The Nebraska Amish, also called Old Schoolers are a very conservative subgroup of Amish.
Amish settled in the Mifflin County region of Pennsylvania as early as 1791, coming from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. In the 1840s there were three Amish congregations in the region. Around 1880, Bishop Yost H. Yoder led nine families from Juniata County, Pennsylvania, to Gosper County in south-central Nebraska, founding an Old Order settlement that would last until 1904, three years after Bishop Yoder's death. Yoder went back to the Kishacoquillas Valley in Pennsylvania in 1881 to assist a conservative Amish group. Because Yoder had been living in Nebraska for some time, the group was nicknamed the Nebraska Amish by others.
A group called the Zook faction broke away from the Yoders in 1933, over the use of projecting roof gables, and formed a separate district, holding their own worship services and having their own bishops. The Zook group split again in 1978. Though differences exist, they are almost unnoticeable to outsiders. Since the late 1970s they have split several times. Groups include the Rufus Zook group, the Chris Yoder group, and others.
In the early 1980s several church districts of the Swartzentruber Amish in Minnesota, Tennessee, and Ohio split from the Swartzentruber church districts elsewhere because of disagreements over shunning ("Bann und Meidung"). This group, known as the "Jeck Jeckey Leit" is now affiliated with the Nebraska Amish.
Nebraska Amish dress the most conservative of all Amish groups. Their dress is quite different from other Old Order groups. Men are known for not wearing suspenders, trousers are laced up in the back instead. Men also wear white shirts, brown denim trousers and jackets and hair at shoulder length. The hats of the men are very broad brimmed. Women do not wear bonnets, wearing black kerchiefs and flat straw hats instead.
Concerning the use of technologies, the Nebraska Amish are about as restrictive as the Swartzentruber Amish, see table below. Like other Old Order Amish, the Nebraska Amish do not use motorized equipment or indoor plumbing. Other differences include the fact that they do not place screens on their doors or windows, men only wear white shirts, curtains are not used in homes, buggy tops must be white, men's hair must be shoulder length, no lawn mowers are allowed and houses must not have projecting roofs.