When Zimmerman , his wife Amanda , and other family members participated in the making of Farmer at War in late 1942 , they presented an image of American farm life straight out of a Norman Rockwell portrait . Zimmerman attends a local farmers ’ meeting where participants rise to speak their minds . The family prays for the safety of American servicemen . The stout Mrs . Zimmerman brings a plump roast turkey to the Thanksgiving dinner table . And Zimmerman – newspaper in hand and wife by his side – ascends the stairs to the attic bedrooms where the couple ’ s young nephew , Ray Rutt , is already peacefully sleeping . 13
Hopkins University Press , 2001 ), pp . 11-12 , 22 , 49 ; Janet Galligani Casey , A New Heartland : Women , Modernity , and the Agrarian Ideal in America ( New York : Oxford University Press , 2009 ), pp . 28-29 , 37 . For overviews of New Deal era interest in the Amish and Mennonites of south central Pennsylvania , see Steven D . Reschly and Katherine Jellison , “ Production Patterns , Consumption Strategies , and Gender Relations in Amish and Non-Amish Farm Households in Lancaster County , Pennsylvania , 1935-1936 ,” Agricultural History 67 ( Spring 1993 ): 134-162 ; Steven D . Reschly and Katherine Jellison , “ Research Note : Shifting Images of Lancaster County Amish in the 1930s and 1940s ,” Mennonite Quarterly Review , 82 ( July 2008 ): 469-483 ; Katherine Jellison , “ Research Note : Amish Women and the Household Economy During the Great Depression .” Mennonite Quarterly Review , 88 ( January 2014 ): 97- 105 ; as corrected online at https :// www . goshen . edu / mqr / pastissues / Jan14Jellison . pdf ; Katherine Jellison , “ Chosen Women : The Amish and the New Deal ,” in Kimberly D . Schmidt , Diane Zimmerman Umble , and Steven D . Reschly , eds ., Strangers at Home : Amish and Mennonite Women in History ( Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press , 2002 ), pp . 102-118 ; and Katherine Jellison , “ An ‘ Enviable Tradition ’ of Patriarchy : New Deal Investigations of Women ’ s Work in the Amish Farm Family ,” in Catherine McNicol Stock and Robert D . Johnston , eds ., The Countryside in the Age of the Modern State : Political Histories of Rural America ( Ithaca : Cornell University Press , 2001 ), pp . 240- 257 .
13 .
Farmer at War , Records of the Office of War Information , 1926-1951 , Record Group 208 , National Archives II , College Park , MD ; Ruth Zimmerman Hershey , interview with Katherine Jellison and Steven D . Reschly , Lititz , PA , 5 December 2010 . Hershey was Zimmerman ’ s oldest child and died only three months after recording her oral history narrative .
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