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ON THE MOVE. '" Q.I Q Q.I :E '0 CHAPTER s x Mobility From the beginning of their history the Amish have been a highly mobile people. From observing Old Order Amish settlement patterns in Iowa and other parts of the Midwest, it can be seen that mobility is still a part of their life-style. Since the early 1950s the Old Order have initiated fourteen new settlements in Iowa, Missouri, and Minnesota . A major new Iowa group can be found in the Milton-Pulaski area, which the Amish refer to as the Milton community. The selection of this particular site, the procedure involved in the establishment of a new community, and the resulting rules and organization provide deeper understanding of the Old Order Amish as well as highlighting the reasons for their success as a religious, utopian society. The process also provides an opportunity to study the Old Order Amish and their relationship to the general non-Amish community. Moreover, a close examination of the expansion and mobility policies of the Amish allows for meaningful comparisons with other important utopian societies. In briefly analyzing these features in two other Iowa groups, the Amana 80 and New Communities Colonies and the Icarians, it appears that only the Old Order Amish have provided for-and continue to provide-some degree of flexibility and choice to their members in regard to place of residence. INITIATING NEW SETTLEMENTS Although the Old Order Amish start new settlements for a variety of reasons, the dominant motivation is economic. Like all other agriculturists, they are faced with constantly rising land values throughout the eastern United States as well as in well-established midwestern communities. In Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, once the center of Amish life in America, much land is selling for well over $1,500 per acre. In Kalona at a farm sale in early 1973, an eighty-acre farm brought $1,025 per acre. The Amish need for additional land is constant because sons and daughters from the large families are 81 82 CHAPTER SIX continually establishing new households. Unwilling and many times unable to purcbase land at these high prices, they have sought to establish communities in areas where land is cheap and yet available in sufficient quantities that a sizable settlement may develop. Other reasons for resettlement of Old Order Amish families are highly diverse. Personal dispute between family or nonfamily members may.serve as a catalyst to consideration of a move. In Iowa, controversies with public school officials have prompted a number of Buchanan County families to move to Wisconsin. 1 Some families may feel that their local parochial school is inadequate and move so that their children may receive a better education. Still others resettle in a new community because other members of their family-possibly a father, brother, or son - had gone there previously and the family desired to live closer together. Still another consideration is that as the size of the older Amish communities increases, there may be a breakdown between members and sometimes even within family groups. Parents occasionally find it difficult to enforce rules and regulations regarding behavior. A move to a new community, particularly during the years when the population is relatively small, allows the family to pull closer together and makes it easier to enforce rules and apply discipline. Thus a reduction in community size helps to reassert parental authority.;1 There are also within Amish society certain marginal individuals who deviate sufficiently from acceptable behavior so that they are looked upon as undesirable. Perhaps some parents have failed to discipline their children properly or are not sufficiently restrictive. Perhaps some church members have continual money or management problems and must frequently be assisted by others. Some may not share the general belief that parochial schools are superior to public schools. Any of these actions may place a questionable household on the periphery of the Amish community and, seeking more acceptance, that family may move to a new area. Since they rely on horses and buggies, the Amish must live fairly close to a trading center as well as to each other. An Amishman could not, for example, conveniently live fifteen miles away from the nearest town, as too much of his time would be taken traveling back and forth. As the young people marry, they are finding it increasingly difficult to locate land for sale within the necessary distance of other Amish families and trade facilities. The only choice is to seek land...

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