Strangers At Home: Amish and Mennonite Women in History
“Uniformly sophisticated, interesting, and worthwhile” essays focusing on the often misunderstood experiences of Anabaptist women across 400 years (Agricultural History).

Equal parts sociology, religious history, and gender studies, this book explores the changing roles and issues surrounding Anabaptist women in communities ranging from sixteenth-century Europe to contemporary North America. Gathered under the overarching theme of the insider/outsider distinction, the essays discuss, among other topics:

• How womanhood was defined in early Anabaptist societies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and how women served as central figures by convening meetings across class boundaries or becoming religious leaders • How nineteenth-century Amish tightened the connections among the individual, the family, the household, and the community by linking them into a shared framework with the father figure at the helm • The changing work world and domestic life of Mennonite women in the three decades following World War II • The recent ascendency of antimodernism and plain dress among the Amish • The special difficulties faced by scholars who try to apply a historical or sociological method to the very same cultural subgroups from which they derive.

The essays in this collection follow a fascinating journey through time and place to give voice to women who are often characterized as the “quiet in the land.” Their voices and their experiences demonstrate the power of religion to shape identity and social practice.

“Makes a major contribution to our understanding of Anabaptist history and the ongoing construction of Anabaptist identity.” —Mennonite Quarterly Review

“This work is significant both for its breadth . . . and for offering glimpses into the varieties of Mennonite and Amish life.” —Annals of Iowa
"1111369599"
Strangers At Home: Amish and Mennonite Women in History
“Uniformly sophisticated, interesting, and worthwhile” essays focusing on the often misunderstood experiences of Anabaptist women across 400 years (Agricultural History).

Equal parts sociology, religious history, and gender studies, this book explores the changing roles and issues surrounding Anabaptist women in communities ranging from sixteenth-century Europe to contemporary North America. Gathered under the overarching theme of the insider/outsider distinction, the essays discuss, among other topics:

• How womanhood was defined in early Anabaptist societies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and how women served as central figures by convening meetings across class boundaries or becoming religious leaders • How nineteenth-century Amish tightened the connections among the individual, the family, the household, and the community by linking them into a shared framework with the father figure at the helm • The changing work world and domestic life of Mennonite women in the three decades following World War II • The recent ascendency of antimodernism and plain dress among the Amish • The special difficulties faced by scholars who try to apply a historical or sociological method to the very same cultural subgroups from which they derive.

The essays in this collection follow a fascinating journey through time and place to give voice to women who are often characterized as the “quiet in the land.” Their voices and their experiences demonstrate the power of religion to shape identity and social practice.

“Makes a major contribution to our understanding of Anabaptist history and the ongoing construction of Anabaptist identity.” —Mennonite Quarterly Review

“This work is significant both for its breadth . . . and for offering glimpses into the varieties of Mennonite and Amish life.” —Annals of Iowa
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Strangers At Home: Amish and Mennonite Women in History

Strangers At Home: Amish and Mennonite Women in History

Strangers At Home: Amish and Mennonite Women in History

Strangers At Home: Amish and Mennonite Women in History

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Overview

“Uniformly sophisticated, interesting, and worthwhile” essays focusing on the often misunderstood experiences of Anabaptist women across 400 years (Agricultural History).

Equal parts sociology, religious history, and gender studies, this book explores the changing roles and issues surrounding Anabaptist women in communities ranging from sixteenth-century Europe to contemporary North America. Gathered under the overarching theme of the insider/outsider distinction, the essays discuss, among other topics:

• How womanhood was defined in early Anabaptist societies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and how women served as central figures by convening meetings across class boundaries or becoming religious leaders • How nineteenth-century Amish tightened the connections among the individual, the family, the household, and the community by linking them into a shared framework with the father figure at the helm • The changing work world and domestic life of Mennonite women in the three decades following World War II • The recent ascendency of antimodernism and plain dress among the Amish • The special difficulties faced by scholars who try to apply a historical or sociological method to the very same cultural subgroups from which they derive.

The essays in this collection follow a fascinating journey through time and place to give voice to women who are often characterized as the “quiet in the land.” Their voices and their experiences demonstrate the power of religion to shape identity and social practice.

“Makes a major contribution to our understanding of Anabaptist history and the ongoing construction of Anabaptist identity.” —Mennonite Quarterly Review

“This work is significant both for its breadth . . . and for offering glimpses into the varieties of Mennonite and Amish life.” —Annals of Iowa

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780801876851
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date: 05/22/2003
Series: Center Books in Anabaptist Studies
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 491
File size: 6 MB
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Kimberly D. Schmidt is an assistant professor of history and director of the Washington Community Scholars Center of Eastern Mennonite University. Diane Zimmerman Umble is chair and an associate professor of communications at Millersville University. Steven D. Reschly is an associate professor of history at Truman State University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Insiders and Outsiders
Part I: Practice Makes Gender
Chapter 1. Insights and Blindspots: Writing History from Inside and Outside
Chapter 2. Who Are You? The Identity of the Outsider Within
Chapter 3. "To Remind Us of Who We Are": Multiple Meanings of Conservative Women's Dress
Chapter 4. River Brethren Breadmaking Ritual
Chapter 5. The Chosen Women: The Amish and the New Deal
Part II: Creating Gendered Communities
Chapter 6. Meeting around the Distaff : Anabaptist Women in Augsburg
Chapter 7. "Weak Families" in the Green Hell of Paraguay
Chapter 8. "The Parents Shall Not Go Unpunished": Preservationist Patriarchy and Community
Chapter 9. Mennonite Missionary Martha Moser Voth in the Hopi Pueblos, 1893-1910
Chapter 10. Schism: Where Women's Outside Work and Insider Dress Collided -
Part III: (Re) creating Gendered Traditions
Chapter 11. Speaking up and Taking Risks: Anabaptist Family and Household Roles in Sixteenth-Century Tirol
Chapter 12. Household, Coffee Klatsch, and Office: The Evolving Worlds of Mid-Twentieth-Century Mennonite Women
Chapter 13. Voices Within and Voices Without: Quaker Women's Autobiography
Chapter 14. "We Weren't Always Plain": Poetry by Women of Mennonite Backgrounds
Chapter 15. "She May Be Amish Now, but She Won't Be Amish Long": Anabaptist Women and Antimodernism
Works Cited
Contributors
Index

What People are Saying About This

Donald B. Kraybill

"These path-breaking essays make a stellar contribution to the scholarship of gender roles in contemporary Anabaptist communities."

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