Amish

The Amish are a Christian people whose movement is descended directly from the Anabaptists of the Protestant Reformation of the early 16th century. In the early years of the 1700s, many of them emigrated from their homeland in Europe to take up farming in colonial Pennsylvania, in the present-day territory of the United States. From there, they spread to other areas of the U.S. and Canada and today number about 200,000 adherents, most of whom are concentrated in the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana.

The Amish are divided into several major sub-groups all of which share the same basic precepts of simple living and adherence to the fundamental principles contained in the Schleitheim Articles, an early Anabaptist document which sets forth the concept of a "Christian brotherhood living in a viable community" (Hostetler, Amish Society, page 28). They are also united by their common ancestry, language, and culture. The major Amish groupings differ from one another in the details of how they implement their ideas concerning simple living, that is, how they live their lives and define their relationship to the rest of the world and to modern society, in particular, their relationship to modern technology.

It is this latter aspect of Amish life which has, more than anything else, fired the interest of the larger society around them. For, in stark contrast to that larger society, the Amish have steadfastly resisted the encroachments of modern conveniences and technology, eschewing even the most ubiquitous aspects of modern civilization, such as the automobile, electric appliances, and the computer. Instead, the Amish have retained many of the key elements of the past, including horse drawn vehicular transportation, horse-powered farming, and what seems to the society around them, an oddly anachronistic form of dress.