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--DRAFT--

Rural Hutterite Colonies: How does an isolated egalitarian community thrive in a

postmodern, post-industrial society?

Heres the deal. You will likely live longer, have better health, never go hungry, enjoy the company offamily and close friends round the clock, you will worship in an all engaging religious community, your welfare

will be assured from birth to death, you will be bilingual, you will not need to worry about paying the bills, youwont need the latest gadgets, and loud noises will emanate from a cappella choir practice, farm equipment and

thunder, but from nowhere else. The downside? Your work on a farm will be determined by your sex and yourage, so you may have no vote in colony decisions, and you will be expected to produce and raise a large family.

Because you know of little outside the colony, and you were raised within a strict religious village dominatedby an old guard patriarchy, you will have no choice. Having a high school education, you will possess few skills

marketable on the outside. You will be stuck. Is it worth the trade? Would you be willing to give up yourindividualism and the right to make your own choices for a guarantee of having your basic needs met for the

rest of your life? Is the security and certainty worth it?

The growth of bureaucracy and the problems associated with the structure of large scale human service

organizations (HSOs) have long been an issue among social work scholars. The rise of alternative institutionalforms that might be considered at the other end of the organizational continuum, such as food coops,neighborhood gardens, and the like, have been of more recent interest (Kanter 1976, Morris and Hess 1975,

Rothchild-Whitt 1978).

While some have championed the development of smaller, more local and cooperatively owned agencies(Zwerdling 1978), published studies have focused on small local agencies within a largely hostile neighboring

bureaucratic environment. Hence, discussions in the literature tend to compare and contrast two ends of acontinuum. Those involved in such counter-culture agencies are constantly faced with competing demands

from established systems. Competition for scarce funding and difficulties obtaining supportive resources arementioned as reasons that alternative smaller organizational forms do not survive.

Neighborhood Help Groups---------------------------------------------------------Large Bureaucratic HSOs

Hutterite colonies, on the other hand, represent an example of extreme alternative that may form another

branch, which has gone relatively unnoticed.

Neighborhood Help Groups---------------------------------------------------------Large Bureaucratic HSOs|

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Hutterite Brethren

This chapter examines the social organization of Hutterian Brethren, a communal agriculturalcommunity who have outlasted many other groups that attempted communal cooperative living in the US.

Having engaged in communistic form of separatist culture for the past several hundred years, communalHutterites of the north central plains in the US and Canada have survived by combining their ideology of a

religious community with strict norms and a commitment to a form of separatist fundamentalism sinceimmigrating to the US from Russia in the 1870s. A central question to be considered is: What can we learn

from third way rural communities that have survived by largely avoiding the surrounding social, cultural,political and economic environments, using rural isolation to buffer the demands of postmodern, mass society

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by sharing everything equally among members? This chapter describes the typical Hutterite Colonyorganization, examines how members solve a number of key social welfare concerns, and considers what

lessons might be learned from these communal groups for those of us unable and unwilling to make the trade.

One of the many Anabaptist groups that arose directly out of the Protest Reformation of the 16th

century,the Hutterian Brethren have survived as one of the few true communal groups in the US. Their history includes

a century in Moravia (formerly Czechoslovakia), two centuries in Hungary and nearly 100 years in Russia (3).The modern Hutterites derive their name from Jacob Hutter, who took his concept of gelassenheit (the

peaceful submission of individuals s to the larger group of believers, together forsaking private property) fromHubmaier (4). According to Hostetler It was Hutter, who, regarding himself as an apostle appointed by God,

firmly established the practice of communal living a means of salvation. The source of Hutters concept ofBruderhof (colony) is not knownbut it is known that the practice of communal living was nothing new in

Hutters time; there were other pacifistic communal groups in Bohemia and Moravia. (5).

Hutterites had lived in several different locations from the 1600s to the mid 1800s when they moved toRussia. In 1871, while farming in the Ukranian frontier, an edict was issued which nullified the Hutterian grant

of exemption form military service. As had been their pacifist tradition, the Hutterites fled this region andimmigrated to the US. After spending several years visiting other communal groups in the US seeking a

common arrangement, approximately one hundred families settled in the first Hutterite colony in the US, near

Yankton, SD, establishing the Bon Homme colony. The Hutterites who formed colonies along the James Riverbasin in South Dakota belong to a subgroup known as the Schmiedeleut (or smiths people). They have opened35 colonies in South Dakota. Two other Hutterite groups, somewhat more conservative are the Lederleut

(leaders people) and the Dariusleut (Darius people), who are more numerous in North Dakota, Montana,Minnesota and have established over fifty colonies in Canada.

