Small communities, with their distinctive character—where life is stable and intensely human—are disappearing. Some have vanished from the face of the earth, others are dying slowly, but all have undergone changes as they have come into contact with an expanding machine civilization. The merging of diverse peoples into a common mass has produced tension among members of the minorities and the majority alike.
The Old Order Amish, who arrived on American shores in colonial times, have survived in the modern world in distinctive, small communities. They have resisted the homogenization process more successfully than others. In planting and harvesting time one can see their bearded men working the fields with horses and their women hanging out the laundry in neat rows to dry. Many American people have seen Amish families, with the men wearing broad-brimmed black hats and the women in long dresses, in railway or bus terminals. Although the Amish have lived with industrialized America for over two and a half centuries, they have moderated its influence on their personal lives, their families, communities, and their values.
The Amish are often perceived by other Americans to be relics of the past who live a simple, inflexible life dedicated to inconvenient out-dated customs. They are seen as abandoning both modern conveniences and the American dream of success and progress. But most people have no quarrel with the Amish for doing things the old-fashioned way. Their conscientious objection was tolerated in wartime, for after all, they are good farmers who practice the virtues of work and thrift.