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By Tanner Simon '20
Collection Overview
Title: Karen Johnson-Weiner Amish Doll Collection, 1991-2011
ID: RG01/Art-0002
Extent: 19.0 Items
Arrangement: 19 dolls in 5 boxes.
Date Acquired: 08/25/2015
Scope and Contents of the Materials
Collection of cloth dolls primarily made by Swartzentruber Amish women. Item descriptions include notes from interview with Johnson-Weiner.
Collection Historical Note
As of 2018, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner is a Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology Emerita at SUNY Potsdam in Potsdam, NY, where she taught courses in linguistic anthropology. She received a B.A. in 1975 from Hope College (Holland, MI) and an M.A. from Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI) in 1976. She earned her Ph.D. in linguistics from McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) in 1984 and has been studying patterns of language use and cultural maintenance in Amish and Mennonite communities for over 30 years. Her first book, Train up a Child: Old Order Amish and Mennonite Schools, was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 2007, and her second, New York Amish: Life in the Plain Communities of the Empire State, in 2010 by Cornell University Press, with a second edition appearing in 2017. With Donald B. Kraybill and Steven M. Nolt, she is the author of The Amish (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). Johnson-Weiner has also authored a number of articles on Old Order language, culture, and education, including most recently articles on the importance of the 1972 Supreme Court decision in Wisconsin v. Yoder et al. for Amish education in the 21st century (JAPAS 2015) and on Amish women and entrepreneurship (American Studies Journal 2017).
Administrative Information
Repository:
Earl H. and Anita F. Hess Archives and Special Collections
Acquisition Source:
Karen Johnson-Weiner
Acquisition Method:
Young Center gift
Box and Folder Listing
Browse by Box:
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Box 1],
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Box 2],
[Box 3],
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Box 4],
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Box 5],
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- Box 3
- Item 5: Norfolk, NY male doll
- Norfolk, NY male doll, light blue shirt, black suspender pants, black knit cap, black shoes, this doll has arms and legs, body is tan color, 13.5” long.
- Item 6: Norfolk, NY female doll, circa 2003
- Norfolk, NY female doll, light blue dress, white pinafore, light blue bonnet, white socks and black boots, this doll has arms and legs, body is tan color, 14.5” long. Same pattern made by a woman named Lizzie Garber. At the time that she made these dolls, she was a single woman in her late 30’s, living in Norfolk Community. Notice shoes and diaper on female doll. Boy is wearing type of hat that Norfolk boys wear in winter. Lizzie left the Norfolk community and joined community in Somerset County, Ohio. That community split with some going to Kentucky and some to Missouri. The Missouri group later joined the Mennonites. They’re known as the Troyer Church. These Mennonites are conservative Hoover Mennonites. Karen went to visit Lizzie in Missouri—while picking watermelons Lizzie announced they “are no longer Amish.” They were building a church house. Renounced most machinery, but still using flashlights. Doll was purchased around 2003.
- Item 8: Female doll, 1991
- Female doll, porcelain face, arms and legs, blue dress, black apron and white knickers, face painted on and brown hair in bun at back of head, bun wrapped in black netting, purple and black quilt (10.5” square) and small Amish doll included (4.5” long). Certificate included states “Rebeccah” is the first issue in the Amish Blessing collection by artist Julie Good-Kruger for the Knowles China Company, certificate dated 12-31-1991. Doll size 11” long. A miniature quilt is included and is stored with certificate and the doll. Style of Lancaster Amish. Karen was intrigued by the handmade doll that this doll carries. Purchased at Picken’s General Store between 2011 and 2012.
Browse by Box:
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Box 1],
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Box 2],
[Box 3],
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Box 4],
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Box 5],
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