Family, church, and market
Subtitle: a Mennonite community in the Old and the New Worlds, 1850-1930
By: Royden K. Loewen.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 1993
Place of publication: Toronto
Language: eng
Number of pages: 370
Subjects: Mennonites -- Nebraska -- Jansen Region -- Social life and customs.; Mennonites -- Manitoba -- Steinbach Region -- Social life and customs.; Russian Germans -- Nebraska -- Jansen Region -- Social life and customs.; Russian Germans -- Manitoba -- Steinbach Region -- Social life and customs.; Mennonites -- Russia -- History -- 19th century.; Jansen Region (Neb.) -- Social life and customs.; Steinbach Region (Man.) -- Social life and customs.
Description: In 1874, a group of nine hundred Mennonites migrated from Russia to the western plains of Canada and the United States, settling in and around Steinbach, Manitoba, and Jansen, Nebraska. This social history shows how these conservative, German-speaking farm families adapted to an increasingly urbanized and industrialized world. Royden Loewen examines how the men and women of this immigrant group devised strategies to maintain familiar social structures and cultural patterns within a changing society. Because these Mennonites were highly literate, leaving a rich array of diaries, letters, and memoirs, their everyday lives and ethnic self-perceptions can be reconstituted in detail. Loewen's account tells of three generations of Mennonites for whom the farm family was the primary social unit. The sectarian, lay-oriented church congregation interpreted life's meaning and enforced strict social boundaries on the community level. These traditionalist aims were coupled with a sensitive adaptation to the market economy of the outside world.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 334-359) and index.