Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Old Colony Mennonite Women's Lives In Mexico From The 1920s To The 1940s, Rebecca Janzen

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

This article explores documents and photographs that record the migration of two Old Colony Mennonite women from Canada to Mexico in the 1920s. It focuses on the lives of two women, Sara Wiebe and Anna Enns, and their families. The archival materials document their arrival and travel companions. This study illustrates a researcher’s ability to analyze a limited archival record to broaden our understanding of Mennonite immigration to Mexico and the role of women in the Mennonite community at this time. Not only do these archival documents help us understand how women helped establish villages and schools in ways that …

Working Together: Women And Men On The Amish Family Farm In 1930s Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Katherine Jellison, Steven Reschly

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Old Order Amish men did not own gasoline tractors or other large power farm implements to amplify their manhood, and Amish women did not own mechanical household appliances to symbolize their feminine role as housekeepers. Rejecting the notion of mechanized, capital-intensive agriculture in favor of traditional, labor-intensive family farming, the Old Order Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, practiced a system of labor that necessarily required the crossing of strict gender-role boundaries. Although men primarily identified as farmers and women as homemakers, agricultural success among the Amish necessitated a significant degree of cooperation and mutual labor. In the words of one …

Books And Imaginary Being(S): The Monstrosity Of Library Classifications, Melissa Adler, Greg Nightingale

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Thomas Jefferson sold his personal library and its classified catalog to the Library of Congress after the original library was burned in the War of 1812. He viewed the act of submitting his collection to the U.S. Congress as a means to inscribe his legacy and political agenda into the intellectual and cultural realm of the nation. Jorge Luis Borges was both a municipal librarian and the Librarian for the National Library of Argentina, as well as a prolific fiction and poetry writer. Borges’s fictions are a kind of catalogue in and of themselves, in which all books, all ideas, …

Art Is Data Is Art, Nicole Orchosky

Student Projects from the Archives

The Digital Humanities field is rapidly introducing new and innovative ways in which we can analyze and explore large bodies of humanities material in order to make new discoveries and connections. This project serves as an introduction on how to use simple Digital Humanities tools to examine a dataset. In this project, data collected about the body of artwork exhibited in the 1913 Armory Show like medium, subject, or year of creation is analyzed using three different free-to-use tools. The data is then presented in a visual format that brings new questions and connections to light. The limitations and frustrations …

A Prized Memento Of The Civil Way: Joseph Abbott's "Lightning Brigade" Medal, James Brenner

Student Projects from the Archives

This silver medal commemorates Joseph N. Abbott's Civil War service with Wilder's Lightning Brigade, 1861-1865. The engraving on the reverse reads, "Jos. N. Abbott, Co. B, 98th Illinois. Dating to about 1887, these medals were features at post-war veterans' reunions.

Mcguffey's Second Eclectic Reader, Lisa Van Gaasbeek

Student Projects from the Archives

McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader

By: Lisa M. Van Gaasbeek

This article focuses on the life of William H. McGuffey and how he created his series of eclectic readers for children in school.

The Story Behind My Uncle's Copy Of Il Milione, Janos M. Jalics

Student Projects from the Archives

In 1983, a 1948 copy of Marco Polo’s Travels was given to my Uncle Laci by my Great-Aunt Kristi and Great-Uncle Paul. It was translated by William Marsden. The story of this book is surrounded by adventure.

Recovering Thirty-Five Years Of A Factory Worker's Life, Kristie Zachar

Student Projects from the Archives

The Westinghouse Electric Corporation's plant in Sharon, Pennsylvania operated from the 1920s till the 1980s and saw a number of significant events during that period. This article uses a belt buckle that was given to one company employee as a 35-year service award, and it explores the historical significance of the object by focusing on the major events its owner was involved in during those 35 years. It looks closer into the life of one Westinghouse employee while also exploring significant events that influenced the company itself as well as the small town of Sharon, Pennsylvania.

Hot Dog Vs. Christian Fundamentalism In 1920s America, Nicole Orchosky

Student Projects from the Archives

Hot Dog: the Regular Fellow’s Monthly was a satirical magazine published by the Merit Publishing Company in Cleveland, Ohio throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Editor Jack Dinsmore included crudely humorous short stories and poems, images of scantily clad women, and editorials and opinion pieces offering his own commentary on current events. In the case of the December 1921 issue, Dinsmore offers scathing criticism of religious Prohibition supporters, namely Billy Sunday and Reverend John Roach Straton. This paper examines how an opinionated independent publication representative of its anti-Prohibition readership reacted to the Temperance Movement and subsequent outspoken Fundamentalist Christian figureheads.

