Religious Freedom

The Amish do not drive cars or use electricity. They are a religious community of farmers, homemakers and craftspeople. They have preserved a simple way of life, even as they are surrounded by the changes in modern America. Amish children study in one-room schoolhouses until eighth grade. After that, they learn by working in their community.

U.S. law says that all children must go to school until the age of 16. In the 1960s Amish families in Iowa were fined $1,000 a day for not sending their teenagers to school. Sometimes the police would take a family's cow to pay the fine. School officials were seen chasing Amish children through fields to make them go to school. People were trying to force the Amish to change their religious beliefs.