Shakers

The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second

Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers, are a United Society of Believers
millenarian restorationist Christian sect founded c. 1747 in
England and then organized in the United States in the 1780s.
They were initially known as "Shaking Quakers" because of
their ecstatic behavior during worship services. Espousing
egalitarian ideals, women took on spiritual leadership roles
alongside men, including founding leaders such as Jane
Wardley, Ann Lee, and Lucy Wright. The Shakers emigrated
from England and settled in Revolutionary colonial America,
with an initial settlement at Watervliet, New York (present-day
Colonie), in 1774. They practice a celibate and communal Life of the Diligent Shaker,
utopian lifestyle, pacifism, uniform charismatic worship, and Shaker Historical Society
their model of equality of the sexes, which they
institutionalized in their society in the 1780s. They are also Total population
known for their simple living, architecture, technological 2 (2022)[1]
innovation, music, and furniture.
Founder
During the mid-19th century, an Era of Manifestations resulted Ann Lee
in a period of dances, gift drawings, and gift songs inspired by Regions with significant
spiritual revelations. At its peak in the mid-19th century, there
populations
were 2,000–4,000 Shaker believers living in 18 major
communities and numerous smaller, often short-lived Maine, United States
communities. External and internal societal changes in the mid- Religions
and late-19th century resulted in the thinning of the Shaker
Shakerism
community as members left or died with few converts to the
faith to replace them. By 1920, there were only 12 Shaker Scriptures
communities remaining in the United States. As of 2019, there The Bible, various Shaker texts
is only one active Shaker village: Sabbathday Lake Shaker
Languages
Village, in Maine.[2] Consequently, many of the other Shaker
settlements are now museums. English
Website
History maineshakers.com (http://maineshaker
s.com)

Origins

The Shakers were one of a few religious groups which were formed during the 18th century in the
Northwest of England;[3]: 1–8 originating out of the Wardley Society. James and Jane Wardley and others
broke off from the Quakers in 1747[4]: 20 [5]: 105 at a time when the Quakers were weaning themselves
away from frenetic spiritual expression.[6] The Wardleys formed the Wardley Society, which was also
known as the "Shaking Quakers".[7] Future leader Ann Lee and her parents were early members of the
sect. This group of "charismatic" Christians became the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second
Appearing (USBCSA). Their beliefs were based upon spiritualism and included the notion that they
received messages from the Holy Spirit which were expressed during religious revivals. They also
experienced what they interpreted as messages from God
during silent meditations and became known as "Shaking
Quakers" because of the ecstatic nature of their worship
services. They believed in the renunciation of sinful acts and
that the end of the world was near.[5][4]

Meetings were first held in Bolton, England,[4] where the

articulate preacher, Jane Wardley, urged her followers to:

Repent. For the kingdom of God is at hand. The The Ritual Dance of the Shakers, Shaker
new heaven and new earth prophesied of old is Historical Society
about to come. The marriage of the Lamb, the
first resurrection, the new Jerusalem descended
from above, these are even now at the door. And
when Christ appears again, and the true church
rises in full and transcendent glory, then all anti-
Christian denominations—the priests, the
Church, the pope—will be swept away.[8]

Other meetings were then held in Manchester, Meretown (also

spelled Mayortown), Chester and other places near The Shakers Harvesting Their Famous
Manchester. As their numbers grew, members began to be Herbs
persecuted,[4] mobbed, and stoned; Lee was imprisoned in
Manchester.[4]: 127–128, 132–137 The members looked to
women for leadership, believing that the second coming of Christ would be through a woman. In 1770,
Ann Lee was revealed in "manifestation of Divine light" to be the second coming of Christ and was called
Mother Ann.[4]: 17–22

Mother Ann Lee

Ann Lee joined the Shakers by 1758, then became the leader of the small community.[9][10] "Mother Ann",
as her followers later called her, claimed numerous revelations regarding the fall of Adam and Eve and its
relationship to sexual intercourse. A powerful preacher, she called her followers to confess their sins, give
up all their worldly goods, and take up the cross of celibacy and forsake marriage, as part of the
renunciation of all "lustful gratifications".[4]: 127–131

She said:

I saw in vision the Lord Jesus in his kingdom and glory. He revealed to me the depth of man's
loss, what it was, and the way of redemption therefrom. Then I was able to bear an open
testimony against the sin that is the root of all evil; and I felt the power of God flow into my
soul like a fountain of living water. From that day I have been able to take up a full cross
against all the doleful works of the flesh.[4]: 23

Having supposedly received a revelation, on May 19, 1774, Ann Lee and eight of her followers sailed from
Liverpool for colonial America. Ann and her husband Abraham Stanley, brother William Lee, niece Nancy
Lee, James Whittaker, father and son John Hocknell and Richard Hocknell, James Shephard, and Mary
Partington traveled to colonial America and landed in New York City. Abraham Stanley abandoned Ann
Lee shortly thereafter and remarried. The remaining Shakers settled in Watervliet, New York, in 1776.
Mother Ann's hope for the Shakers in America was represented in a vision: "I saw a large tree, every leaf of
which shone with such brightness as made it appear like a burning torch, representing the Church of Christ,
which will yet be established in this land." Unable to swear an Oath of Allegiance, as it was against their
faith, the members were imprisoned for about six months. Since they were only imprisoned because of their
faith, this raised sympathy of citizens and thus helped to spread their religious beliefs. Mother Ann, revealed
as the "second coming" of Christ, traveled throughout the eastern states, preaching her gospel
views.[4]: 23–24, 138–144 [11]

