Iowa TV Schooltime: Landmarks in Iowa History #2- Amana

TV Schooltime the Iowa State Teachers College presents another program in the Iowa TV Schooltime series Landmarks in Iowa History, today's topic is Amana your teachers Herb Hake of Iowa Hello boys and girls this is a cold one again today, isn't it? Almost too cold to take pictures but whenever I visit a landmark in Iowa I always like to take some pictures today I took a picture with a filter on my lens you know why I use that? Because if you put a filter over the lens it darkens the sky now you see this building back here is made out of stone and it's the light gray and in order to make that building stand out against the sky to use a green or a yellow filter and that darkens the sky makes the more attractive picture you know what this building is? This is the church at Amana now when you say Amana it may be a little confusing unless you realize that there are seven villages and only one of them has just the one name the central village where the offices of the Amana of Society are located is called just Amana and all the other villages have an adjective in front of the word Amana like Easter Amana or Middle Amana or Western Amana but this one is just Amana every one of these villages has a church and the villages with the exception of Amana have red brick churches but this one in Amana in the central village is made of stone and this is my favorite because it has the old original stone in it stone quarried here near Amana a long time ago and here it still stands as firm as the rock from which it was built now Amana that is the Amana colony is a German community and has been for over a hundred years many times we think of Germans in the way that they are shown in cartoons with big bushy mustaches that are used straining beer and we think of them as eating sauerkraut and knockwurst and things like that but Germans particularly the Germans who live here in Amana are good American citizens and we mustn't make the mistake of thinking that Germans are a special kind of people and that you can always recognize a German when you see him because he had a big mustache and because he's carrying a beer stein now I bought this beer stein in Amana because I think it's a very attractive cup very attractive stein and it happens that this particular stein has uh an old German song on it hmm see the lettering on there [ Speaking in German] [Speaking in German] now our schnitzel box is a whittling bench as you see there at the top and there are many other things here and they're all labeled in German this is a Cortland Blanc here's a hint on hair a swing going back and forth here's a crutch link where a sawhorse and all of these things are parts of an old German song but the reason I'm showing you this is that just because the Germans like to drink beer and not just Germans like to drink beer either as you may have noticed on television but just because the Germans like to drink beer and have these beautiful signs out of which to drink it is no sign that all Germans are beer guzzlers and you shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that if you go to Amana you'll see everybody waving a sign and drinking beer there are other ideas about the Germans which are equally false let me show you one of them put up my drawing board here we must not make the mistake of thinking that just because people are of German origin that they all look alike let me draw a question mark here and we'll see if we can get some kind of an idea about Germans from that what does a typical German look like you suppose we can answer that question by looking at this question mark and developing it a little bit well let me show you that cartoons do not always give you a true answer because I can make a cartoon of a German out of this out of one kind of a German and I'm sure that your father or your elder brother and or your uncle or someone may have told you at some time about a very mean and brutal German whose name was Adolf Hitler and who caused a lot of suffering throughout the world and this was a German now the people in Amana are not like Hitler as a matter of fact the people who settled Amana left Germany because they didn't like the kind of things that men like Hitler represented a long time before Hitler was born these people who settled Amana left Germany because they didn't like the Prussian army system they didn't like this idea that everybody had to serve in the German army and that the German state was based upon this idea of warfare and of dominating other people in Europe because of this idea of fighting they didn't like fighting now of course Hitler believed in conquering the world through war he believed that the Germans were a super race well the Germans who came to Amana didn't have any ideas like that they were religious people religion was the most important thing in their lives and because the old Germany that they left was war-like they decided to come to America and get away from all that so don't confuse the people in Amana with Germans like Hitler it's a good thing we don't have many Germans like this because if we did we would be in Wars all the time well I wanted to say this at the beginning so when we talk about the Germans who live here in Amana you won't be thinking about the kind of Germans that we see in cartoons so many times cartoons are fun to watch but they are not always very faithful now let's talk a little bit about how this Amana colony came to be established here in well that chalk of Hitler over there how this Amana colony came to be established in Iowa in 17th and 18th centuries there was a group of German mystics or pietistic who didn't like the idea of serving in the army or taking the oath of loyalty to the Prussian Army system and so a little bit later on in the 19th century a man named Christian Metz a carpenter who lived in run aboard Germany had a vision and in this vision he was told to cross the ocean and take his people to the New World to America and in 1842 he came to this country with a small group and they found an old Indian Reservation near Buffalo New York and they decided to buy it eight thousand acres an old Seneca Indian Reservation and in a few years this became quite a settlement now the idea that Christian Metz had was that the community should be founded upon religious ideas that all who believed were gathered together and held everything in common now this was what was called religious communism this is not to be confused with the kind of communism we have in Russia today this religious communism was founded upon the church the church was the all-powerful body and it controlled not only the the religion of the people but also everything they did and they owned everything together there was no rich man no poor man everyone had the same and they all worked toward the same end well they