______________Greetings from Dutch Country
91
Since travel is commonly used for “escape,” most tourists would rather “re
live” a fictional, idealized past than experience something real.41 Many of
today’s tourists might be disappointed if they saw actual Amish life in the 21s1
century, which is far less nostalgic and romantic than suggested in National
Geographic. Many Amish live in modem homes—not in antique museums.
Albeit without electricity, many of these homes are built from “modem”
building materials (vinyl siding, replacement windows, etc.). But to perpetuate
the “traditional” fantasy, Amish postcard images exclude as much as they
include.42 Real Amish must go about doing their everyday activities in modem
situations, including shopping in local stores, riding in automobiles, using cell
phones, canying lunch in Igloo coolers, going to the bank, and drinking CocaCola. They are not cut off from all modernity.
However, the innocent looking postcards that are sold in the county’s many
gift shops exclude modem artifacts far more than the Amish possibly could.
Without a doubt, much about daily living has changed over recent decades for
the Amish and non-Amish alike. But what has not changed over time are the
Amish postcards of today, which look just like those of 50 years ago. These
Amish postcard images—disposable souvenirs of an idealized and constructed
world—is a world that no longer exists, and perhaps never did.
Millersville University
Shauna Frischkom
Notes
1 From a black and white “real” photo postcard of an Amish family shopping in Lancaster
City, addressed to Leedon Renaud, Almenesson, NJ, no publisher, postmarked 1945.
2 Geary, Christraud M., and Virginia-Lee Webb, editors, Delivering Views: Distant Views
in Early Postcards, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998,4.
3 See Phillips, Tom, The Postcard Century: 2000 Cards and Their Messages, London:
Thames and Hudson, 2000.
4 A1 Sayyad, Nezar, “Global Norms and Urban Forms in the Age of Tourism:
Manufacturing Heritage, Consuming Tradition,” in Consuming Tradition, Manufacturing
Heritage: Global Norms and Urban Forms in the Age o f Tourism, London: Routledge,
2001,4.
5 Sontag, Susan, On Photography, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977, 9.
6 Graven image as in the 4,h commandment. Exodus: 20:4, “Thou shalt not make unto
thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in
the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth,” The Holy Bible, King James
Version, New York: American Bible Society, 1999; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby
.com/108/. [6 1 2004],
7 See the “Amish Country News” article by Brad Igou, “The Amish and Photographs,”
Amish Country News, 26 April 2004, (1 June 2004) .
8 Osborne, Peter D., Traveling Light: Photography, Travel and Visual Culture,
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000, 3.
9 Matthew Brady’s Cooper Union Portrait of Abraham Lincoln was made in his New
York studio on February 27, 1860, before the Cooper Union address. Lincoln’s lanky