Review Of Together In The Work Of The Lord: A History Of The Conservative Mennonite Conference—Nathan Yoder, Marcus Yoder

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Nathan Yoder provides a history of the Conservative Mennonite Conference (CMC) from its inception early in the twentieth century to its present situation. Yoder, professor of church history at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, has his own history in the CMC, and while no longer affiliated with the conference, he is a child of the conference. This is evidenced by the first-hand knowledge in which he describes the origins and life of the Conference, which is both refreshing and revealing of the book’s intent. It is refreshing in that it allows an “insider’s view” of the workings of the conference, absent in …

Review Of Auker, Kenneth. 2013. Keeping The Trust: Issues Surrounding The Formation Of The Eastern Pennsylvania Mennonite Church. Ephrata, Pa: Eastern Mennonite Publications. Pp. 320., John L. Ruth

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Keeping the Trust, written by Kenneth Auker, fulfills its stated purposes: to preserve, explain, and interpret the founding story and convictions of the Eastern Pennsylvania Mennonite Church, in order to “maintain a vision for the future.” As such, it is a useful book for readers both within and beyond the EPMC. It places on record and gives access to a conservative view of defining events that in a half century are becoming “blurred” memories. Whereas “mere memories” may well have become—for many potential readers within and beyond the fellowship—mere curiosities, it freshly articulates convictions once deeply and more widely …

Review Of Nolt, Steven. 2015. A History Of The Amish [3rd Ed.]. New York, Ny: Good Books. Pp. 406., Dorothy Pratt

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

In recent years, the Amish have become surprisingly popular in American culture. Books, television shows, and movies expose the curious to a relatively unknown religious sect, though most of these productions have little to do with the real lives of the Amish. Twenty years ago a very young man from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Steven Nolt, produced a well-documented handbook giving the history of the Amish and explaining their many schisms and subsequent sub-groups. A new third edition of the study provides verification of the popularity of the group as well as the skill of Nolt in explaining their history to a …

Review Of Stauffer, Romaine. 2014. The History Of Mid-Atlantic Mennonite Fellowship. Mid-Atlantic Mennonite Fellowship. Pp. 145., Jennifer Anderson

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

In 2012, Mid-Atlantic Fellowship (MAF)—a conservative Mennonite group rooted in southeastern Pennsylvania—felt a need to document the history of the constituency before many of the charter members of the church passed on. The result is a handsome, full-color, hardcover volume of 145 pages of church, ministerial, and ministry program profiles, with full-color photos of church buildings, active and former ministry, and some snapshots of mission ministry activities. The book is broken into four sections: the history of the Mid-Atlantic Fellowship, profiles of each church (the congregation and its current and former ministers), MAF choruses, and MAF ministries. [First paragraph]

Review Of Loewen, Royden. 2013. Village Among Nations: “Canadian” Mennonites In A Transnational World, 1916-2006. Toronto, On: University Of Toronto Press. Pp. 301., Kira Turner

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Intent on preserving their deep-seated beliefs and values, the most conservative of the Russian Mennonites (Old Colony) made their way to Western Canada with promises of religious freedom, exemption from military service, the right to maintain their distinctive Low German language, and the right to educate their children within their own schools. However, in the early 1900s, Canada was changing and developing its own cultural and nationalistic identity. Under threat of compulsory attendance at public schools, and drawing from past experiences of governments retracting special dispensations afforded to the Mennonite population, Old Colony religious leaders, fearing what was to come, …

Review Of Bailey, Keith. 2009. They Counted The Cost: The History Of The Dunkard Brethren Church From 1926 To 2008. Dunkard Brethren Church Board Of Publication. Pp. 535., Dale Savage

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

A book dedicated to the history of the Dunkard Brethren Church was a long time in coming. Although a desire for such a book was expressed and moved upon by the Standing Committee of the church’s Annual Conference as early as 1984, the fruition of that action was not realized until published in 2009. During that period of time, much historical material and data was collected by various individuals, of which two were Frank Reed and Shirley Frick. In one sense, Keith Bailey was more of the editor in putting together this denominational history rather than its author. This is …

A Quiet Diversity In The Land: Mennonites In Ontario, Mark Louden

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Reviews of:

Draper, Barb. 2010. The Mennonites of St. Jacobs and Elmira: Understanding the Variety. Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press. Pp. 378.

