Of a Place and a Time: Remembering Lancaster

by Richard D. Altick

This 199 page book looks at how Lancaster County, Pennsylvania became a tourist mecca. "For in those rich farmlands dwelled the Amish and Mennonite, the 'Pennsylvania Dutch' who had fled the turmoil of the old world for worship and toil in the new. Details of their lives had changed little over the years." "The tourist buses came, bringing plastic power and cash, and when the author came home as an adult, all was changed." This book tells the story of how Lancaster County dramatically changed in the 1900s.

199 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1991

About the author

Richard Altick was Regent’s Professor of English, Emeritus, at The Ohio State University and the author of numerous important works in the field of literary studies.

Reviews

[w gall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personal reminisces by a native, a scholar, of life in Lancaster in the second quarter of the twentieth century. He was born about the same time as my parents, who were of the working class. Their lives in Lancaster would have probably have been different from his, though I'm sure there were some experiences that they would have had in common. Near the end he belittled my alma mater, Millersville U. Franklin & Marshall snobbery. Lastly, he decried the commercialization of the Amish. It was well written, though, which lifted it to 3 stars in my estimation.