Hutterite migration to North America

Hutterite communities joined the wider movement from the Russian Empire to North America beginning in 1874. The exhibit links the decision to changing military-service requirements and concerns about preserving religious and communal life. For communities committed to nonresistance, the terms under which families would live and their young men would serve were matters of conscience.

The journey transferred more than people and farming skills. Hutterites sought to continue shared possessions and an ordered communal life in their new settlements. Their North American history did not end the testing of those convictions: wartime coercion in 1918, the ordeal of the Hofer brothers and Jacob Wipf, and the movement of colonies to Canada became later chapters of the same commitment.