The Amana Colonies, a National Historic Landmark in Iowa since 1965, and one of America’s longest-lived communal societies, trace their beginning to German villages and the Pietist movement in the early 1700s. Persecution and economic depression forced the community to leave Germany in the early 1840s, where they first settled in New York before migrating to in Iowa in 1855. The community eventually established seven villages and communal life continued for almost a century, until the upheaval of the Great Depression led to a change: the establishment of the Amana Society, Inc., which would manage the farmland, mills, etc., as a profit-sharing corporation.
The Amana Church: Bringing Food to the Community
