Diaspora in the Countryside: Two Mennonite Communities and Mid-Twentieth-Century Rural Disjuncture (review)

Rural North American communities experienced radical change in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Depression, war, mechanization, marketing, communication technologies, together with often radical religious, social, and cultural changes, all contributed to a great rural disjuncture. Royden Loewen's work adds new and valuable insights into these phenomena by focusing on the experiences of Mennonites in two small rural communities.

Shared factors and influences resulted in fundamental changes in all North American rural communities. But each community also had unique features and characteristics that influenced and often determined the specific parameters of its response. Some rural communities simply disappeared. They were blown away by Depression-era dust storms, or abandoned when farm mechanization and more capital-intensive farming methods resulted in increased farm sizes and reduced the number of farmers and farm workers needed. Rural communities that survived experienced fundamental changes.

Royden Loewen focuses on Mennonite experiences in two similar but increasingly different rural communities: the rural municipality of Hanover, MB, and Meade County, NE. Significant numbers of Mennonite immigrants from Russia settled in those communities in the 1870s. Many belonged to the Kleine Gemeinde (Small Church) Mennonite Church, which was later renamed the Evangelical Mennonite Church.

There were some important differences from the beginning, despite the fact that Mennonites in both communities came from Russia at the same time and tried to establish themselves in similar ways. In Hanover, Mennonites comprised the overwhelming majority of residents; in Meade County they were a minority group. But the Hanover group were only a short distance from Winnipeg. Meade County settlers were further removed from Denver, their nearest large urban centre. Thus, within their immediate environment, Mennonites in Hanover could assert their identity more strongly than their co-religionists in Meade County. But they were also more vulnerable to urban influences.

The impact of divergent agricultural policies in the United States and Canada during the Depression and the war years affected the two communities in different ways. In Canada supply-management programs encouraged diversification, particularly into poultry and hog production, in the rural municipality of Hanover. American wheat-allotment programs, on the other hand, supported the monocultural wheat economy, and with it different community structures and institutions.

Loewen writes quite extensively about changing gender roles. When writing about Hanover he focuses on the fact that stalwart heads of mixed family farms were replaced by the operators of large poultry farms as the pre-eminent symbol of masculinity. They were joined a little later by car salesmen. His discussion of gender roles in Meade County deals with the changing roles of women, highlighting the ideals of cheerful homemakers and the supportive women's organizations.

Environmental accommodation to the harsh realities of dust storms in Nebraska and snowdrifts in Manitoba resulted in different ways in which members of the two communities mixed and modified traditional folkways with modern perspectives. Closeness to nature was cherished in both communities in the early years, but large-scale farming and the influence of town and city life became stronger over the years.

Religion also underwent significant changes. North American evangelicalism had a major impact on the Mennonites in Meade County. It led to a schism in the Evangelical Mennonite Church, with the majority embracing new evangelistic practices and establishing closer ties with like-minded non-Mennonite neighbours. The minority reaffirmed their commitment to traditional attitudes and lifestyles.

Similar tensions in Hanover resulted in an even more dramatic division, with the more traditional groups leaving for Mexico and later Belize. Loewen correctly identifies and contrasts the individualistic North American evangelistic ethos with the more community-oriented 'brotherhood' values of the more traditional members. That is particularly evident in his discussion of the Mennonite communities in Belize.

Loewen emphasizes both the fragmentation and cultural and religious reformulation as Mennonites in both communities left or significantly modified rural and agricultural pursuits. He argues that they used...