Joseph Meacham and communalism

After Ann Lee and James Whittaker died, Joseph Meacham (1742–
1796) became the leader of the Shakers in 1787, establishing its New
Lebanon headquarters. He had been a New Light Baptist minister in
Enfield, Connecticut, and was reputed to have, second only to Mother
Ann, the spiritual gift of revelation.[3]: 10–12, 41–42

Joseph Meacham brought Lucy Wright (1760–1821) into the Ministry

to serve with him and together they developed the Shaker form of
communal living (religious communism).[12] By 1793 property had Historical Marker at the
been made a "consecrated whole" in each Shaker community.[3]: 42–44 Niskayuna Community Cemetery
in modern-day Colonie, New York,
Shakers developed written covenants in the 1790s. Those who signed where Mother Ann Lee is buried
the covenant had to confess their sins, consecrate their property and
their labor to the society, and live as celibates. If they were married
before joining the society, their marriages ended when they joined. A few less-committed Believers lived in
"noncommunal orders" as Shaker sympathizers who preferred to remain with their families. The Shakers
never forbade marriage for such individuals, but considered it less perfect than the celibate state.

In the 5 years between 1787 and 1792, the Shakers gathered into eight more communities in addition to the
Watervliet and New Lebanon villages: Hancock, Harvard, Shirley, and Tyringham Shaker Villages in
Massachusetts; Enfield Shaker Village in Connecticut; Canterbury and Enfield in New Hampshire; and
Sabbathday Lake and Alfred Shaker Village in Maine.[4]: 35–37

Lucy Wright and westward expansion

After Joseph Meacham died, Lucy Wright continued Ann Lee's missionary tradition. Shaker missionaries
proselytized at revivals, not only in New England and New York but also farther west. Missionaries such as
Issachar Bates and Benjamin Seth Youngs (older brother of Isaac Newton Youngs) gathered hundreds of
proselytes into the faith.[3]: 55, 110

On April 12, of 1805 Benjamin Youngs, and two companions, held the first ceremony, West of the
Allegheny Mountains. It was held at the cabin of James Beedle (https://www.wchsmuseum.org/ourproperti
es.html), East of Lebanon, Ohio. In 2019, the cabin was relocated, by the Warren County Historical
Society, to its current site next to Harmon Museum in Lebanon, Ohio.

Mother Lucy Wright introduced new hymns and dances to make sermons more lively. She also helped
write Benjamin S. Youngs' book The Testimony of Christ's Second Appearing (1808).
Shaker missionaries entered Kentucky and Ohio after the Cane Ridge, Kentucky revival of 1801–1803,
which was an outgrowth of the Logan County, Kentucky, Revival of 1800. From 1805 to 1807, they
founded Shaker societies at Union Village, Ohio; South Union, Logan County, Kentucky; and Pleasant
Hill, Kentucky (in Mercer County, Kentucky). In 1806, a Shaker village, named Watervliet, after the New
York town that was the site of the first Shaker settlement, was established in what is today Kettering, Ohio,
surviving until 1900 when its remaining adherents joined the Union Village Shaker settlement.[13] In 1824,
the Whitewater Shaker Settlement was established in southwestern Ohio. The westernmost Shaker
community was located at West Union (called Busro because it was on Busseron Creek) on the Wabash
River a few miles north of Vincennes in Knox County, Indiana.[3]: 62–54

Era of Manifestations

The Shaker movement was at its height between 1820 and 1860. It was at this time that the sect had the
most members, and the period was considered its "golden age". It had expanded from New England to the
Midwestern states of Indiana and Ohio and Southern state of Kentucky. It was during this period that it
became known for its furniture design and craftsmanship. In the late 1830s a spiritual revivalism, the Era of
Manifestations was born. It was also known as the "period of Mother's work", for the spiritual revelations
that were passed from the late Mother Ann Lee.[14]

The expression of "spirit gifts" or messages were realized in "gift drawings" made by Hannah Cohoon,
Polly Reed, Polly Collins, and other Shaker sisters. A number of those drawings remain as important
artifacts of Shaker folk art.[15][16]

Shaker dance and worship, during the Polly Ann Reed, A

Era of Manifestations present from Mother
Lucy to Eliza Ann
Taylor, 1851

Hannah Cohoon, The A two-sheet religious chart

Tree of Light or Blazing intended to further Shaker
Tree, 1845 education, by Jacob Skeen,
1887
Isaac N. Youngs, the scribe and historian for the New Lebanon, New York, Church Family of Shakers,
preserved a great deal of information on the era of manifestations, which Shakers referred to as Mother
Ann's Work, in his Domestic Journal, his diary, Sketches of Visions, and his history, A Concise View of the
Church of God.[17]

In addition, Shakers preserved thousands of spirit communications still extant in collections now held by
the Berkshire Athenaeum, Fruitlands Museums Library, Hamilton College Library, Hancock Shaker
Village, Library of Congress, New York Public Library, New York State Library, the Shaker Library at
Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon, Western Reserve Historical Society,
Williams College Archives, Winterthur Museum Library, and other repositories.

American Civil War period

As pacifists,[nb 1] the Shakers did not believe that it was acceptable to kill or harm others, even in time of
war. During the American Civil War, both Union and Confederate soldiers found their way to the Shaker
communities. Shakers tended to sympathize with the Union but they did feed and care for both Union and
Confederate soldiers. President Lincoln exempted Shaker males from military service, and they became
some of the first conscientious objectors in American history.

