Amish Enterprise: From Plows to Profits (Center Books in Anabaptist Studies) [Paperback]

Professor Donald B. Kraybill (Author), Professor Steven M. Nolt (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0801850630 | ISBN-13: 978-0801850639 | Publication Date: October 1, 1995

"The Amish have been a people of the plow for more than three centuries. An agrarian tradition and a love for the land have shaped their distinctive faith and culture in many ways. The farm provided a crib for nurturing large families and stable marriages, a locus for work, and a haven from the vices of the larger world. This book tells the story of the Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who have rather rapidly abandoned their plows for the pursuit of profit." -- from the preface Amish culture has been rooted in the soil since its beginnings in 1693. But what happens when of the 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 is the first book to discuss the dramatic changes that will affect Amish communities throughout North America. Based on interviews with more than 150 Amish entrepreneurs, the authors trace the rise and impact of micro-enterprises in Lancaster's Amish settlement over the past two decades. They document the proliferation of more than a thousand Amish-owned enterprises in the Lancaster area -- some 14 percent of them boasting annual sales above $500,000. Kraybill and Nolt explain why, at a time when the majority of new American business ventures fail, virtually all Amish businesses succeed. Amish Enterprise offers surprising insights into the cultural transformation of a plain people who are becoming increasingly entangled in the economic web of modern life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

""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

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 )

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 ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (October 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801850630
• ISBN-13: 978-0801850639
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,620,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Surprising entrepreneurs: Old Order Amish, December 28, 2000

By 

J. Martin - See all my reviews

This review is from: Amish Enterprise: From Plows to Profits (Center Books in Anabaptist Studies) (Paperback)

* Kraybill, Donald B. and Steven M. Nolt. 1995. _Amish Enterprise; From Plows to Profits_. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pp. xiv + 300. Notes, photographs, references. ISBN: 0-8018-5063-0 (pbk).

Kraybill and Nolt present a history and analysis of Amish businesses in the 1980s and early 1990s. These authors tell how hundreds of Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, engaged in an unprecedented economic adaptation after hundreds of years during which their devotion to family farming as the economic center of life did not change. The new adaptation was a remarkable fluorescence of entrepreneurial activity in which Lancaster Amish created enterprises catering to Amish and non-Amish market needs. These enterprises operate within the strictures of Amish thinking about how people should exist in the world, and this is the central question the authors explore. The contents are broad and include a profile of Amish businesses in chapter three, technology in chapter eight, and marketing and networking in chapter nine. Other chapters cover labor issues, business morality, Amish businesses and the law, and relations with the state.

What is surprising about Amish enterprise is that it exists. To explain this, both in its vigor and in the ways business owners refrain from fully adopting present-day business plans and procedures, the authors use a culture-centered model. They describe how the Amish interpret their beliefs in negotiating the new behaviors and statuses businesses require (pp. 16-19). From one perspective, the process described in this book is a prime example of conscious, selective acculturation.

Negotiation and tension between adopted business behaviors and _Gelassenheit_, a core value informing normative behavior, is highlighted throughout. Gelassenheit asks Amish to be patient and yielding, to submit to the community and to avoid individuation and excess. Gelassenheit asks Amish to be plain and not fancy (pp. 13-16). Business success threatens Gelassenheit. Success creates wealth differentials greater than ones in the farm-based economy. Success affects gender roles because women entrepreneurs own and operate their own enterprises. Success can mean that children receive less attention as business demands increase. Success increases the visibility and importance of business people in district churches, and has fundamental implications for the status of less wealthy but culturally more highly valued farmers.

Kraybill and Nolt do not strive for theoretical finesse but let a few well chosen concepts carry much of their argument about cultural negotiation and economic adaptation. Core values presented early surface throughout as they discuss the problems, solutions and limits of the business adaptation. Like another book that Kraybill edited, _Amish Enterprise_ "...shows no awareness of postmodern theory." (Reschly, 1997). But considering what readers the authors are apparently trying to reach, the anthropological analysis is as theoretical as it should be. That is, Kraybill and Nolt do a workmanly job explaining complex information within a framework of 1) economic behavior influenced by religious beliefs; 2) seemingly inflexible cultural norms that are malleable; and 3) ideas about the family, community and church that are specifically Amish.

The authors are academic experts on the Amish and base the book on a survey of Lancaster businesses, on intensive interviews profiling entrepreneurs and on ethnographic observation. Anthropologists, rural sociologists, microeconomists, church historians and economic development specialists will all find something interesting and insightful in it. _Amish Enterprise_ occupies the middle ground between the mass market and a thoroughly academic monograph; the contents are accessible to a wide range of readers who have a sincere interest in the Amish and their culture.

The text is well illustrated with photographs. The bibliography provides sources of further reading but it is somewhat dated. Comparative material on Amish economic adaptations elsewhere is missing and would add to the analysis. _Amish Enterprise_ is a clear, succinct and detailed discussion of a surprising change in Amish life.

Reference:

Reschly, Steven D. 1997. Review of Kraybill, D. and M. Olshan, eds. _The Amish Struggle With Modernity_. _Journal of Church and State_ 39(2):372. Spring 1997.