Includes bibliographical references and index.

Going to California: the Mennonite migration -- Alone in the garden: boosters, migrants, and refugees -- Urban dystopia and divine nature: the early Mennonite colonies -- Outsiders from within: defining California Mennonite identity -- New neighbors: confronting racial and religious pluralism -- From sewing circles to missionary societies: the public roles of women in the church -- Peaceful patriots: California Mennonites during World War II -- Socially active Mennonitism and mental health: the origins of Kings View Homes -- Feeding the hungry: a story of piety and professionalization -- Protect and assimilate: evangelical education in California -- Labor tensions: Mennonite growers, the UFW, and the farm labor problem -- From digging gold to saving souls: the transformation of California Mennonite identity -- Epilogue. a new breed of Mennonites.

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"Books geographically focused on the midwestern and eastern states dominate the study of Mennonites in America. The intriguing history of Mennonites in the American West remains untold. In From Digging Gold to Saving Souls, Brian Froese introduces readers for the first time to the California Mennonite experience. Although a few Mennonites did dig for gold in the 1850s, the real story of Mennonites in California begins in the 1890s with westward migrations for fertile soil and healthy sunshine. By the mid-twentieth century, the Mennonite story in California had developed into an interesting tale of religious conservatives--traditional agrarians--finding their way in an increasingly urban and religiously pluralistic California. Some California Mennonites negotiated new identities by endorsing conservative evangelicalism; some found them in reclamations of sixteenth-century Anabaptists. Still other Mennonites found meaningful religious experience by engaging in social action and justice even when these actions appeared in "secular" forms. These emerging identities--Evangelical, Anabaptist, and secular--covered a broad spectrum, yet represented a selective retaining and discarding of Mennonite religious practices and expressions. From Digging Gold to Saving Souls touches on such topics as migration, pluralism, race, gender, pacifism, institutional construction, education, and labor conflict, all of which defined the experience of Mennonites of California. Brian Froese shows how this experience was a rich, complex, and deliberate move into modern society. In From Digging Gold to Saving Souls, he introduces readers to a dynamic people who did not simply become modern, but who chose to modernize on their own terms"-- Provided by publisher.

Description based on print version record.