The end of the Civil War brought large changes to the Shaker communities. One of the most important
changes was the postwar economy.[19] The Shakers had a hard time competing in the industrialized
economy that followed the Civil War. With prosperity falling, converts were hard to find.

20th century to the present

By the early 20th century, the once numerous Shaker communities were failing and closing. By mid-
century, new federal laws were passed denying control of adoption to religious groups.[20] Today, in the
21st century, the Shaker community that still exists—The Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community—denies
that Shakerism was a failed utopian experiment.[19]

Their message, surviving over two centuries in the United States, reads in part as follows:

Shakerism is not, as many would claim, an anachronism; nor can it be dismissed as the final
sad flowering of 19th century liberal utopian fervor. Shakerism has a message for this present
age–a message as valid today as when it was first expressed. It teaches above all else that God
is Love and that our most solemn duty is to show forth that God who is love in the World.[19]

In 1992, Canterbury Shaker Village closed, leaving only Sabbathday Lake open. Eldress Bertha of the
Canterbury Village closed their official membership book in 1957, not recognizing the younger people
living in other Shaker Communities as members.[21]

On January 2, 2017, Sister Frances Carr died aged 89 at the Sabbathday community, leaving only two
remaining Shakers: Brother Arnold Hadd, age 58, and Sister June Carpenter, 77.[22] The Spring/Summer
2019 issue of the Shaker newsletter The Clarion also makes reference to a Brother Andrew.[23] These
remaining Shakers hope that sincere newcomers will join them.[24]
Nevertheless, the Shakers at Sabbathday Lake "stressed the autonomy of each local community" and
therefore do accept new converts to Shakerism into their community.[25] This Sabbathday Lake Shaker
Community receives around two enquiries every week.[26]

Leadership
Four Shakers led the society from 1772 until 1821.

1. Mother Ann Lee (1772–1784)

2. Father James Whittaker (1784–1787)
3. Father Joseph Meacham (1787–1796)
4. Mother Lucy Wright (1796–1821)

After 1821, there was no one single leader, but rather a small nucleus of Ministry elders and eldresses with
authority over all the Shaker villages, each with their own teams of elders and eldresses who were
subordinate to the Ministry.[27]

The Shaker Ministry continued to build the society after Lucy Wright died in 1821:

Elder Ebenezer Bishop (1768–1849), Elder Rufus Bishop (1774–1852), Eldress Ruth
Landon (1775–1850), Eldress Asenath Clark (1821–1857).[28]

Subsequent members of the Shaker Ministry included:

Elder Daniel Boler (1804–1892), Elder Giles Avery (1815–1890), Eldress Betsy Bates
(1798–1869), and Eldress Eliza Ann Taylor (1811–1897).[29]
Eldress Polly Reed (1818–1881) was also known as an artist who created Shaker gift
drawings such as "A present from Mother Lucy to Eliza Ann Taylor", 1851 (above) in the
1840s and 1850s.[30]
Eldress Harriet Bullard (1824–1916)[31]
Elder Frederick William Evans (1858–?)[32]
Eldress Frances Hall (1947–1957)
Eldress Emma King (1957–?)
Eldress Gertrude Soule and Eldress Bertha Lindsay (?–early 1990s)
Elder Arnold Hadd & Eldress June Carpenter (? – present)[33]

Theology

Dualism

Shaker theology is based on the idea of the dualism of God as male and female: "So God created him; male
and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). This passage was interpreted as showing the dual nature of the
Creator.[34]

First and second coming

Shakers believed that Jesus, born of a woman, the son of a Jewish carpenter, was the male manifestation of
Christ and the first Christian Church; and that Mother Ann, daughter of an English blacksmith, was the
female manifestation of Christ and the second Christian Church (which the Shakers believed themselves to
be). She was seen as the Bride made ready for the Bridegroom, and in her, the promises of the Second
Coming were fulfilled.

Nature of God

Because of the adoptionist view of Christ only becoming divine during his baptism and the dualist idea that
God was to be expressed in male and female genders, Shakers are sometimes viewed as being
nontrinitarian. However, modern-day Shakers profess the divinity of Christ and claim that Shaker dualism
is because "God has no sex in our human understanding of the term; yet being pure spirit He may best be
thought of by man with his limited power of comprehension as having the attributes of both maleness and
femaleness".[35] The Trinity is not viewed as being false. Instead, Shakers argue that the Trinity has been
misinterpreted for being completely masculine. Ann Lee's embodiment of Christ thus completed the Trinity
by fulfilling the female aspect of God.[36]

Ethics

Adam's sin was understood to be sex, which was considered to be an act of impurity. Therefore, marriage
was abolished within the body of the Believers in the Second Appearance, which was patterned after the
Kingdom of God, in which there would be no marriage or giving in marriage. The four highest Shaker
virtues were virgin purity, communalism, confession of sin – without which one could not become a
Believer – and separation from the world.