The Hutterites familiar to the author settled in South Dakota in the 1870s and had few problems

adapting to the agricultural economy or difficult winters as they were familiar with both from their most recenthome in the Ukrane. The Hutterites were greeted upon their arrival in the Midwest as a hardworking group, the

Yankton Press and Dakotan said give this class of immigrants the best chance possible, for we have seenenough of their thrift and enterprise to convince us that they will make most desirable citizens Local

resentment arose however after the outbreak of World War I. Hutterites refused to buy war bonds, participate inpublic celebrations or consent to the military draft, and discontent soon followed.

A protest group known as the State Council for the Defense lobbied the SD state attorney generals

office to bring legal action to revoke the Hutterites articles of incorporation. This was a successful strategy asanti-Hutterite sentiment was increasing. Hutterites were now described as a menace to society for depriving

their children of the right to mingle with outsiders. Most of the existing Hutterites colonies sold their land andemigrated to Canada, where they remained until 1937, when they returned to SD. In 1930s the South Dakota

legislature revised the legal code to allow for the return of communal farming.as the Great Depression hadtake a heavy toll on the regional economy, and Hutterites were welcomed back. Since 1936, the Schideleut have

built 42 colonies (or Bruderhofs) in SD.

Each colony consists of approximately 5000 acres of farm land, a central complex of dwelling units(some families live in their own homes and others in duplexes or apartments), and livestock pens, barns and

other outbuildings, a school house a common dining hall and kitchen and church form the typical community.Only a limited number of families reside on a colony with perhaps between seventy and one hundred a fifty

people spread throughout ten to fifteen families. The average family might consist of a couple with ten children.

Hutterites have found from their experience that they maximum number of members per farm is aboutone hundred and fifty. Therefore, each colony plans on splitting or branching into two colonies whenever a

Bruderhof reaches its maximum capacity. This division makes up a major portion of colony time planning assuitable land must be located and purchased, buildings erected, sewage and utilities installed, equipment

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purchased. Funds for these efforts must therefore be saved, helping to account for the fact that little is left overfor personal consumption. If colony members agree on who will leave to begin a new settlement, families will

plan to elect new members to a council and new work roles will be allocated. If members cannot agree, nameswill be drawn from a hat to determine who will move and who will remain.

The new, or daughter, colony will receive considerable financial support from those remaining in the

mother colony, and workers from nearby settlements will assist with the production of new crops. A new colonytypically moves through several stages after leaving the mother farm. For the first several years a colony

typically has little additional income to invest in modern farm machinery. The use of up to date agriculturalequipment is one of the key ways Hutterites differ from other Anabaptist separatist groups that have settled in

the United States. Hutterites derive the largest share of their corporate income from the sale of farm produce.

The second stage may begin relatively early on during a daughter colonies life cycle, or it may takeseveral years before a colony is financially secure enough to stand on its own. Work on the farm, while arduous,

is not necessarily backbreaking and modern equipment and the ability to bring a large labor force together onfairly short notice means that barns, bridges and other buildings can be construct with maximum efficiency.

During the third stage, which may span a few years up to a maximum of twenty years, a typical colony

prospers, relatively speaking. For these last years before the next branching the colony enjoys the benefits of

more efficient mechanization and income and profits may accrue. During this period money and resources areacquired and saved for the next splitting.

Typically Hutterites grow most or all of their own food and only occasionally need to acquirepreservatives for preparing or storing food. Their canned supplies are intended to see them successfully through

the winter. They purchase large quantities of material for making their own clothes. Most colonies have accessto electricity, gas and other resources needed to provide heat. While the Hutterite Brethren shun the

accumulation of material wealth, they are careful to purchase sufficient supplies so as to keep members healthyand rested. As with some rural farming communities, some Hutterites colonies have outdoor toilet facilities.