were happy here in this little community which was called Ebenezer but as more and more people came from Germany the 8,000 acres proved to be too small and they didn't like this idea of being so close to Buffalo because a big city had many temptations for the young people and so Christian Metz sent some men out further west to look over the land they went first to a place in Kansas and they didn't like that so well and they came back to Ebenezer and reported the Christian Metz and Christian Metz said well look again look in Iowa and so they went to Iowa and they found a beautiful place here on the Iowa River and they bought 18,000 acres here in 1854, 12 years after they had settled in Ebenezer the land here in Ebenezer was sold and in a few years all the people had left Ebenezer and moved to this place in Iowa on the Iowa River I can show you the location of the Amana Colonies a little better on this map of Iowa here is Amana on the Iowa River about 20 miles northwest of Iowa City here is Iowa City which was at that time the capital of Iowa well in a few years this became a quite a thriving community and this was chosen because there was good land for farming there were materials for building there was a stone quarry nearby native stone which could be quarried for buildings there was clay which could be made into brick and there was a great deal of timber which could be used for lumber so all of these things proved very effective and it was not near a large city and so Christian Metz said this is an ideal place we will draw a circle around ourselves here and keep the world out and we will live our life of religious faith and devotion in this area and he decided to call it Amana a name which comes from the Song of Solomon and it means [German phrase] in the German words or remain faithful in other words remain faithful to the ideals of our faith now the Amana colony is not just one village sometimes we hear people refer to the Amana Colonies as though there were several colonies well the colony is the whole thing that is a the combination of villages the villages which are combined into one society here we are today this is Amana this is the central village this is the place where the society offices are located and then there are six other villages and they take their names from the location that they have with reference to the central village here for example is East Amana because it lies farthest to the east now the people who live in the Amana colony don't say East Amana they just say East for example someone in Amana may say I think I'll drive over to East for a few minutes and that means he's going to drive over to East Amana or he may say I'm going to drive over to Middle or I'm going to drive to West and that means the people who know that they are going to Middle Amana or to Western Amana and so on so here is East here is Amana here is Middle where the Freezer Factory is located here is High Amana so-called because it's on the highest elevation of land in this whole colony here is West because it lies farthest to the west and here is south now South is broken into two parts there is lower south because it lies in a little Valley here on highway 6 this dark black line here is highway 6 goes to Iowa City in this direction and Marengo is over this way and then a mile further toward the south there is upper south Upper South Amana this is where the bakery is located so when you hear a reference to lower south that means the the main village where the church for South Amana is located and where the village is located there's a sandwich shop here right on the highway and when you hear reference to Upper South that means the bakery this is the only one of the villages that doesn't have the name named Amana in it this is homestead in 1861 the Mississippi and Missouri railroad came from Iowa City to this point and the people in Amana who had drawn this circle around themselves in order to keep the world out discovered that they couldn't completely keep the world out and so they decided that the railroad would give them a chance to send their products from their mills and factories to the outside world and you know what they did they bought the whole town they just bought this whole town of homestead railroad station and all and this became the seventh village this is homestead the name homestead was given to it by the railroad company and of course we don't have the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad now this is the Rock Island lines now and this is a branch of the Norwalk erode that goes on up to Cedar Rapids so these are the seven villages East Amana Amana Middle Amana High Amana West Amana South Amana consisting of lower south and upper south and homestead that is the colony now there are many books that tell you the story of Amana this is the best one in my judgment this was written by Bertha M. Shambal and it is called a manner that was and a manner that is the reason for that title is that until 1932 the Amana colony maintained this religious communism the elders were the governing body not only for the church but also for the farm life the factory life everything that went on in the seven villages and then people came in to the Amana colony to see the customs of the people who lived there you see they the families all lived in separate houses but they didn't take their meals there in each village there was a community dining hall and many as sixty people would eat there and the women all took turns preparing the food and washing the dishes and so on and everyone ate there in these community dining halls because they owned everything in common those that believed were gathered together and held everything in common the houses belong to the society but families lived in them separately you see but everything was a spirit of religious communism well the tourists came in to see all this the radio brought news of activities out in the world at large the young people got a little restless and so in 1932 it was decided after much prayer and consideration to give up communism and to adopt capitalism and all the people who lived in the Amana colony were given shares of stock in the Amana society and even though there is still this combination of activity all toward a common goal the families now earn salaries you see and get dividend from their shares of stock and the young people can go out into the world and and developed careers of their own instead of just staying within this colony and following in their father's footsteps Bills Uber for example who has a restaurant at Homestead now went off to become a picture for the New York Yankees and there were other people who followed careers of their own in the old days that would never have been done they were the stayed right in the community and have been a part just of the life of the colony so Amana that is