Amana Colonies: GerMania in the American Midwest
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2016-08-31
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en
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German immigrants to the United States are nowadays hardly distinguishable from other immigrant groups. The Amana people of Iowa are an exception to this rule and have kept their Amana German heritage alive for the last 150 years. From their beginnings as Pietists in eighteenth-century Germany to a communal lifestyle in nineteenth-century America, the community has always been able to keep its community alive within a larger society. After the Change out of communal living in 1932, the community’s face has begun to change and adapt into a more Americanized community, that is however still strongly rooted in its German heritage. This thesis presents a careful examination of the evolution of Amana identity and seeks to establish how the experiences of persecution, migration, religious worship, and community structure have affected the current preservation of their distinctive culture. A literary analysis combined with fieldwork and personal interviews shows the evolution of Amana identity from a strongly community-oriented group to a community in search of direction today. At this crossroads, the Amana people might have to make a choice between preserving their heritage and the survival of the church
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