Ann Lee's doctrine was simple: confession of sins was the door to the spiritual regeneration, and absolute
celibacy was the rule of life.[37] Shakers were so chaste that men and women could not shake hands or pass
one another on the stairs.[38]

Equality

Enshrined in Shaker doctrine is a belief in racial equality and gender equality.[39]

Celibacy and children

Shakers were celibate; procreation was forbidden after they joined the society (except for women who were
already pregnant at admission). Children were added to their communities through indenture, adoption, or
conversion. Occasionally a foundling was anonymously left on a Shaker doorstep.[40] They welcomed all,
often taking in orphans and the homeless. For children, Shaker life was structured, safe and predictable,
with no shortage of adults who cared about their young charges.[41]

When Shaker youths, girls and boys, reached the age of 21, they were free to leave or to remain with the
Shakers. Unwilling to remain celibate, many chose to leave; today there are thousands of descendants of
Shaker-raised seceders.[42]

Gender roles
Shaker religion valued women and men equally in religious
leadership. The church was hierarchical, and at each level women
and men shared authority. This was reflective of the Shaker belief
that God was both female and male. They believed men and
women were equal in the sight of God, and should be treated
equally on earth, too. Thus two Elders and two Eldresses formed
the Ministry at the top of the administrative structure. Two lower-
ranking Elders and two Eldresses led each family, women
overseeing women and men overseeing men.[43]

In their labor, Shakers followed traditional gender work-related

roles. Their homes were segregated by sex, as were women and
men's work areas. Women worked indoors spinning, weaving,
cooking, sewing, cleaning, washing, and making or packaging
goods for sale. In good weather, groups of Shaker women were
outdoors, gardening and gathering wild herbs for sale or home William Paul Childers, Shaker
consumption. Men worked in the fields doing farm work and in Costume, c. 1937. Image from
their shops at crafts and trades. This allowed the continuation of collection of National Gallery of Art,
church leadership when there was a shortage of men.[44] Washington, D.C.

Worship

Shakers worshipped in meetinghouses painted white and

unadorned; pulpits and decorations were eschewed as worldly
things. In meeting, they marched, sang, danced, and sometimes
turned, twitched, jerked, or shouted. The earliest Shaker worship
services were unstructured, loud, chaotic and emotional. However,
Shakers later developed precisely choreographed dances and
orderly marches accompanied by symbolic gestures. Many
outsiders disapproved of or mocked Shakers' mode of worship
without understanding the symbolism of their movements or the
content of their songs.[45]

Shaker communities
Meeting Room (Enfield Shaker
The Shakers built more than twenty communities in the United Museum, Enfield, New Hampshire)
States.[46][3]: 114 Women and men shared leadership of the Shaker
communities. Women preached and received revelations as the
Spirit fell upon them. Thriving on the religious enthusiasm of the
first and second Great Awakenings, the Shakers declared their
messianic, communitarian message with significant response. One
early convert observed: "The wisdom of their instructions, the
purity of their doctrine, their Christ-like deportment, and the
simplicity of their manners, all appeared truly apostolical." The

Shakers during worship

 Shakers represent a small but important Utopian response to the
gospel. Preaching in their communities knew no boundaries of
gender, social class, or education.[47]

Economics
The communality of the
Believers was an economic
success, and their
cleanliness, honesty and
frugality received the
highest praise. All Shaker
villages ran farms, using the
latest scientific methods in
agriculture. They raised
most of their own food, so
Aurelia Gay Mace, leader of farming, and preserving the
Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, produce required to feed
New Gloucester, Maine. She was the them through the winter,
author of The Aletheia: Spirit of had to be priorities. Their
Truth, a Series of Letters in Which livestock were fat and
the Principles of the United Society Shaker box-maker Ricardo Belden
healthy, and their barns (Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1935)
Known as Shakers are Set Forth and were commended for
Illustrated, 1899, and The Mission convenience and
and Testimony of the Shakers of the
efficiency.[48] When not
Twentieth Century to the World,
doing farm work, Shaker
1904.
brethren pursued a variety
of trades and hand crafts,
many documented by Isaac
N. Youngs. When not doing housework, Shaker sisters did
likewise, spinning, weaving, sewing, and making sale goods—
baskets, brushes, bonnets, brooms, fancy goods, and homespun
fabric that was known for high quality, but were more famous for
their medicinal herbs, garden seeds of the Shaker Seed Company, Round Stone Barn, Hancock Shaker
apple sauce, and knitted garments (Canterbury).[49] Some Village, Massachusetts, 2004
communities, especially those in New England, produced maple
syrup for sale as well.

Shakers ran a variety of businesses to support their communities. Many Shaker villages had their own
tanneries, sold The Shaker goal in their labor was perfection. Ann Lee's followers preserved her
admonitions about work:

"Good spirits will not live where there is dirt."

"Do your work as though you had a thousand years to live and as if you were to die
tomorrow."

"Put your hands to work, and your heart to God."

Mother Ann also cautioned them against getting into debt.[50]

Shaker craftsmen were known for a style of Shaker furniture that
was plain in style, durable, and functional.[51] Shaker chairs were
usually mass-produced because a great number of them were
needed to seat all the Shakers in a community.

