmers and consumers, the cooperative’s purpose is to “oversee the development of profitable markets for agricultural products of our plain communities, and the building of a local economy to support and enable our farmers to thrive”.²⁴ They market organically grown products such as eggs, milk, and vegetables. GFF’s headquarters are located in southeastern Wooster. 

For a people strongly averse to formal organizations, the cooperate poses enormous challenges, like bureaucratization, standardization, and coordination with the local Amish.²⁵ Despite major difficulties, GFF proves to be a successful endeavor. Its products are currently sold at over 200 retail outlets in four states, including Whole Foods. The key to GFF’s success lies in the balance between tradition and innovation. The maintenance of such organization requires certain cultural tradeoffs, but overall, it remains a success story of the Amish adaptation to the modern world. In the face of a shifting landscape, GFF is a remarkable example of how the Amish have successfully developed a new identity as small-scale agricultural entrepreneurs in a post-farming world.²⁶ 

Conclusion

Through the ups and downs of a turbulent period, the Amish have proven that they are not the product of a bygone era, but a chapter in the American saga, a story shaped by the development of machine power, technological invention, and industrialization. They have waded in the mainstream American life without losing their religious commitments. Learning about the Amish helps us understand our own encounter with modernity, with all its limitations and potentials. 

Citations

¹ Donald B. Kraybill, Karen Johnson-Weiner, and Steven M. Nolt, The Amish (Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 4. 
² Ibid., 34-35. 
³ Ibid., 39. 
⁴ Ibid., 275. 
⁵ John A. Hostetler, Amish Society, 4th ed (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 115-116. 
⁶ Ibid., 114. 
⁷ Charles E. Hurst and David L. McConnell, An Amish Paradox: Diversity & Change in the World’s Largest Amish Community, Young Center Books in Anabaptist & Pietist Studies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 175. 
⁸ United States Department of Agriculture, “Table 1. Historical Highlights: 2012 and Earlier Census Years,” accessed July 6, 2017, https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Full_Report/Volume_1,_Chapter_1_US/st99_1_001_001.pdf. 
⁹ John A. Hostetler, Amish Society, 4th ed (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 119. 
¹⁰ Ibid., 129-131. 
¹¹ Ibid. 
¹² Donald B. Kraybill and Marc Alan Olshan, eds., The Amish Struggle with Modernity (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994), 71. 
¹³ Donald B. Kraybill, Karen Johnson-Weiner, and Steven M. Nolt, The Amish (Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 277
¹⁴ Ibid., 279. 
¹⁵ Ibid., 281. 
¹⁶ John A. Hostetler, Amish Society, 4th ed (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 136-137. 
¹⁷ Kimberly D. Schmidt, “‘Sacred Farming’ or ‘Working Out’: The Negotiated Lives of Conservative Mennonite Farm Women,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 22, no. 1 (March 2001): 83. 
¹⁸ Donald B. Kraybill and Marc Alan Olshan, eds., The Amish Struggle with Modernity (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994), vii-ix. 
¹⁹ Donald B. Kraybill, Karen Johnson-Weiner, and Steven M. Nolt, The Amish (Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 13. 
²⁰ The Yoder’s Amish Home Tour. 
²¹ Donald B. Kraybill, Karen Johnson-Weiner, and Steven M. Nolt, The Amish (Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 7-279. 
²² Ibid., 278-286. 
²³ Matthew Mariola and David McConnell, “The Shifting Landscape of Amish Agriculture: Balancing Tradition and Innovation in an Organic Farming Cooperative,” All Faculty Articles 72, no. 2 (May 15, 2013): 145-46. 
²⁴ Greenfield Farms, “Certified Organic Products,” text/html, Greenfield Farms, (July 2, 2017), http://www.gffarms.com/. 
²⁵ Matthew Mariola and David McConnell, “The Shifting Landscape of Amish Agriculture: Balancing Tradition and Innovation in an Organic Farming Cooperative,” All Faculty Articles 72, no. 2 (May 15, 2013): 146. 
²⁶ Ibid., 152. 

How to cite this page

MLA: “Not a Yesterday’s People: The Transformation of Amish Agriculture in the Wayne – Holmes Settlement”. stories.woosterhistory.org, http://stories.woosterhistory.org/not-a-yesterdays-people-the-transformation-of-amish-agriculture-in-the-wayne-holmes-settlement/. Accessed [today’s date].

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APA: (Year, Month Date). Not a Yesterday’s People: The Transformation of Amish Agriculture in the Wayne – Holmes Settlement. stories.woosterhistory.org http://stories.woosterhistory.org/not-a-yesterdays-people-the-transformation-of-amish-agriculture-in-the-wayne-holmes-settlement/.