Amana Colonies: 1932-1945

INTRODUCTION

The Amana Society originated as a Pietist religious sect in southwestern Germany in 1714. Founded by Eberhard Ludwig Gruber (1665–1728) and Johann Friedrich Rock (1678–1749), the sect was known as the Community of True Inspiration because its members believed that God still communicated his will directly to his people through certain pious and specifically gifted Werkzeuge, or instruments. Scribes followed these instruments and recorded revelations as they were spoken. Typically, revelations were admonitions toward greater piety and faithfulness among believers; sometimes they chastised an individual for transgressions, and sometimes testimonies were prayers or short sermonettes focusing on a particular passage of scripture.

Like many other Pietists, the Inspirationists were pacifists, did not believe in swearing legal oaths, and dressed and lived plainly. Through the almost constant travels of its chief Werkzeug, J.F. Rock, the sect eventually had over 90 small congregations scattered through southern Germany, Alsace, Switzerland, and Saxony. With Rock’s death in 1749, the sect was left without an inspired leader, although his former scribe Paul Nagel and other associates provided stable leadership, which allowed the sect to survive without a charismatic leader.

By 1817, however, the sect was in serious decline when a new Werkzeug, Michael Kraussert (c. 1788–?) emerged. He was soon joined by Barbara Heinemann (1795–1883) and finally, by Christian Metz (1793–1867). Kraussert fell into disrepute and left the sect, and Heinemann ceased to deliver revelations following her marriage, leaving Christian Metz as the sect’s primary leader by 1823. Metz traveled throughout the German territories visiting and reviving Inspirationist congregations.

Beginning in 1826, as political and religious tensions made it difficult for Inspirationists to remain in particular areas, Metz began to lease large estates in the region of Hessen Darmstadt as refuges for the faithful. Approximately 400 of the faithful eventually congregated on the estates.

In 1842, Metz delivered a testimony that instructed the Inspirationists to immigrate to the United States. Later that fall, Metz and three associates traveled to New York state and eventually located and began the purchase of a 5,000-acre tract of land on the Buffalo Creek Indian Reservation near Buffalo, New York. Beginning in 1843, the faithful departed for the United States, with 800 having arrived at the site named Eben-Ezer by 1846. Eventually, continued immigration would swell the six small villages established on land in New York and later on two tracts in Canada to over 1,200 people.

The community adopted a communal form of living as a temporary measure to enable it to become established. In 1846, the society adopted a constitution making communal living permanent. Under this system, land, shops, factories, and houses were community property, church elders assigned workers jobs on the farms or in the factories and craft shops, and members ate together in assigned communal kitchens and dining halls.

The Eben-Ezer Society, as it was known, prospered. The growing city of Buffalo, the increasing cost of land, and continued emigration, however, put tremendous pressure on the society. In 1854, Metz again declared that the time had come to relocate. After an abortive attempt to find a suitable location in Kansas, a committee located a site in Iowa. In June 1855, a third committee began purchasing what eventually totaled 26,000 acres of land along the Iowa River in east central Iowa.

The new settlement was named Amana, a biblical term meaning remain true, and received a charter as the Amana Society in 1859. Over a 10-year period, the society sold its property in New York and completely relocated to Iowa. Here, the members of the society created seven villages, each approximately an hour apart by oxcart and in the middle of its own farm: Amana (or Main Amana), East Amana, High Amana, Middle Amana, South Amana, West Amana, and Homestead. In the larger villages of Amana and Middle Amana, the society started factories, including two woolen mills and a calico print mill to produce cloth for the society and external sale.

Members above the age of 14 received assignments to work in the factories, on the farms, or in one of the many craft shops that were to be found in each village, including blacksmiths, wagon makers, carpenters, tinsmiths, broom makers, bakeries, dairies, a tannery, and flour mills. Women worked in one of the more than 50 communal kitchens in the seven villages, with each kitchen house under the direction of a manager or kitchen boss and preparing food for approximately 35 to 40 people. Mothers remained at home following the birth of children and then returned to work when the child was three and old enough to enter the village Kinderschule. From the ages of five to 14, children attended the school in their village.

Each evening, members of the society attended an evening prayer service; additional services on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays brought the total religious services each week to 11. Lay elders conducted the services, which included a cappella singing, readings from the testimonies of the early leaders, scripture readings, prayer, and commentaries by the elders.

Authority was vested in a governing board of 13 trustees elected each December from among the elders. Each village had one trustee with the six additional members allocated to each village according to its population. The trustees chose a president from their members. During the lifetimes of the last two Werkzeuge, Christian Metz and Barbara Heinemann, ultimate spiritual authority rested in them, although in business and social matters the trustees appear to have always held ultimate authority.

In 1881, the society achieved its highest population—1,813 members. By the turn of the 20th century, the Amana Society was the largest communal society in the United States.

By the 1920s, serious cracks were apparent in the formidable communal structure. Over time, younger members of the society, frustrated at a lack of educational and work opportunities, left for the outside world. Visitors