Robert Weingarten: Another America

For four years, Robert Weingarten photographed Amish communities in Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin. In 80 photographs, Another America captures the beauty and simplicity of a way of religious life that has been sustained for more than three centuries. Descendants of the followers of Jakob Ammann, a Swiss Mennonite bishop of the seventeenth century, the Amish came to America in the early eighteenth century in search of religious freedom. The Amish have their roots in the Mennonite community. Both were part of the early Anabaptist movement in Europe, which took place at the time of the Reformation. The Anabaptists believed that only adults who had confessed their faith should be baptized, and that they should remain separate from the larger society. They uphold basic Bible doctrines, believe strictly in following Christ's example of nonviolence and stress humility, family and community. Many early Anabaptists were put to death as heretics by both Catholics and Protestants, and others fled to the mountains of Switzerland and southern Germany. Here began the Amish tradition of farming and holding worship services in homes rather than churches.