The average couple may have as many as a dozen children. Hutterian religious beliefs place emphasis on

large families and pressures for reproductive success assure that colonies will grow in preparation forbranching. Until a child is old enough to enter kindergarten, she or he attends the colony German school. Here

the child is taught to read and write in German, learns Hutterite traditions and church history, and is socializedinto the Hutterite Brethren way of life. The child is raised to be God-fearing, to obey elders and eschew

personal wealth or luxury. Hard work is thought to be the essential ingredient to salvation, and time on earth isbut a temporary hardship. The influences of the external world are generally in absence, with newspapers,

television, radio, and the internet in short supply. Contact with outsiders, other than during colony visits or tripsto town, are to be avoided. A child lives at home with his or her parents, but is taught for the first several years

by the German teachers, typically one couple selected for this purpose. Children in German school typicallydine in a separate room, and spend a good bit of time learning to live as a group member.

By the time a child reaches school age, s/he is already familiar with Hutterian subculture. An elementaryschool is located on the colony and is maintained by the settlement. A public school teacher instructs children ina format typical of a one room rural school. Children are encouraged to continue their education only until age

15 or so, at which time they are expected to take on adult responsibilities. Children of school age have dailychores and participate as apprentices in adult work roles. Children for the most part are not exposed to radio,

television or other electronic media. They have learned from their various teachers what Hutterites consider tobe appropriate knowledge of the larger world. An occasional trip to a nearby colony or local market is the only

official contact children have with life on the outside.

After completing school, a young male will be given a seat in the adult dining hall. He will sit with themen on one side of the room. When he is judged by the elder members to be competent in the ways of the

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Bruderhof, he will be baptized as a full adult member of the colony. He will be expected to participate fully inthe affairs of the colony while working at one or two jobs. He may be a mechanic, teacher, business manager or

he may be put in charge of pigs, cattle or chickens. Although he will be capable of handing many of the adultmale work roles, he will likely specialize in one or two tasks. If he is put in charge of crops, he will manage

planning and harvesting, attend inter-colony meetings to learn of new developments, and he will be expected toexperiment himself. Innovation in matters pertaining to agriculture is rewarded, where the latest developments

are welcomed. He will received much help from his elders and their advice will weight heavily in his decisions.

A young Hutterite woman in school will be expected to be learning adult female roles. She will tend tothe young children, learn to cook in the colony kitchen and begin thinking about finding a mate. She will be

expected to marry a young man from a nearby colony as most Hutterites are endogamus within the HutteriteBrethren as a whole but exogamous within leuts. Thus a young woman of Scheideleut heritage will likely marry

someone also of Scheideleut background. When she marries she will follow her partner back to his colony aspatrilocal residence and family building is traditional in Hutterite colonies. She will receive a small hope chest

when she marries. She will not wear jewelry, there will be no engagement or wedding rings. Her husband willgrow a bread as a sign he is married. She will be in her early twenties when she married and will be expecting to

raise a large family.

This Hutterite woman will take her place in a large contingent of women whose roles in the colony, like

those of her husband, reflect the age and gender obligations found in folk societies. She will rise early in themorning, help to prepare breakfast in the dining hall, and she will have completed many of her morning choresfairly early on. Her duties on any give day include tending to the gardens, sewing and mending, shopping at a

local store. She, like others in the community will receive a small monthly allowance, perhaps as little as a fewdollars. The guiding communal principle is that material wealth leads to invidious comparison and is ultimately

the root of all evil. She will not vote in formal matters but is likely to wield influence through her partner. Shewill sit with the other women on the right side of the church, and because services are held every day she will

spend a good bit of her time there. She will likely sing with her age cohorts in a local or inter-colony combinedchoir, as singing is an important part of Hutterite worship as well as daily life. As younger women enter church

age, she will move toward the back of the church with other older female members, in time, reaching the backrows. She will of course recognize if someone is being punished, as someone under penalty may be required to

stand up in church, and with daily church services, such punishment is rarely necessary.

This Hutterite woman will likely never divorce nor will she remember a case of a Hutterite couplesplitting up. She will experience fewer illnesses, live longer and healthier than her age cohorts who do not live

on colonies or in rural areas in general. Like all colony members she will not smoke or drink, although she mayhave an occasional glass or wine or beer, save for special colony gatherings such as a wedding.

This woman will teach her children about Hutterite tradition with special emphasis on the life and

persecution of Jacob Hutterite, the colonys namesake. She will know mostly oral tradition surroundingHutterite move to the US, and will be largely ignorant of political and economic issues. She will want the lives

of her children to differ in no way from her own. She will dress her children in traditional black clothing with

bonnets for women and hats for men. Her daughters will learn that women cannot hold elective office within thecolony or vote on colony matters, but rather hope to effect change from behind the scenes.

