A Peculiar People ─ Iowa's Old Order Amish

Now back in print with a new essay, this classic of Iowa history focuses on the Old Order Amish Mennonites, the state’s most distinctive religious minority. Sociologist Elmer Schwieder and historian Dorothy Schwieder began their research with the largest group of Old Order Amish in the state, the community near Kalona in Johnson and Washington counties, in April 1970; they extended their studies and friendships in later years to other Old Order settlements as well as the slightly less conservative Beachy Amish.

Elmer Schwieder (1925–2005) was emeritus professor of sociology at Iowa State University. With Dorothy Schwieder he wrote Buxton: A Black Utopia in the Heartland. Dorothy Schwieder is emerita professor of history at Iowa State University and the author or coauthor of, among others, Iowa: The Middle Land and Growing Up with the Town: Family and Community on the Great Plains (Iowa, 2002). Thomas Morain is the author of, among others, Prairie Grass Roots: An Iowa Small Town in the Early Twentieth Century; formerly director of research and interpretation at Iowa’s Living History Farms, he is currently director of community outreach at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa.