Moderated by Dr. Greg Blundell

With the involvement of the United States in World War One and the subsequent military service draft, American Mennonites found themselves in the same dilemma which had chased them from Europe to the Americas. The Mennonite beliefs on non-violence precluded most of them from involvement in war in any sense including non-combatant roles and the nation’s government did not grant them an exception to war-time service. When previous generations of Mennonites faced a similar challenge, the most common response was a large-scale migration to a new land where they could find a reprieve from these pressures. With the American draft in 1917, American Mennonites chose to break the historical pattern and remain in America, weathering the consequences that came from their counter cultural beliefs. Using interviews from the Mennonite men who lived through the war period in America, diaries from the Russian Mennonites, and other sources, this study brings together historical research on the Russian Mennonite migration to the United States as a case study of the historical pattern of Mennonite migrations with the context surrounding the American Mennonites’ choice to stay. The economy, the timing of the draft, the depth of the changes, and the closer ties between the American Mennonites and the American people all help explain how the American Mennonites chose to radically depart from both the cultural expectations around them and their own pattern of behavior.