All adult members of the colony participate in many of the decision making processes. Adults elect apreacher, who is the spiritual and corporate leader of the Bruderhof. The preacher usually represents the colony

in the official matters of the region, with non-Hutterite communities, and within the larger Leut structure. Theminister is often the chief arbiter and disciplinarian. A council consists of 5-7 men who are elected by the other

member to serve in an executive capacity. The council sits facing the larger colony during meetings and makespractical day to day decisions. A council usually consist of a minister, the business manager or steward, various

farm bosses who serve generally for life terms.

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In addition, an informal council consists of most adult males in the colony who come togetherthroughout the day for meals and common work tasks. A strong work ethic pervades colony life so seasonal

adjustments in work loads assures that everyone stays busy. All baptized members of the colony make up theGemein or church. The corporate group has the power to exclude and accept members. Women participate in

the church service by their presence, praying and singing, but they have no formal voice in church matters.Having no vote, they are not on record formulating colony policy, nor are they eligible for leadership positions.

In addition to the Bruderhof authority structure, area colony ministers meet regularly to discuss matters

of colony policy. Colony ministers meet on occasion to review regional policy, for example correcting youngmen who may prefer to wear belts containing embellishments, instead of plain suspenders (Tschetter, p. 300).

Hutterites have established a communal form of living that is about as economically self-sufficient as is

possible in while situated in the middle of a post-industrial contemporary mass society. Being pacifists,Hutterites depend on their neighboring host environments for permission to engage in their unique economic

form. The have encountered opposition on numerous occasions, but their commitment to passivity and/oroutright avoidance has subjected them to instances of social and economic sanction. Their elaborate division of

economic tasks by age and gener, with a high degree of agricultural sophistication and specialization, coupledwith extremely low labor costs, means that they can successfully compete agricultural marketplace.

Hutterites have institutionalized the corporate farm organization so that family life revolves around thecommunal-corporate structure. To survive, Hutterite Brethren continually face the problem of nullifying outsideinfluences that permeate successfully permeate most community and family barriers in the surrounding society.

Individual members constantly encounter representatives from the larger world who challenge their way of lifeby trumpeting the consumptive economy. Those responsible for maintaining the isolation of rural Hutterities

colonies constantly struggle with ways to preserve their withdrawn and separatist traditions in the face ofchronic uncertainties. A common bond is in evidence in the form of limited and shared income, common dress

and signs of membership, and common bi-lingual custom, rigid adherence to codes of conduct that specify non-participation, closely monitored and limited access to advertising, and age and gender specific role expectations

that do not admit of alternative unexpected behaviors.

With various pressures on colony members to maintain allegiance to the colony, a reward system maycontribute to releative harmony. Such rewards include: the traditional religious belief that hard work and

temporary hardship will be rewarded by eventual inclusion in the chosen group; the relative safety and securityoffered by the world within the Bruderhof where crime is practically unheard of, sick and elderly are cared for

and the family spirit is everywhere apparent; a strong sense of belongingness and integration predominate, andthe intimacy and warm that accompanies face-to-face primary relationships may be nice.

Internally Hutterite socialization processes work sufficiently well so as to stifle dissent on an informal

basis. The gemeinschaft community admits to little internal dissent and most all potentially disruptive mattersare quelled by colony or council vote. As older members are informally the most influential, tradition tends to

prevail and change is slow. Additionally, external conflict is most often dealt with by simply ignoring the

normative and utilitarian threats of neighbors. The rigid commitment to their ideology prevents a violentresponse to external coercion and historically Hutterites have fled in the face of force. Their willingness to helpfriendly neighbors through humanitarian assistance may have helped ingratiate themselves to their neighbors.

Hutterites may also enjoy positive internal consequences of external conflict.

For example, Coser (1956) argued that conflict with out-groups serves to increase internal cohesion andthat continuous struggle leads to rigidity within. Hutterites may have found it to their advantage to maintain a

certain amount of tension with the larger surrounding community. Hutterites are a separatist group who chose tolive in isolation and in many ways in opposition to their host society. As such they suffer from occasional

prejudice and differing kinds of discrimination. Stereotypes include beliefs that Hutterites actually suffer fromgenetic abnormalities due to marriage within their population, that children all look alike and that Hutterites

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have been known to capture local youth for evil purposes. Unlike other minority groups, however, Hutteriteshave not attempted to assimilate into the dominant culture. This key feature of their community has the

possibility of increasing the social distance they struggle with. Their history of flight is also very much a part oftheir Weltgeist, or spirit of the world.