Martin, Donald. 2003. Old Order Mennonites of Ontario: Gelassenheit, Discipleship, Brotherhood. Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press / Herald Press. Pp. 381.

Steiner, Samuel. 2015. In Search of Promised Lands. A Religious History of Mennonites in Ontario. Kitchener, ON: Herald Press. Pp.877.

For over two centuries, the Anabaptist presence in Ontario has been a visible part of the province’s religious, social, and cultural landscape. Readers interested in understanding the diversity of Mennonite and Amish groups in Ontario, past …

Review Of Veen, Mirjam Van, Piet Visser, And Gary Waite. 2014. Sisters: Myth And Reality Of Anabaptist, Mennonite, And Doopsgezind Women, Ca. 1525-1900. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill., Berit Jany

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Agent of the devil, harlot, martyr, marriage breaker, and devout maiden are some of the images attributed to Anabaptist women from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. These diverse pictures from a wide array of perspectives were the focus of attention of the conference “Myth and Reality of Anabaptist / Mennonite Women in Continental Europe ca. 1525-1900” held at the Free University of Amsterdam in 2007. Scholars came together to explore the images of Anabaptist women in Europe across the centuries. Those scholars in attendance from across Europe included Piet Visser, Mirjam P.A. de Baar, Mirjam van Veen, and Nicole …

Review Of Stoltzfus, Duane. 2013. Pacifists In Chains: The Persecution Of Hutterites During The Great War. Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press., Donald Eberle

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Duane C. S. Stoltzfus states in the Preface that the story of brothers Michael, David, and Joseph Hofer and Joseph’s brother-in-law Jacob Wipf, “contributes significantly to one of the darker chapters of this period of American history.” Nearly 100 years later this, story is surprisingly and sadly relevant. In the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001 the United States, “swept up suspects, the innocent and true warriors alike” and “descended into the ranks of nations that systematically torture prisoners.” While the historical parallels are not exact as they never are, they are nonetheless disturbing. [First paragraph]

Review Of Ehnle, Kurt, And Jane Ehnle. 2011. Heritage Of Faith: A History Of The Church With An Apostolic Christian Focus. Fairbury, Il: Heritage Press., John Swartz

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Heritage of Faith is a 367 page ten-unit high school level course prepared for students in Apostolic Christian Church schools and homes. The first three units cover church history from the time of Christ through the Reformation. Units four through eight concentrate on Apostolic Christian Church (ACC) history. Unit nine is a brief history of how the Bible came to us, emphasizing the superiority of the King James Version. Unit ten is a history of hymnology with a focus on Zion’s Harp, the official ACC hymnal. [First paragraph]

Of One Divided Mind: Fundamental Causes Of The Nineteenth-Century Brethren Schism, 1850-1880, Daniel Weller

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Historical research involving the schism within the German Baptist Brethren Church in the 1880s has only been found within broad, general histories of the church. The explanations given by historians relating to the cause of the split have previously centered on individuals and the church publications between 1850 and 1883, and on contemporaries who argued among themselves about whether to adopt practices common among surrounding American religions and society. No known project has focused directly on the content within the publications as it relates to the way these brethren used the Bible and other religious and spiritual rhetoric to substantiate …

A Brief History Of Amish Churches In Holmes County, Ohio, Anonymous

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

This article provides a brief history of several Amish church schisms in Holmes County during the 20th century. After a 1917 Diener Versammlung, Sam Yoder divided from the South Churches (Old Order) due to differences in Ordnung. Yoder was joined by additional families, including from Buchanan County, Iowa, and later more from the South Churches. The migrations and schisms of the Sam Yoder (Swartzentruber) people are detailed. The Dan Wengerd group split from the Sam Yoder church in 1922 and later rejoined the South Churches. Bishops Jacob Stutzman and Eli A. Troyer left the South Churches and joined Yoder in …

Black Psychology: A Forerunner Of Positive Psychology, Aaron Bethea

Psychology from the Margins

Abstract

The core virtues of positive psychology are very similar to the psychological strengths of African Americans in Black psychology. The psychological strengths of African Americans, however, did not receive as much attention in the field as the core virtues of positive psychology. Although these virtues are very similar, they were produced in different social, historical contexts and for different purposes. The tenets of Black psychology were created within a population that was being resilient in the face of oppression, the core virtues of positive psychology produced within a society that had the luxury of focusing on thriving and flourishing. …

