Using Amish Scribes’ Newspaper Letters to Portray the New Wilmington, PA, Amish Settlement

Kristin Park

Keywords

Lawrence County, PA; Byler Amish; local journalism; The Budget; Die Botschaft

Abstract

In studying distinctive ethnoreligious communities, it is preferable to listen to and analyze the voices of members themselves. This paper interprets the professed values, activities, and priorities of an understudied, hybrid Andy Weaver / Old Order Amish settlement using Amish scribes’ letters to two Amish and one non-Amish newspaper. Quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the newspaper letters discovered dominant themes of emotional expression, illness and accidents, visits, weather, and work and compared their prevalence across the newspapers. Amish newspapers were more emotionally expressive and highlighted members’ illness and injury while the non-Amish newspaper primarily focused on visiting, weather, and work. The study offers insight into the community’s presentation of itself to a plain audience compared to a primarily non-Amish audience. [Abstract by author.]

Recommended Citation

Park, Kristin. 2025. "Using Amish Scribes’ Newspaper Letters to Portray the New Wilmington, PA, Amish Settlement." Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies 13(1-2):17–28.