Description: This book "on the 'telephone troubles' of the Old Order Mennonites and Amish holds interest in itself and also illuminates the process of change among these 'plain people, ' who are often thought to be entirely frozen in early religious or sociological molds. . . . (The book) is enlivened by illustrative anecdotes and excerpts from interviews, newspaper stories, and a diary" (Hubert R. Pellman, Eastern Mennonite University).
Brief description: Diane Zimmerman Umble is a professor of communication at Millersville University, author of Holding the Line: The Telephone in Old Order Mennonite and Amish Life, and coeditor of Strangers at Home: Amish and Mennonite Women in History, both published by Johns Hopkins.
Review Quotes: Umble offers a historic perspective on how members of the close-knit communities and their leaders responded to the challenges posed by the intrusion of the telephone into long-standing traditions of work, silence, and visiting in the early 1900s . . . A book that is useful in fostering understanding of the origins, philosophy, and lifestyle of the Plain People and enjoyable for its often humorous account of what life was like in America before the telephone reached out and touched everyone.
--Harrisburg Patriot