Around the time of the American Civil War, the Shakers at Mount
Lebanon, New York, increased their production and marketing of
Shaker chairs. They were so successful that several furniture
companies produced their own versions of "Shaker" chairs.
Because of the quality of their craftsmanship, original Shaker
furniture is costly. Shakers won respect and admiration for their
productive farms and orderly communities. Their industry brought
about many inventions like Babbitt metal, the rotary harrow, the
circular saw, the clothespin, the Shaker peg, the flat broom, the
wheel-driven washing machine, a machine for setting teeth in
textile cards, a threshing machine, metal pens, a new type of fire
engine, a machine for matching boards, numerous innovations in
waterworks, planing machinery, a hernia truss, silk reeling
machinery, small looms for weaving palm leaf, machines for
processing broom corn, ball-and-socket tilters for chair legs, and a
number of other useful inventions.[52] Even prolific Shaker Shaker Anodyne Bottle; Enfield
inventors like Tabitha Babbit did not patent their inventions before Shaker Village; late 19th century; H-
or after putting them into practice, which has complicated 4, W-1.625, D-1 inches; Enfield
subsequent efforts by 20th century historians to assign priority.[53] Shaker Museum

Shakers were the first large producers of medicinal herbs in the

United States, and pioneers in the sale of seeds in paper packets.[54]
Brethren grew the crops, but sisters picked, sorted, and packaged
their products for sale, so those industries were built on a foundation
of women's labor in the Shaker partnership between the sexes.[55]

The Shakers believed in the value of hard work and kept

comfortably busy. Mother Ann said: "Labor to make the way of God
your own; let it be your inheritance, your treasure, your occupation,
your daily calling".

Architecture and furnishings

Onion Field; Enfield Shaker Village;
The Shakers' dedication to hard work and perfection has resulted in a Enfield, New Hampshire; 1897; by
unique range of architecture, furniture and handicraft styles. They F.C. Churchill; Enfield Shaker
Museum
designed their furniture with care, believing that making something
well was in itself, "an act of prayer". Before the late 18th century,
they rarely fashioned items with elaborate details or extra decoration,
but only made things for their intended uses. The ladder-back chair was a popular piece of furniture. Shaker
craftsmen made most things out of pine or other inexpensive woods and hence their furniture was light in
color and weight.

The earliest Shaker buildings (late 18th – early 19th century) in the northeast were timber or stone buildings
built in a plain but elegant New England colonial style.[56] Early 19th-century Shaker interiors are
characterized by an austerity and simplicity. For example, they had a "peg rail", a continuous wooden
device like a pelmet with hooks running all along it near the lintel level. They used the pegs to hang up
clothes, hats, and very light furniture pieces such as chairs when
not in use. The simple architecture of their homes, meeting houses,
and barns has had a lasting influence on American architecture and
design. There is a collection of furniture and utensils at Hancock
Shaker Village outside of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, that is famous
for its elegance and practicality.

At the end of the 19th century, however, Shakers adopted some

aspects of Victorian decor, such as ornate carved furniture,
patterned linoleum, and cabbage-rose wallpaper. Examples are on
display in the Hancock Shaker Village Trustees' Office, a formerly Original Enfield Shaker Seed Box
spare, plain building "improved" with ornate additions such as fish- (Enfield Shaker Museum, Enfield,
New Hampshire)
scale siding, bay windows, porches, and a tower.

Culture

Artifacts

By the middle of the 20th century, as the Shaker

communities themselves were disappearing, some
American collectors whose visual tastes were formed by
the stark aspects of the modernist movement found
themselves drawn to the spare artifacts of Shaker culture,
in which "form follows function" was also clearly
expressed.[58] Kaare Klint, an architect and furniture Shakertown bedroom, Pleasant Hill, Kentucky
designer, used styles from Shaker furniture in his work.[59]

Other artifacts of Shaker culture are their spirit drawings, dances, and
songs, which are important genres of Shaker folk art. Doris
Humphrey, an innovator in technique, choreography, and theory of
dance movement, made a full theatrical art with her dance entitled
Dance of The Chosen, which depicted Shaker religious fervor.[60]

The largest collection of Shaker artifacts is the Robert and Virginia

Jones Shaker collection at Harmon Museum (https://www.wchsmuse
um.org/harmonmuseum.html), in Lebanon, Ohio.

Music Ornate Shaker Bed, Enfield, New

Hampshire, ca. 1880.[57]
The Shakers composed thousands of songs, and also created many
dances; both were an important part of the Shaker worship services.
In Shaker society, a spiritual "gift" could also be a musical revelation, and they considered it important to
record musical inspirations as they occurred.

Scribes, many of whom had no formal musical training, used a form of music notation called the letteral
system.[61] This method used letters of the alphabet, often not positioned on a staff, along with a simple
notation of conventional rhythmic values, and has a curious, and coincidental, similarity to some ancient
Greek music notation.
Many of the lyrics to Shaker tunes consist of syllables and words
from unknown tongues, the musical equivalent of glossolalia. It has
been surmised that many of them were imitated from the sounds of
Native American languages, as well as from the songs of African
slaves, especially in the southernmost of the Shaker communities,
but in fact the melodic material is derived from European scales and
modes.

Most early Shaker music is monodic, that is to say, composed of a

single melodic line with no harmonization. The tunes and scales
recall the folksongs of the British Isles, but since the music was
A Shaker Music Hall, The
written down and carefully preserved, it is "art" music of a special
Communistic Societies of the United
kind rather than folklore. Many melodies are of extraordinary grace
States, by Charles Nordhoff, 1875
and beauty, and the Shaker song repertoire, though still relatively
little known, is an important part of the American cultural heritage
and of world religious music in general.