The History Of Lobotomies: Examining Its Impacts On Marginalized Groups And The Development Of Psychosurgery, Simon Godin, Brett Leblanc

Psychology from the Margins

Frontal lobotomies, which are defined as the lesioning of the frontal lobe from the rest of the brain, were performed extensively from the 1930s to the 1960s in Europe and the United States, significantly impacting psychology and psychosurgery. The history of frontal lobotomies features many different practitioners with diverse methods; however, the overwhelming majority of popular lobotomists committed unethical actions by today’s standards that led to the direct marginalization of specific demographics. Using a framework guided by an exploration of those historically disempowered by the performance of lobotomies, this review article traces the lobotomy’s historical progression, focusing on the unethical …

Understanding The Work Experiences Of Gender And Sexual Minorities: Advances, Issues, And New Directions In Research, Marc Cubrich

Psychology from the Margins

Our understanding of the histories of psychology and LGBTQ+ activism have only recently begun to become increasingly intertwined. Psychological science has been used to influence a number of domains including mental health policy, laws and judicial rulings, and attitudes towards social issues. While psychological science has advanced our understanding of these domains, there remains a need for research that examines the experiences of underrepresented groups (e.g., women, racial minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, etc.) across distinct aspects of their working lives. Issues of heterosexism, or anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes, prejudice, and discrimination, have received relatively little attention in industrial and organizational …

Towards An Eternity: Celebrating The Association Of Black Psychologists’ 50th Anniversary, Evan Auguste, Brittany M. Griffin

Psychology from the Margins

In response to the American Psychological Association’s practice of excluding Black students and marginalizing Black professionals, the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi) was formed. ABPsi is an organization essentially designed to help remedy the effects of racism and oppression on Black communities in America and throughout the diaspora. Through a tradition of anti-racist and Afrikan-centered research, activism, and teaching, ABPsi has significantly contributed to the advancement of the field of psychology and to the well-being of Black people in the 50 years since its inception. This article highlights the formation, work, and legacy of this organization.

A Historical Analysis Of The Vocational Guidance Of Women, Nuha Alshabani, Alejandra Gonzalez Lopez, Erika L. Graham, Samsara Soto

Psychology from the Margins

Abstract

The development of formal vocational guidance for women has been stalled by gender roles and expectations, restriction of occupational opportunities, and societal norms. Among women, the development of formal vocational guidance has also been stunted by racism and classism. A review of diverse women’s occupational experiences, vocational guidance, and utilization of interest inventories throughout the early to mid-1900s is provided. The impact of increased opportunities, social attitudes, and WWII on women’s occupation experience is explored. However, these opportunities mostly benefitted affluent White women, and the early literature contains little mention of diverse groups of women. During the first half …

One Man And One Wife? The Legal History Of Marriage In The Culture And Courts Of America, Tyler Speer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

For my honors thesis I will be writing on the legality and shifting attitudes of marriage throughout United States history. This thesis will explore three Supreme Court cases: Davis v. Beason (1890), Loving v. Virginia (1967), and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which explores polygamous, interracial, and homosexual marriages respectively. The full name of my thesis is "One Man and One Wife? The Legal History of Marriage in the Culture and Courts of America." The thesis will be upwards of fourty pages in length and will examine marriage from both historical and legal lenses and will be conducted through the History …

Honors Research Project: A Textbook Analysis, Nathan Barto

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper attempts to look at the use of The Human Odyssey: Volume Three not only as a potential educator, but as a historian as well. This paper examines the book for inaccuracies, American and European bias, as well as potential usability for educators

A Girl's Song: Recounting Women And The Nantucket Whaling Industry, 1750-1890, Natalie Mitchell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In this honors research project, I intend to explore the effect of the whaling industry on women who lived in the community on the island of Nantucket, as well as how they affected the industry. The period I will focus on is the end of the 18^th century through the middle of the 19^th century, because this was the height of the whaling industry in the United States and during the majority of this time span Nantucket was home to the most active American whaling port, making it advantageous to examine the island’s community for my research. This …

St. Augustine And St. Thomas Aquinas On The Mind, Body, And Life After Death, Christopher Choma

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Historical and philosophical investigation of the thoughts of two of philosophy's most innovative Christian thinkers. The thesis primarily deals with the relationship between the mind and the body through the lenses of St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas. Thesis also includes theological discussions of life after death, and how one can be certain that the soul survives the corruption of the body.