In comparison to most communities in the US, Hutterite colonies are small, isolated, agrarian,

homogeneous and economically independent. They have a high degree of group solidarity, their behavior isgoverned by traditional folkways, and their sense of Gelassenheit (or communalism) has important

organizational consequences for welfare. Redfields description of a folk society fits the Hutterite situation quitewell: This system, or culture, provides for all recurrent needs of the individual from birth to death.life is one

unitary activity, out of which one part may not be separated without affecting the rest. Tradition is viewed assufficient authoritywhat is done seems necessarily to flow form the nature of the society and there is no

disposition to reflect upon traditional acts and consider them objectively and critically. (21).

Hutterite colonies engage their members throughout the entire life cycle, and the personality of a typicalmember is contained within the boundaries of the community and expressed through village life. Goffman

(1959) described all encompassing organizations that totally engross their members in day to day, month tomonth and even year to year periods as total institutions. His examples included asylums, traveling circuses,

outposts and organizational systems the utilized members for functional purposes for long periods of time,

under the systems complete control and surveillance. In some ways the typical Bruderhof manifests a totalinstitutional life style as well, involving a continuous monitoring of engrossment of members who work in closeproximity to each other. The colony council serves as final arbiter for threats that may arise to the maintenance

of colony structure and boundaries. Compliance monitoring is simplified by the fact that the individual is fixedwithin a constellation of familial relationships wherein most action is highly visible to others.

The colony minister and steward have key roles in maintaining both the internal harmony within the

colony and regulating relations with the surrounding environment. The minister manages questions which mayinvolve decisions about what rules must be followed, what constitutes a legitimate violation, and changes to

permit. Tschetter (1976) contends that Hutterites cope with change by ignoring non-agricultural innovationsomnipresent outside the colony. The technological change is accepted, Relationships to the outside world have

not changedthe authoritarian pattern has not changed, the preacher and the council are still in command. Bypermitting all members to share in agricultural innovation, the relative status of individuals is not changed. No

person is made richer or poorer.(23) In this regard, innovations are few and far between as older members arepositioned to reflect upon the importance of pattern maintenance. Hutterites manage technological innovation

and change only insofar as it does not otherwise disrupt routine. According to Eaton (1952), Hutterites have, bybending with the wind, avoided breaking. (25).

As providers of human services, Hutterite colonies are quite small and hence coordination costs within

colonies, in terms of time and energy needed to sustain basic needs as well as the pathways of communication,are small. If there is a breakdown of equipment someone can be called in for repairs, or someone else can watch

the young children, so that the colony continues to function fairly smoothly. Organizational theorists call this

pooled interdependency, which is the result that there is a minimum of contingency on variables that thecolonists have control over. Problems may arise in the larger task environment, however, which may force acolony to adapt. Changes in markets for farm produce, for example, or extreme weather, may alter the task

structure. One strategy Hutterities use regarding their organizational environment is to ignore it, and where theycannot do this they monitor it and partialize their response. Hutterites must provide their children with a basic

education, in some states this is minimum of a high school degree or its equivalent, in other states a ninth gradeeducation is all that is required. Hutterites pay taxes and obey local laws and ordinances. At the same time, they

provide a reliable tax base, they are not a burden on local community support structures as they do not useavailable services, they do not use public assistance or social security.

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Some members of a colony, particularly the minister or steward, function as boundary spanningspecialists who monitor uncertainty in the environment. Recruitment is never an issue among Hutterites as they

are assured a continuing supply of new members through expectations of large family sizes. Training of newmembers begins early as small children attend special classes taught by special teachers, socializing new

members at an early age as to the ways of the organization and its expectations. Coordination and control aretherefore reasonably easy to assure. Their system of age-sex differentiation for major work and family roles

assures for a division of labor that allocates tasks across various categories of membership.

During the early stages after splitting, when a daughter colony leaves, colony work roles may not be aseasily filled both for the daughter and mother farms, as the same amount of work needs to be done with only

half the workers in either location. Members have access to external resources both before and after branching,as recommended or allocated by the preacher or steward. However the whole question of family allegiance,

especially considering the relatively small number of families on any given colony. If the average family size is6-8, and a colony begins at 70 members after branching, then there may only be 8-10 families after a branch. It

is entirely possible that one or two families, especially those headed by a preacher or council member, maycome to dominate a colony.