refers to the capitalistic society which is now the rule in Amana and has been since 1932 now there are some very interesting magazines here is The Iowan for July 1954 the Amana issue and if you write to the offices of The Iowan magazine in Shenandoah Iowa you may still be able to get a copy of this The Iowan magazine and this is filled with stories and pictures about Amana price is 35 cents here is the Palimpsest for June 1950 also completely devoted to the story of Amana a Palimpsest as you know and as I have often told you is the magazine of the State Historical Society in Iowa City and you may still be able to get a copy of this for 25 cents then there is the story of Amana which is published by the Amana Society itself and you can get this by writing to the Amana Society in Amana Iowa and send 25 cents for this now let me show you a few pictures this was the home of Christian Metz the founder of Amana and this is typical Amana architecture built of brick or stone close clip eaves no decoration on the outside this porch was added many years later here is the trellis on the side most of these houses had trellis on them for grapes and at the time Christian Metz lived there this TV antenna wasn't on there this is something that has come in since 1932 here is a painting of John of a man I made by John Noi the famous Amana painter they're dead now but there are many paintings by John Moyer which are still to be seen on the walls of the restaurant in Amana this is a typical Amana architecture notice the stone this is native stone and here is the Amana freezer plant you see and here are many commercials about Amana freezers on television now this factory is the only one in the Amana colony which is no longer owned by the Amana Society this was sold in 1950 through outside interests but the people of Amana still work here this is the freezer factory at Middle Amana and here is the winery here is where Colin a wine is made and sold on the commercial market looks just like an ordinary house there in Amana but the wine press and so on are back here and here is a typical farmstead as you drive through the Amana villages and there are about 25,000 acres in the Amana Colony now you'll be impressed by the fact that there are no farm houses all the people who work the farms live in these villages then they go out to work the farms and the barns and silos and machine sheds and so on are on the edge of the villages now farming is still the most important thing in Amana of these 25,000 acres 19,500 are devoted to the cultivation of crops and for pasture five thousand acres are devoted to timber and the timber of course is used for making the fine Amana furniture now that doesn't leave much left in the total of twenty five thousand acres of it 19500 for farming five thousand for timber how much is left five hundred acres right now this must include the 160 acre lake all the factory sites the place for the villages and the roads we see mainly this is farming community they have about 5,000 cattle the beetle is Hereford and dairy cattle is Holstein have about 500 Holstein cows after you milk and they have 8,000 hogs to provide raw materials for the meat market and of course the the farming is such an important thing that the products from Amana it is the meat product and the bread baked goods and so on are so important that this becomes a very vital part of the whole operation now I'd like to have you see briefly some movies that I took several years ago when I visited Amana and this will show you some of the other activities in the Amana villages Mr. Bork has that film in Ames so if you can hear me Mr. Bork if you already here we go here is they will um no this is the oldest Factory in the Amana colony the people who settled Amana that is the members of the community of True Inspiration operated a woolen mill in Germany as early as 1838 and so it was natural that they brought their they would bring their crafts to this country this is the woolen mill which is located in Amana on a canal which is seven miles long and which the founders of Amana dug by hand between the years 1865 and 69 and I see it powers this mill provides at least some of the power the canal was dug between a bend in the Iowa River on the west through the Iowa River on the east this again is the woolen mill I took this in the summer that's why the windows are open they're all closed today and if you look in the background you can see the Amana cabinet shop where the fine furniture made out of solid walnut and cherry is made here is the store and the newer building coming into the picture there is the office of the Amana Society there in the background is the home of Christian Metz and as we grow across the street here we see the Oxyoke Inn there are three famous in eating establishment in Amana the Run Aboard, the Oxyoke Inn and the colony notice the stone there 1858 if that were in the corner that would be a corner stone with them but it's in the gable instead so it's a gable storm this is a typical Amana store and here we see the old and the new side-by-side the old building erected in 1858 and here the officers of the Amana Society right next door there's the main office and here is that lake that I mentioned a moment ago in July this 160 acre lake which is between Amana and Middle Amana is covered with blooms yellow lotus lilies and this is a site that is worth traveling many miles to see you can tell this is a movie because there are birds flying over it now if you look in the background there you can see the water tank of the Freezer Factory coming into the picture here in just a minute there it is that's the Freezer Factory in middle this is a beautiful lake and here is a cemetery every village had this Cemetery this is the one for Amana notice that all the stones are the same size showing that there is no difference and they're all considered to be alike in the eyes of God there's only one stone that looks a little bit different than the others and I'll show you that in just a minute have a close up here coming up now that is a typical stone there's another and the last stone here is the one that marks the final resting place of Christian Metz and that is white that is the only distinction now I wish I could show you some of the products made here in Amana but I got here too late this morning and I didn't have time to gather them all together so you'll have to visit Amana and see them for yourself next week we are going to the scene of the Spirit Lake Massacre so I hope you will be with me there until next week goodbye today no teacher has been perfect Abajo State Teachers College Latin Iowan history is produced for Iowa TV Schooltime by WOY TV an association with Iowa State Teachers College TV school time is presented daily Monday through Friday at 10:30 a.m. by the Iowa joint committee for educational television