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Popular Culture Review
color writing.”15 Through Martin’s writing, American readers began to develop
attitudes towards the Amish that are still widely prevalent. Readers “consumed”
the Amish through her stories, but held a smug “cultural superiority” over the
Amish.
The publication of Sabina and other fictional stories16 on the Amish and the
Pennsylvania Dutch set the commercial stage for promoting Amish-related
tourism, which bolsters the economy of today’s Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania. One key component of the tourist economy is the mass production
of Amish postcards. Beginning in 1913, the newly developed tourist industry in
the county joined enterprising local publishers in marketing several dozen
postcard designs of the Amish. At this point, there was such a surge in the
number and variety of postcards that over time there were more than 150
different photographs devoted to the Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch. Busy
postcard photographers were “catching Amish people” working on the farm,
shopping at local markets, playing in the schoolyard, riding in buggies, and
walking the streets of downtown Lancaster.17 Curiously, these postcards
presented Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as an Amish utopia. Amish children were
favorite subjects because they fed the popular perception that the Amish were
simple and “innocent.”18
For instance, a typical postcard entitled Amish Children o f Lancaster
County shows a close up photo of three posed Amish children. A thorough
description of the children’s clothing is printed on the back:
From the babies in arms to the aged grandparents, the Amish
all dress “plain.” The little boy, scarcely able to toddle, is
dressed just like his father. His ankle length cuffless black
trousers open down both sides at the waist, where they are
buttoned. The little Amish girl’s dress is just like that of her
mother. It is ankle length, gathered at the waist onto the
smooth fitting, long-sleeved waist.19
The card’s caption is surprisingly detailed in its evaluation of the children’s
ordinary clothing as if their apparel were costumes.
The photograph and truth
Historically, photography has been the chosen medium to capture the truth.
In The Tourist Gaze, John Urry states that, to tourists, “photography ‘seems’ to
be a means of transcribing reality.”20 Indeed, the earliest photographic images
were proclaimed to be “Sun Drawings” made by “The Pencil of Nature,”
implying that nature herself had “drawn” the images, without any human
interference.21 In 1917, the artist and photographer Paul Strand noted, “Unlike
the other arts, which are really anti-photographic, objectivity is of the very
essence of photography .. .”22 In retrospect, most photographs made during the
19lh century were regarded as neutral “documents.”23 Although travel drawings
and etchings had existed for a long time, the clarity and supposed objectivity of
the camera gave travel images a new “authenticity.” The photograph was