Shakers' earliest hymns were shared by word of mouth and letters circulated among their villages. Many
Believers wrote out the lyrics in their own manuscript hymnals. In 1813, they published Millennial Praises,
a hymnal containing only lyrics.[62]

After the Civil War, the Shakers published hymnbooks with both lyrics and music in conventional four-part
harmonies. These works are less strikingly original than the earlier, monodic repertoire. The songs, hymns,
and anthems were sung by the Shakers usually at the beginning of their Sunday worship. Their last
hymnbook was published in 1908 at Canterbury, New Hampshire.[63]

The surviving Shakers sing songs drawn from both the earlier repertoire and the four part songbooks. They
perform all of these unaccompanied, in single-line unison singing. The many recent, harmonized
arrangements of older Shaker songs for choirs and instrumental groups mark a departure from traditional
Shaker practice.

Simple Gifts was composed in 1848 by Elder Joseph Brackett, on or about the time he moved to the Shaker
community at Alfred, Maine. English poet and songwriter Sydney Carter used the song as the basis for a
hymn in 1963 "Lord of the Dance," also referenced as "I Am the Dance."

Some scholars, such as Daniel W. Patterson and Roger Lee Hall, have compiled books of Shaker songs,
and groups have been formed to sing the songs and perform the dances.[64]

The most extensive recordings of the Shakers singing their own music were made between 1960 and 1980
and released on a 2-CD set with illustrated booklet, Let Zion Move: Music of the Shakers.[65] Other
recordings are available of Shaker songs, both documentation of singing by the Shakers themselves, as well
as songs recorded by other groups (see external links). Two widely distributed commercial recordings by
The Boston Camerata, "Simple Gifts" (1995) and "The Golden Harvest" (2000), were recorded at the
Shaker community of Sabbathday Lake, Maine, with active cooperation from the surviving Shakers, whose
singing can be heard at several points on both recordings.

Aaron Copland's 1944 ballet score Appalachian Spring, written for Martha Graham, uses the Shaker tune
"Simple Gifts" as the basis of its finale. Given to Graham with the working title "Ballet for Martha", it was
named by her for the scenario she had in mind, though Copland often said he was thinking of neither
Appalachia nor a spring while he wrote it.[66] Shakers did, in fact, worship on Holy Mount in the
Appalachians.
Laboring Songs, a piece composed by Dan Welcher in 1997 for large wind ensemble, is based upon
traditional shaker tunes including "Turn to the Right" and "Come Life, Shaker Life".[67]

Works inspired by Shaker culture

For a Shaker Seminar held in Massachusetts in 1981, composer

Roger Lee Hall wrote a pageant of original Shaker poetry and
music titled, "The Humble Heart", featuring singing and dancing
by "The New English Song and Daunce Companie".

Shaker lifestyle and tradition is celebrated in Arlene Hutton's play

As It Is in Heaven, which is a re-creation of a decisive time in the
history of the Shakers. The play is written by Arlene Hutton, the
pen name of actor/director Beth Lincks. Born in Louisiana and
raised in Florida, Lincks was inspired to write the play after visiting
the Pleasant Hills Shaker village in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, a
restored community that the Shakers occupied for more than a
century, before abandoning it in 1927 because of the inability of the
sect to attract new converts.

Robert Newton Peck's 1972 book, A Day No Pigs Would Die,

depicts a family that lives by the "Book of Shaker". They are
clearly not traditional Shakers, however, as they live in a family Félicien Rops, A Shaker Pianist
unit separate from others, strive for individual success, and have (1888) etching (16.99 x 11.75 cm;
6¾" x 4¾") Los Angeles County
children.
Museum of Art
Novelist John Fowles wrote in 1985 A Maggot, a postmodern
historical novel culminating in the birth of Ann Lee, and describing
early Shakers in England.

Janice Holt Giles depicted a Shaker Community in her novel "The Believers".

In 2004 the Finnish choreographer Tero Saarinen and Boston Camerata music director Joel Cohen created
a live performance work with dance and music entitled "Borrowed Light". While all the music is Shaker
song performed in a largely traditional manner, the dance intermingles only certain elements of Shaker
practice and belief with Saarinen's original choreographic ideas, and with distinctive costumes and lighting.
"Borrowed Light" has been given over 60 performances since 2004 in eight countries, recently (early
2008) in Australia and New Zealand, and most recently (2011) in France, Germany, Finland, the
Netherlands, and Belgium. In addition to Doris Humphrey, Martha Graham and Tero Saarinen cited above,
choreographers Twyla Tharp ("Sweet Fields", 1996) and Martha Clarke ("Angel Reapers", 2011) also set
movement to Shaker hymns. Playwright Alfred Uhry collaborated with Martha Clarke on "Angel Reapers"
and used Shaker texts as source material. The music of "Angel Reapers" was successfully and uniquely
arranged by Music Director Arthur Solari.

In 2009, Toronto-based, American-born poet Damian Rogers released her first volume of poetry, Paper
Radio. The lifestyle and philosophy of the Shakers and their matriarch Ann Lee are recurring themes in her
work.

