Family, Church, and Market : : A Mennonite Community in the Old and the New Worlds, 1850–1930 / / Royden Loewen.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Loewen, Royden,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2019]; ©1993
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Heritage
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (398 p.)

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 hsitory 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 decised strategies to maintain familiar social structures and cultural patters 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 were coupled with a sensitive adaptation to the market economy of the outside world.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- Part I. Kleine Gemeinde Mennonites in New Russia, 1850-74 -- Part II. Immigration and Settlement: Transplanting the Community, 1874-79 -- Part III. Strategies of Integration: The First Generation in North America, 1880-1905 -- Part IV. The Diverging Worlds of Farm and Town: The Second Generation, 1905-30 -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index