If you dig around enough on Facebook, you’ll come across profiles of adolescents with Amish names and profile pics taken in Plain clothing. These were the catalyst for an interesting piece–“Amish youth hitchin’ up to Facebook“–in yesterday’s Lancaster Sunday News. As the article makes clear, Amish youth+Facebook is far from a universal phenomenon. I thought one insight by Steven Nolt was particularly interesting–the way…
Amish housewives have quite the workload. They do get some help in managing the household, though. Amish homes often feature modified appliances, built to run on power sources other than public electricity. Depending on what is allowed in a given church, you might see an air-powered mixer, or gas-powered refrigerator. Wringer-style washing machines are common. The most conservative Amish groups use only minimal technology though….
I resisted Facebook for a good while, but finally got a profile back in 2009. Since then, I’ve often thought about the above question. What got me pondering this today, though, was an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (“Amish learn value of networking”). Amish are using social networking to market their products, with the help of third parties. PA Amish farmer and co-op member…
Nadege Armour asked in a comment yesterday: Any chance we might be able to see the inside of an anonymous Amish home? Well, here we have a photo of the inside of an Amish home near Clymer, New York, shared by Amish researcher Karen Johnson-Weiner: First off, you can see one of the most important types of technology in an Amish home (at least in…
When the going gets tough, sometimes low-tech saves high-tech. The video below was shot last week during heavy snows near Ottawa, Pennsylvania. I doubt either of these guys imagined they’d be doing this when they woke up that morning. Hope they ate their Wheaties, but looks like the horses certainly did: Did you catch the field mouse running for his life in the middle…
Did you know that Amish have light switches in their homes? Neither did I. Well, I should say some Amish do have switches that don’t turn anything on. For instance, when they buy a home that was previously English-owned, then tear out the electricity, as they’d be expected to do. The wall switches remain. Not those. I mean a light switch that actually brings light…
One of the highlights of President Obama’s State of the Union speech last night was a call for clean energy. The president put forth a goal: “by 2035, 80% of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources.” “Clean energy” in this case means “wind and solar…nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas”. To me, that sounds a bit ambitious. Solar currently accounts for less than…
A grab-bag of thoughts and stories for the weekend. Enjoy! Rhymemaster B “Full of action, traction and a lot of satisfaction.” So replied Amishman “Rhymie Aaron” when asked how he was feeling. “Rhymie Aaron” was the nickname of Aaron Beiler, who lived most his life in Lancaster County before passing away in 1964. I recently came across an article about him dating to last year. Sounds…
At a talk I gave in Holmes County, at one point one of the Amish entrepreneurs on the 5-man panel expressed concerns over technology. Paraphrasing, he spoke of worries over “kids having the PSP and the Game Boy and half of the boys having cars”. Having been to a few Amish homes, I can say this is not far off in some communities, where both…
An Amish friend, whom we’ll call “Aaron Miller”, recently discussed aspects of Amish society with a college class. Aaron later wrote a follow-up letter to the class, in which he addressed a few issues raised during the discussion. Aaron has kindly shared the letter, from which we’ll post a few excerpts on the blog. You may remember Aaron, aka “Anonymous Amish Person” or “Mr. X”,…