Education
New Lebanon, New York, Shakers began keeping school in 1815.
Certified as a public school by the state of New York beginning in
1817, the teachers operated on the Lancasterian system, which was
considered advanced for its time. Boys attended class during the
winter and the girls in the summer. The first Shaker schools taught
reading, spelling, oration, arithmetic and manners, but later
diversified their coursework to include music, algebra, astronomy,
and agricultural chemistry.[68]

Non-Shaker parents respected the Shakers' schooling so much that

they often took advantage of schools that the Shaker villages
A Shaker School, The Communistic
provided, sending their children there for an education. State
Societies of the United States, by
inspectors and other outsiders visited the schools and made
Charles Nordhoff, 1875
favorable comments on teachers and students.[69]

Modern-day Shakers
Turnover was high; the group reached maximum size of about
5,000 full members in 1840,[70] and 6,000 believers at the peak of
the Shaker movement. The Shaker communities continued to lose
members, partly through attrition, since believers did not give birth
to children, and also due to economics; products hand-made by
Shakers could not compete with mass-produced products and
individuals moved to the cities for better livelihoods. There were
only 12 Shaker communities left by 1920.[71][3]: 337–370
The dwelling house at Sabbathday
In 1957, after "months of prayer", Eldresses Gertrude, Emma, and Lake Shaker Village, the only active
Ida, leaders of the United Society of Believers in Canterbury Shaker community, located in New
Shaker Village, voted to close the Shaker Covenant, the document Gloucester, Maine
which all new members need to sign to become members of the
Shakers in Canterbury Shaker Village.[72] In 1988, speaking about
the three men and women in their 20s and 30s who had become Shakers and were living in the Sabbathday
Lake Shaker Village, Eldress Bertha Lindsay of the other community, the Canterbury Shaker Village,
disputed their membership in the society: "To become a Shaker you have to sign a legal document taking
the necessary vows and that document, the official covenant, is locked up in our safe. Membership is closed
forever."[72]

However, Shaker covenants lack a "sunset clause" and today's Shakers of Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village
welcome sincere new converts to Shakerism into the society:[24]

If someone wants to become a Shaker, and the Shakers assent, the would-be member can
move into the dwelling house. If the novices, as they are called, stay a week, they sign an
articles of agreement, which protects the colony from being sued for lost wages. After a year,
the Shakers will take a vote whether to allow the novice in, but it takes another four years to be
granted full Shaker status in sharing in the colony's finances and administrative and worship
decisions.[24]

On January 2, 2017, Sister Frances Carr died aged 89 at the Sabbathday community, leaving only two
remaining Shakers: Brother Arnold Hadd, age 58, and Sister June Carpenter, 77.[73] In the Spring/Summer
2019 issue of the Shaker newsletter The Clarion, the current membership was given as Brother Arnold,
Sister June, and Brother Andrew.[74] These remaining Shakers hope that sincere newcomers will join
them.[24]

See also
Amish
Anti-Shaker
Leman Copley
Thomas Corbett (Shaker doctor)
Corbett's electrostatic machine
Heart in Hand
It Beats the Shakers
Peace churches
Quakers
Shaker Farm
Simple living
The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God
Shakertown Pledge
Shaker tilting chair
Shaker broom vise

Explanatory notes
1. Brethren, Mennonites and Quakers are the three "historic peace churches". Other religions
were pacifists who eschewed violence and war, including the Shakers.[18]

