Long clotheslines drying in the breeze are what alert you that you’ve entered Amish country. “For Amish women, every day is laundry day,” says Jim, our driver and guide. “Every day except Sunday.”
While staying with friends in Pennsylvania last month, I wanted to visit the super-productive farmland of Lancaster County, about an hour west of Philadelphia. This is where this separatist religious sect first settled after 18 years fleeing persecution.This century in Europe and still includes the largest group of 367,000 Amish in the Americas.
Their belief in simple living, simple clothing, and Christian pacifism also eschews modern technology. Most homes do not have telephones, internet, television and washing machines. There is actually no mains electricity; That’s why there are obvious clotheslines.
Like many people, I first became aware of this particular branch of this group called “Pennsylvania Dutch” (actually a distortion of Deutsch, that is, German) thanks to a movie shot 40 years ago this summer. In 1984, Hollywood came to Lancaster County in the form of Peter Weir’s thriller. Witness.
Harrison Ford played John Book, a big-city cop who receives orders to protect a young Amish boy who witnesses a murder while visiting Philadelphia. Book finds himself seduced not only by the Amish lifestyle, but also by the boy’s mother, played by Kelly McGillis.
I watched the movie again recently, and while it’s a bit idealized, it’s still as good as I remember (those beautiful wooden barns we saw being built in common have been largely replaced by metal and fiberglass structures). To assimilate, Harrison Ford’s police were dressed in Amish-branded trousers supported by suspenders (belts were considered ostentatious), jackets, and wide-brimmed straw hats. Women wear ankle-length dresses and bonnets (black for unmarried women and girls, white for their wives) that cover their shoulders and upper arms.
Their horse-drawn carriages are as different as their clothes; Amish people are not allowed to drive. And there were plenty of cars clattering along the back roads around the neighboring towns of Bird in Hand and Intercourse (yes, really, and my teenage daughter inevitably took photos of the road signs to the amusement of her friends back home).
Two companies that take tourists around in Amish cars caught my attention, but instead we preferred the 90-minute minibus tour organized by The Amish Experience, a well-established company based in Bird in Hand. Traveling the country’s back roads little faster than cars, Jim constantly kept track of facts and figures.
For example, we learned that everyone who was not Amish, regardless of nationality, was known as “English”; Since the tombstones are small and uniform, they avoid ostentation even in death. However, since the funeral was still going on, we had to postpone our planned visit to the Amish cemetery. A few cars were lined up outside; It was a touching image that could have come from 200 years ago.
Jim pointed out the “phone sheds”, which are upright garden sheds that look like outside toilets but actually house a telephone used for dealing with “the British” (phones are not allowed in the house). Then there were tractors with metal wheels, and therefore it was very uncomfortable to go further than the farmyard. Horse-drawn implements are still widely used in the fields.
We also passed several single-room schools where children under 14 (when formal education had ended) could be seen through open doors; little hatted heads turned to satisfy our curiosity as we passed. Scooters are being pushed out of these small schools; Bicycles are prohibited as they may encourage long-distance travel.
Amish women typically marry at age 21, have an average of seven children, and of course do all that laundry. Most tend to use tub-style jam washers that were common in 1940s homes.
Such domestic chores may appeal to a minority of people who are attracted to today’s “traditional female” subculture, which sees wives as housewives. But a broader fascination with simple, communal Amish traditions seems to stem from anxieties about our high-tech, consumerist society and the isolation felt by living through our phones and increasingly atomized, individualistic lifestyles.
To understand the people behind the traditions, The Amish Experience offers an immersive three-hour VIP (Person Visit) tour that includes visiting an Amish home (visitors are asked to dress modestly). Stay in Amish-run bed-and-breakfast guesthouses. Expect a hearty fried breakfast: The Amish like to recharge for a tough morning’s work.
Although our van ride was considered a bit unpleasant—an “Amish safari” of sorts—the objects of our curiosity seemed long accustomed to ignoring the fools. Tourists are asked not to stick their cameras in people’s faces, as glorifying one’s appearance through photography is a basic Amish no-no (in addition to being inherently rude).
When I asked Jim how the Amish felt about tourists, he told me about a guide friend who had been invited to an Amish wedding; He was the only “British” among the 500 or so guests. Feeling shy, a church elder eventually approached her and asked: “So, how does it feel to be looked at?”
Fundamentals
British Airways (ba.com) flies twice a day from London Heathrow to Philadelphia for £560 return. Various trains leave from Philadelphia to Lancaster every day (1 hour), and return tickets start from $21.
Located in Bird in Hand, Greystone Manor Victorian Inn is an ornately furnished farmhouse from the 1800s, offering double rooms from £127 per night. More than 30 Amish-run bed-and-breakfast farmhouses are also available at Amishfarmstay.com.
Amish Experience’s In-Person Visit tours run daily from April through October and cost $61.95 per adult (over 13) and $51.95 per child (ages six to 12).