Amana 450 Woolen-mill, saw and grist mill,
and farming
East Amana 125 Farming.
Middle Amana 350 Woolen-mill and farming.
Amana near the Hill 125 Farming, saw-mill, and tannery.
West Amana 150 Grist-mill and farming.
South Amana 150 Saw-mill and farming
Homestead 135 Railroad station, a saw-mill, farming,
and general depot.
The villages lie about a mile and a half apart, and each has a store at which the neighboring farmers trade, and a tavern or inn for the accommodation of the general public. Each village has also its shoemakers', carpenters', tailors', and other shops, for they aim to produce and make, as far as possible, all that they use. In Middle Amana there is a printing-office, where their books are made.
The villages consist usually of one straggling street, outside of which lie the barns, and the mills, factories, and workshops. The houses are well built, of brick, stone, or wood, very plain; each with a sufficient garden, but mostly standing immediately on the street. They use no paint, believing that the wood lasts as well without. There is usually a narrow sidewalk of boards or brick; and the school-house and church are notable buildings only because of their greater size. Like the Quakers, they abhor "steeple-houses"; and their church architecture is of the plainest. The barns and other farm buildings are roomy and convenient. On the boundaries of a village are usually a few houses inhabited by hired laborers.
Each family has a house for itself; though when a young couple marry, they commonly go to live with the parents of one or the other for some years.
As you walk through a village, you notice that at irregular intervals are houses somewhat larger than the rest. These are either cook-houses or prayer-houses. The people eat in common, but for convenience' sake they are divided, so that a certain number eat together. For Amana, which has 450 people, there are fifteen such cooking and eating houses. In these the young women are employed to work under the supervision of matrons; and hither when the bell rings come those who are appointed to eat at each—the sexes sitting at separate tables, and the children also by themselves.
"Why do you separate men from women at table?" I asked.
"To prevent silly conversation and trifling conduct," was the answer.
Food is distributed to the houses according to the number of persons eating in each. Meal and milk are brought to the doors; and each cooking-house is required to make its own butter and cheese. For those whom illness or the care of small children keeps at home, the food is placed in neat baskets; and it was a curious sight to see, when the dinner-bell rang, a number of women walking rapidly about the streets with these baskets, each nicely packed with food.
When the bell ceases ringing and all are assembled, they stand up in their places in silence for half a minute, then one says grace, and when he ends, all say, "God bless and keep us safely," and then sit down. There is but little conversation at table; the meal is eaten rapidly, but with decorum; and at its close, all stand up again, some one gives thanks, and thereupon they file out with quiet order and precision.
They live well, after the hearty German fashion, and bake excellent bread. The table is clean, but it has no cloth. The dishes are coarse but neat; and the houses, while well built, and possessing all that is absolutely essential to comfort according to the German peasants' idea, have not always carpets, and have often a bed in what New-Englanders would call the parlor; and in general are for use and not ornament.