The Amana Colonies are the most complete communal landscape the American Pietist diaspora left behind. The Community of True Inspiration began in Germany in 1714, a revival movement holding that God still spoke through living instruments called Werkzeug, and after decades of persecution for refusing military service and state schooling, some 800 members emigrated in 1842-43 to Ebenezer near Buffalo, New York, then in 1855 to the Iowa River valley, where seven villages rose on 26,000 acres, each with its church, school, bakery, dairy, and general store, all property held in common under the Amana Society chartered in 1859. The communal order held for eighty years, until the Great Change of 1932 split the church from the business; the Amana Society continued as a company, and the Amana Church Society continues to worship in the Middle Amana meeting house to this day.

Visiting is village-by-village rather than single-site. The Amana Heritage Society runs the interpretive sites: the Noe House of 1864, built as a communal kitchen and later the doctor's residence, now the main museum; the 1870 Schoolhouse with its audiovisual history; the unchanged 1857 High Amana General Store; the Middle Amana Communal Kitchen Museum; and the 1865 Homestead church, one of seven village churches, where hosts walk visitors through the Community of True Inspiration's beliefs and the present-day Amana Church. The heritage sites closed for winter (January through mid-March 2026) and reopened on spring hours March 14; the seven villages themselves are open towns with working kitchens, wineries, and craft shops in the communal-era buildings. It is honest to say the sacred content is mostly heritage now: the church is alive, the communal economy is a story told by museums, and the villages sit between the two.

Visiting

The Amana Heritage Society lists each site: heritage sites closed January through mid-March 2026, spring season from March 14; Amana Heritage Museum Mon-Fri 10-4, Sat 10-5, Sun 11-3 in spring and fall; High Amana General Store Mon-Sat 10-5, Sun 10-3; Homestead Church tours seasonal; Communal Kitchen Museum seasonal. Admission fees were not verifiable at write-up; confirm at the heritage society's site. The Convention and Visitors Bureau covers the villages as a whole.

Photo: [public domain, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inside_Amana_Community_kitchen%2C_caa._1907%2C_Iowa%2C_from_Robert_N._Dennis_collection_of_stereoscopic_views.jpg). A communal kitchen interior, circa 1907.