Most Amish have a fairly healthy attitude toward tourism–and tourists can mean different things to different Amish–a slight annoyance for some, a significant profit source for others, a chance for an interesting conversation for another bunch. Lancaster Amish by far have the most to deal with when it comes to visitors, though if you get out of the heavily-trafficked areas such as Amish tourism capital…
Thanks to Gina for pointing out a link to an NPR piece on a new book, Plain Secrets, on the Swartzentruber Amish. I have not read the full book yet but did read the excerpt on the site. It seems pretty good. Mackall brings up the Amish position against formal insurance. It reminded me of a recent chat I had with an Amish friend (Old…
The Sugarcreek, Ohio Budget newspaper is a vital print lifeline stretching across the diverse Anabaptist settlements of North and South America. Founded in 1890, this weekly paper out of Sugarcreek, Ohio, serves as an information exchange for families sometimes separated by great distances and formidable technological barriers. The Budget is among the favorites when it comes to Amish reading material. Budget ‘scribes’ regularly report on…
Amish tourism did not begin with Witness. That 1985 film just made it worse (or better, depending on how you look at it, I suppose). David Luthy, writing in The Amish Struggle with Modernity, tells us that the first Amish-themed novel came out in 1905 (wait a minute–back when many of us English were still riding around in buggies!), the first Amish postcards around 1915,…
The Nickel Mines kids start at their new school tomorrow, and it’s getting quite a bit of coverage in the media. It also happens to be exactly six months to the day since the school shooting. Here’s hoping this is the last we hear on Nickel Mines for awhile as local Amish try to make it back to normal.
‘Our goal is to make Lancaster a center for the film industry.’ That’s Jay Ingram of the Lancaster Film Commission in an article (no longer available) at Lancaster Online. The 1985 Harrision Ford blockbuster Witness and the following media and tourist onslaught has irritated some in Lancaster. Donald Kraybill relates in The Riddle of Amish Culture that the Amish even considered using the ‘ultimate bargaining…
The body of ex-Amishman Eli Stutzman–convicted of one murder, suspected in four others–lies in a Texas morgue, unclaimed by his former Ohio Amish community. Stutzman’s DNA may be the case-breaker in the 1985 deaths of two Colorado men. Gregg Olsen, author of Abandoned Prayers, commented on the case which has hounded him for the past 20 years. Olsen shares an interesting idea–if Ida (Stutzman’s wife…
“We want to forgive him, but we have to not just do it one time. We have to do it again and again.” An anonymous Amish couple has spoken about the Nickel Mines shootings, and what’s come after. “I have to talk, get it out of my system. If not it would get the best of me “, said the Amish woman. They spoke about…
The stories are heartbreaking. You feel for the victims. It’s hard to imagine what they’ve been through. But at the same time, a 20/20 piece on Amish abuse from a few years back points to the generalizations that many journalists rely on to tell their story. The 20/20 folks lean heavily on cliches and misconceptions–from the ominous opening music, to the overplayed stories they trot…
The Amish don’t use ‘thee’, ‘thine’, or ‘thou’, as you might think after watching Weird Al’s video. Neither do they speak like Alexander Godunov or Jan Rubes did in Witness. Check that, at least one Amishman today does–but he was born in Germany and converted to the faith in his 20’s. They mostly speak English like any rural Americans would. Though you could say there…
