The Amish on the Iowa Prairie, 1840 to 1910

The Amish on the Iowa Prairie, 1840-1910. By Steven D. Reschly. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Pp. x, 268. Appendix, illustrations, maps. $42.50.) Steven Reschly's work is an in-depth examination of the development of Amish communities within two adjacent townships in Johnson County, Iowa, where Amish settlers migrated from Ohio and Pennsylvania beginning in the 1840s. The Amish on the Iowa Prairie is not a full narrative history, but rather a series of essays on themes dealing with forces for and against change within the community. Reschly is particularly concerned with changing the stereotype of the Amish as highly resistant to any change, inalterably rooted to their particular geographical location, and clinging to very static social and religious customs. He points out that the frequently studied Amish communities of the twentieth century reflect more conservatism in dress and lifestyle than was apparent in the nineteenth century. The author's most notable contribution is his demonstration that Amish communities are migrating communities, continually in motion over their four centuries of development, beginning with their efforts to flee oppression in Europe and continuing with movements in America to better their situations. The Iowa communities were outgrowths of previous settlements in Ohio and Pennsylvania and in turn would spawn offshoots in regions further west. Because of the continuing migration process, the Amish were conditioned to mobility and accustomed to change when encountering new environments. They migrated and changed voluntarily, even aggressively. Various conditions might give rise to new migrations and new settlements: limits to the availability of land, the necessity to provide for offspring, and the attraction of cheaper land combined with the profit to be made from old land holdings. Outward mobility also might arise from division within the older community over lifestyles, theological beliefs, and demands for community harmony. Scholars of ethnicity accustomed to the phenomenon of chain migration will not be surprised by Reschly's concept of "portable" Amish communities (21-25). Willingness to migrate, communal planning and organization, continuing communication with older communities, and return migration are typical of other ethnic groups as well. The Amish retained family connections as they moved out to establish new settlements, and they sometimes returned to their roots in the old ones. Newspapers like the Weekly Budget (printed in Ohio) helped members maintain contacts. Conflict was an important stimulus to change in the context of these networks of communities. When divisions arose that threatened the unity that the Amish treasured, the result was often the migration of one element to another newer location. In the Iowa townships studied by Reschly, some divisions arose from religious disagreements, most often from the rise of individualistic religious practices that threatened the consensual order thought necessary among the more conservative Old Order Amish. The rise of these individualistic tendencies reflected a response to the evangelism spreading through the American social environment. Most dramatic was the "sleeping preacher" phenomenon, in which individuals in a sort of trance began to issue prophetic statements, often calling for reform in the community (132-57). One of the more notable cases was Noah Troyer, a native of Ohio who settled in Sharon township in 1874. …