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Holding the Line: The Telephone in Old Order Mennonite and Amish Life
Contributor(s): Umble, Diane Zimmerman (Author)
ISBN: 0801863759     ISBN-13: 9780801863752
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
OUR PRICE:   $32.30  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: February 2000
Qty:
Annotation: This book "on the 'telephone troubles' of the Old Order Mennonites and Amish holds interest in itself and also illuminates the process of change among these 'plain people, ' who are often thought to be entirely frozen in early religious or sociological molds. . . . (The book) is enlivened by illustrative anecdotes and excerpts from interviews, newspaper stories, and a diary" (Hubert R. Pellman, Eastern Mennonite University).
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Anthropology - Physical
- Religion | Christianity - Mennonite
- Social Science | Sociology - Rural
Dewey: 384.608
LCCN: 95047049
Series: Center Books in Anabaptist Studies
Physical Information: 0.69" H x 6.02" W x 9.03" (0.79 lbs) 192 pages
Themes:
- Religious Orientation - Christian
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

Among the Old Order Mennonite and Amish communities of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the coming of the telephone posed a serious challenge to the longstanding traditions of work, worship, silence, and visiting. In 1907, Mennonites crafted a compromise in order to avoid a church split and grudgingly allowed telephones for lay people while prohibiting telephone ownership among the clergy. By 1909, the Amish had banned the telephone completely from their homes. Since then, the vigorous and sometimes painful debates about the meaning of the telephone reveal intense concerns about the maintenance of boundaries between the community and the outside world and the processes Old Order communities use to confront and mediate change.

In Holding the Line, Diane Zimmerman Umble offers a historical and ethnographic study of how the Old Order Mennonites and Amish responded to and accommodated the telephone from the turn of the twentieth century to the present. For Old Order communities, Umble writes, appropriate use of the telephone marks the edges of appropriate association--who can be connected to whom, in what context, and under what circumstances. Umble's analysis of the social meaning of the telephone explores the effect of technology on community identity and the maintenance of cultural values through the regulation of the means of communication.


Contributor Bio(s): Umble, Diane Zimmerman: - Diane Zimmerman Umble is an associate professor of communication and theater at Millersville University.