ABSTRACT
Moretown is one of four small communities in a midwestern, rural state. Its population is 3,500. Two of the four towns are essentially bedroom communities for Urbanville, the only large city in the region; 10 years ago they were farming areas. The commuters from these towns work at such places as a large electronics plant, a regional hospital, the state university, banking and insurance
organizations, and a variety of businesses. The other two towns are primarily farming communities; the individuals in these towns generally have no more than a high school education, although some of the farmers graduated from the state agricultural college. Residents of Moretown and the three other towns are 91% White; the remaining 9% are composed of recent immigrants from Latin America who work on farms and a small number of African Americans with roots dating back to the 1860s. Forty percent of the people are Catholic; the remainder who identify themselves as belonging to any formal religious group are scattered among various Protestant denominations; there is a small bornagain Christian community that maintains its own school; 2% of the population is Jewish.
