Amish Enterprise: From Plows to Profits

by Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt

Overview

Amish culture has been rooted in the soil since its beginnings in 1693. But what happens when members of America's oldest Amish community enter non-farm work in one generation? How will hundreds of cottage industries and micro-enterprises reshape the heart of Amish life? Will traditional eighth grade education still prove adequate? What about gender roles, child-rearing practices, leisure activities, and growing ties with outsiders? Amish Enterprise was the first book to discuss these dramatic changes that are transforming Amish communities across North America. Based on interviews with more than 150 Amish entrepreneurs, the authors trace the rise and impact of businesses in Lancaster's Amish settlement in recent decades. In this new edition, the authors update demographic and technological changes, and also describe Amish enterprises outside of Pennsylvania in a new chapter.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801878046
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	04/19/2004
Series:	Center Books in Anabaptist Studies
Edition description:	second edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.89(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Donald B. Kraybill is a Distinguished College Professor and senior fellow emeritus at Elizabethtown College's Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies.

Steven M. Nolt is a professor of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College and director of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I: The Cultural Context
Chapter 1. The Roots of Amish Life
Part II: Cultural Resources for Entrepreneurship
Chapter 2. From Plows to Profits
Chapter 3. A Profile of Amish Enterprises
Chapter 4. Homespun Entrepreneurs
Chapter 5. Labor and Human Resources
Part III: Cultural Constraints of Entrepreneurship
Chapter 6. The Moral Boundaries of Business
Chapter 7. Taming the Power of Technology
Chapter 8. Small-Scale Limitations
Part IV: The Public Face of Amish Enterprise
Chapter 9. Promotion and Professional Networks
Chapter 10. Coping with Litigation and Liability
Chapter 11. Negotiating with Caesar
Chapter 12. Failure and Success
Part V: The Transformation of Amish Society
Chapter 13. The Fate of a Traditional People
Chapter 14. National Patters of Amish Work
Appendixes: Research Methods and Data Sources
Notes
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

At once sensitive and compassionate, this is a significant contribution to understanding how Amish culture is being transformed . . . This is scholarship at its best.

selected as an Outstanding Academic Book Choice

Amish Enterprise thoroughly documents the causes and consequences of Amish involvements in business . . . This book has many of the virtues of the people it studies. It represents thorough work, clear organization and carefully measured judgments. The authors are good story tellers as well as social analysts. The book deserves the acclaim it has received.

Mennonite Weekly Review

Provides yet another fine example of Kraybill and Nolt's excellent scholarship on and respect for the Amish people.

Mennonite Quarterly Review

In developing the concept of cultural restraints, Kraybill and Nolt expand the ethnic economy literature that only discusses cultural resources, not restraints. This theoretical contribution is valuable because religious beliefs handicap Amish entrepreneurs in many serious ways.

Contemporary Sociology

Important for anyone interested in the interplay between a small, separate religious group and the dominant culture.

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

The Amish people of Lancaster County, Pa., have shifted from farming to business ownership within a single generation, triggering a host of implications for the group--place of residence, education, technology, child-rearing practices, gender roles, community structure, and relations with the outside world. And it reflects a fundamental transformation of worldview toward the modern and the rationalized. This analysis concludes that Lancaster's Amish haven't completely ceded their cultural souls to the pursuit of profit; they have achieved their economic success within the moral bounds of their church and without the typical trappings of technology and education. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Useful in courses in religion and culture; an excellent supplementary text for courses in sociology . . . Amish and other minority groups . . . may be inspired and instructed by this heartening document.
—Gene Burd, Utopian Studies

Important for anyone interested in the interplay between a small, separate religious group and the dominant culture.
—Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

In developing the concept of cultural restraints, Kraybill and Nolt expand the ethnic economy literature that only discusses cultural resources, not restraints. This theoretical contribution is valuable because religious beliefs handicap Amish entrepreneurs in many serious ways.
—Contemporary Sociology

The Amish lifestyle is changing, but the Amish grasp on the land is stronger than ever . . . The move of Amish into small businesses was documented by Donald B. Kraybill in his recent book, Amish Enterprise . . . Some Amish 'shopmen' no longer need to work dawn-to-dusk, as they did when tending dairy herds requiring 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. milkings. In this male-dominated society, some men are not the dominant influence in this cultural change because 'twenty percent of the businesses are operated by women.
—Philadelphia Inquirer

Kraybill studied 1,000 Amish businesses in Lancaster County and found few cases of failure—and some big successes. Some 15 percent had sales over $100,000, and 7 percent had sales over half a million dollars.
—Utne Reader

At once sensitive and compassionate, this is a significant contribution to understanding how Amish culture is being transformed . . . This is scholarship at its best.
—Choice, selected as an Outstanding Academic Book

Provides yet another fine example of Kraybill and Nolt's excellent scholarship on and respect for the Amish people.
—Mennonite Quarterly Review

Admirably organized, clearly and engagingly written, and free from unnecessary jargon. While objective and independent in approach, Kraybill and Nolt display commendable respect for Amish principles and attitudes.
—Yearbook of the Society of German-American Studies

Amish Enterprise thoroughly documents the causes and consequences of Amish involvements in business . . . This book has many of the virtues of the people it studies. It represents thorough work, clear organization and carefully measured judgments. The authors are good story tellers as well as social analysts. The book deserves the acclaim it has received.
—Mennonite Weekly Review

Amish Enterprise is a well-written, fascinating book on how the Old Order Amish cope with modernity.
—Peter Ester, Director, Institute for Social Research Tilburg University, the Netherlands

From the Publisher

The Amish lifestyle is changing, but the Amish grasp on the land is stronger than ever . . . The move of Amish into small businesses was documented by Donald B. Kraybill in his recent book, Amish Enterprise . . . Some Amish 'shopmen' no longer need to work dawn-to-dusk, as they did when tending dairy herds requiring 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. milkings. In this male-dominated society, some men are not the dominant influence in this cultural change because 'twenty percent of the businesses are operated by women.'.

Philadelphia Inquirer

Kraybill studied 1,000 Amish businesses in Lancaster County and found few cases of failure—and some big successes. Some 15 percent had sales over $100,000, and 7 percent had sales over half a million dollars.

Utne Reader

Amish Enterprise is a well-written, fascinating book on how the Old Order Amish cope with modernity.

Peter Ester

Useful in courses in religion and culture; an excellent supplementary text for courses in sociology . . . Amish and other minority groups . . . may be inspired and instructed by this heartening document.

Utopian Studies - Gene Burd

Admirably organized, clearly and engagingly written, and free from unnecessary jargon. While objective and independent in approach, Kraybill and Nolt display commendable respect for Amish principles and attitudes.

Yearbook of the Society of German-American Studies

Useful in courses in religion and culture; an excellent supplementary text for courses in sociology... Amish and other minority groups... may be inspired and instructed by this heartening document.

— Gene Burd

Utopian Studies