Hardback
November 21, 2023
9781421447971
English
192
54114
55
1
9.00 Inches (US)
6.00 Inches (US)
0.76 Inches (US)
$49.95 USD, £41.50 GBP
v2.1 Reference
Electronic book text
November 21, 2023
9781421447988
9781421447971
English
192
54114
55
1
9.00 Inches (US)
6.00 Inches (US)
$49.95 USD, £41.50 GBP
v2.1 Reference

Amish Women and the Great Depression

A detailed look at how Amish women sustained family farming during the Great Depression.

At the end of the Great Depression, the US Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE) designated the Old Order Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the most economically and culturally stable agricultural community in the nation. In Amish Women and the Great Depression, Katherine Jellison and Steven D. Reschly examine the integral role that Amish women played in this Depression-era success story.

Making unprecedented use of quantitative data as well as qualitative accounts by and about Amish women, Jellison and Reschly reveal how Amish women sustained family farming during this devastating time. Using information from the federal government's 1935-1936 Study of Consumer Purchases (SCP), they closely examine the quantitative data related to Old Order Amish families and their neighbors in Lancaster County. SCP investigators approached women in these families to learn about household spending habits, farm crops and income, farm and household equipment, family size, home production, recreational practices, and dietary habits. Jellison and Reschly analyze the production and consumption activities of Amish women and their families as well as comparative data about the practices of their neighbors.

Amish Women and the Great Depression also incorporates a variety of qualitative sources to enliven the statistical analysis, including Old Order Amish women's diaries and memoirs; newspaper accounts by and about Amish women; government reports and related correspondence about the Lancaster County Amish; oral histories with elderly Old Order Amish people about their experiences in the 1930s; an oral history with Walter M. Kollmorgen, the author of the 1942 BAE study of Old Order Amish community stability; and photographs by New Deal photographers. This unique portrait of Depression-era farm life provides a historic look into the farming practices and daily lives of Amish women.

About the Authors

Katherine Jellison (ATHENS, OH) is a professor of history and director of the Central Region Humanities Center at Ohio University. She is the author of Entitled to Power: Farm Women and Technology, 1913-1963 and It's Our Day: America's Love Affair with the White Wedding, 1945-2005. Steven D. Reschly (ST. CHARLES, MO) is professor emeritus of history at Truman State University. He is the author of The Amish on the Iowa Prairie, 1840-1910 and a coeditor of Strangers at Home: Amish and Mennonite Women in History.

Endorsements

"Well written and thoroughly researched, this book tells the history of Amish women in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, during the 1930s. Marshaling a great deal of both quantitative and qualitative evidence in its argument, this book draws the reader into the heart of women's worlds in the County."

- Royden K. Loewen, University of Winnipeg, author of Mennonite Farmers: A Global History of Place and Sustainability

"How did Old Order Amish families fare during the economic crises of the 1930s? Deftly weaving new oral history and photographic evidence with an ambitious New Deal-era Works Progress Administration survey, the authors' deeply-researched portrait of Amish sustainability credits women and girls' productivity in house, yard, farm, and market."

- Rachel Waltner Goossen, Washburn University

9781421447971 : amish-women-and-the-great-depression-jellison-reschly
Hardback
November 21, 2023
$49.95 USD
9781421447988 : amish-women-and-the-great-depression-jellison-reschly
Electronic book text
November 21, 2023
$49.95 USD

Other Titles by Steven D. Reschly

Strangers at Home

edited by Kimberly D. Schmidt, Diane Zimmerman Umble, and Steven D. Reschly
May 2003 - Johns Hopkins University Press
$51.00 USD - Electronic book text

Other Titles from Young Center Books in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies

Fooling with the Amish

Dirk Eitzen
Sep 2022 - Johns Hopkins University Press
$44.95 USD - Hardback
$44.95 USD - Electronic book text

Mennonite Farmers

Royden Loewen
Nov 2021 - Johns Hopkins University Press
$52.00 USD - Paperback / softback
$52.00 USD - Electronic book text

The Lives of Amish Women

Karen M. Johnson-Weiner
Sep 2020 - Johns Hopkins University Press
$52.00 USD - Hardback
$52.00 USD - Electronic book text

Other Titles in RELIGION / Christianity / Amish

What the Amish Teach Us

Donald B. Kraybill
Oct 2021 - Johns Hopkins University Press
$14.95 USD - Hardback
$14.95 USD - Electronic book text

Serpent in the Garden

James A. Cates
Sep 2020 - Johns Hopkins University Press
$42.00 USD - Hardback
$42.00 USD - Electronic book text

Renegade Amish

Donald B. Kraybill
Mar 2018 - Johns Hopkins University Press
$24.95 USD - Hardback
$18.95 USD - Electronic book text
$18.95 USD - Paperback / softback