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14. Christian Becksvoort. The Shaker Legacy: Perspectives on an Enduring Furniture Style (http
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their Folk Art," Communal Societies 7 (1987): 1–15.
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23. The Shakers (Spring–Summer 2019). "Home Notes". The Clarion. 45 (2): 2–3.
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August 28, 2018. "However, the members at Sabbathday Lake stressed the autonomy of
each local community. Quietly, a few younger people became associated with the Maine
community in the 1960s through the 1980s. The two remaining members of this community,
Arnold Hadd and June Carpenter, are listed as members today."
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Shakers are not giving up. They are open to converts and average two inquiries a week."
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Press, 2018).
29. The Shaker Ministry's journals written by Boler and Avery are at the New York Public Library.
30. Polly Reed Journal (1855–64), Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon ms. 10,452; and Journals
(1872–73), Western Reserve Historical Society Cathcart Shaker collection mss. V:B-165
and −166.
31. Bullard served in the Ministry 1881–1914. Records Book No. 2 (1780–1929), New York
Public Library Shaker ms. #6, pp.18–19.
32. "Evans, Frederick William (1808–1893)" (https://shakerml.org/people/?id=11). Shaker
Museum Mount Lebanon. Retrieved September 11, 2020.
33. "Vocations" (http://maineshakers.com/vocations/). May 8, 2015. Retrieved December 24,
2017.
34. Beliefs of The United Society of Shakers at Sabbathday Lake, Maine (http://maineshakers.c
om/beliefs.html) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20110321081559/http://maineshaker
s.com/beliefs.html) March 21, 2011, at the Wayback Machine The United Society of Shakers
at Sabbathday Lake, Maine. Retrieved January 18, 2011.
35. "Beliefs of the United Society of Shakers at Sabbathday Lake, Maine" (https://web.archive.or
g/web/20110321081559/http://maineshakers.com/beliefs.html). Archived from the original on
March 21, 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2011. The United Society of Shakers at Sabbathday
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36. Deignan, Kathleen (1992). Christ Spirit: The Eschatology of Shaker Christianity. pp. 3–4,
191.
37. Edward D. Andrews, The People Called Shakers. Dover Publications, 2011,
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38. Edward D. Andrews, The People Called Shakers. Dover Publications, 2011,
ISBN 0486210812 pp. 244–245.
39. "The dying out of the sect's last members may not mean the end for the Shakers" (https://ww
w.economist.com/united-states/2017/01/12/the-dying-out-of-the-sects-last-members-may-not
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"Decades before emancipation and 150 years before women had the vote, Shakers
practised social, gender and racial equality for all members."
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41. Edward D. Andrews and Faith Andrews, "The Shaker Children's Order", Winterthur Portfolio
8 (1973): 201–14. JSTOR 1180552 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1180552).
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43. Glendyne R. Wergland, Sisters in the Faith: Shaker Women and Equality of the Sexes
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011), conclusions.
44. Suzanne R. Thurman, "O Sisters Ain't You Happy?": Gender, Family, and Community among
the Harvard and Shirley Shakers, 1781–1918 (Syracuse University Press, 2002), p. 262.
45. Glendyne R. Wergland, Visiting the Shakers, 1778–1849 (Clinton, N.Y.: Richard W. Couper
Press, 2007).
46. Priscilla Brewer, Shaker Communities, Shaker Lives (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of
New England, 1986), xx.
47. Michael Duduit, Handbook of Contemporary Preaching (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press,
1992). 32–33.
48. Wergland, Visiting the Shakers, 1778–1849.
49. Andrews and Andrews, Work and Worship: The Economic Order of the Shakers; Beverly
Gordon, Shaker Textile Arts (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1980).
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our Ever Blessed Mother Ann Lee (Hancock, Mass.: J. Talcott and J. Deming, Junrs., 1816),
264–268.
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Shaker Village, 1989).
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Shakers, (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1974), 152–159.
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54. Andrews and Andrews, Work and Worship: The Economic Order of the Shakers, 53–74.
55. Wergland, Sisters in the Faith, chapter 7.
56. "British Empire / Thirteen Colonies (USA) / Early Independence-era / Shaker Architecture |
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99-shaker_architecture).
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58. Stephen Bowe and Peter Richmond, Selling Shaker: The Commodification of Shaker
Design in the Twentieth Century (England: Liverpool University Press, 2007), pp. 43,
146n267, 169, 239, Google Books, Retrieved January 17, 2011.
59. Kaare Klint furniture design (http://www.furnituredesign24.com/kaare-klint.aspx) Retrieved
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60. Ernestine Stodelle, "Flesh and Spirit at War," New Haven Register, March 23, 1975, quoted
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(Rochester, NY: Sampler Records, 1992); Roger Lee Hall, Simple Gifts: Great American Folk
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65. Shaker Music. (http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/LetZionMove.htm) American
Music Preservation. March 26, 2014.
66. Robert Kapilow and John Adams (1999), "Milestones of the Millennium: "Appalachian
Spring" by Aaron Copland" (https://www.npr.org/programs/specials/milestones/991027.mot
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68. Isaac N. Youngs, Concise View of the Church of God, Winterthur Museum Library Andrews
Shaker Collection ms. 861, p.355, 366–74. Some Shaker school records are extant. For
Mount Lebanon, NY, see: Isaac N. Youngs et al., Memorandum of the Proceedings of the
School (1817–35), Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon ms. 10,469; Calvin Reed, Sarah
Bates, Polly Reed, William Calver, Amelia Calver, Anna Dodgson, [New Lebanon School
Journal] (1852–87), Hancock Shaker Village library, ms. 9758.
69. Glendyne R. Wergland, One Shaker Life: Isaac Newton Youngs, 1793–1865 (Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 2006), chapter 2; Glendyne R. Wergland, Sisters in the
Faith: Shaker Women and Equality of the Sexes (Amherst: University of Massachusetts
Press, 2011), chapter 4.
70. Hauffe, Thomas (1995). Design: An Illustrated Historical Overview. Koln: DuMont
Buchverlag.
71. Priscilla Brewer, "Demographic Features of the Shaker Decline, 1787–1900," Journal of
Interdisciplinary History 15.1 (summer 1984):31–52.
72. Hillinger, Charles (December 17, 1988). "Vanishing Shakers leave lasting legacy" (https://ne
ws.google.com/newspapers?nid=1917&dat=19881217&id=JnghAAAAIBAJ&pg=877,47947
90&hl=en). Schenectady Gazette. Retrieved February 22, 2016 – via Google Newspapers.
73. Sharp, David (January 4, 2017). "1 of the Last Remaining Shakers Dies at 89, Leaving Just
2" (https://apnews.com/749eec6f79634be687653f0aba5773dc/1-of-the-last-remaining-Shak
ers-dies-at-89,-leaving-just-2). Associated Press.
74. The Shakers (Spring–Summer 2019). "Home Notes". The Clarion. 45 (2): 2–3.

Further reading
General

Andrews, Edward Deming. The People Called Shakers: A Search for the Perfect Society
(1953)
Andrews, Edward Deming. The Gift to Be Simple: Songs, Dances and Rituals of the
American Shakers (Dover, 1940)
Andrews, Edward D. and Andrews, Faith. Work & Worship Among the Shakers. Dover
Publications, NY. 1982.
 Bixby, Brian L. (February 1, 2010). Seeking Shakers: Two Centuries of Visitors to Shaker
Villages (http://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/157/) (PDF) (PhD
thesis). University of Massachusetts Amherst. OCLC 670107651 (https://www.worldcat.org/o
clc/670107651).
Duffield, Holley Gene. Historical Dictionary of the Shakers. Scarecrow Press, 2000
Garrett, Clarke. Origins of the Shakers. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987
and 1998.
Johnson, Theodore E., ed. "The Millennial Laws of 1821." The Shaker Quarterly. Volume 7.2
(1967): 35–58.
Madden; Etta M. Bodies of Life: Shaker Literature and Literacies (1998) online (https://www.q
uestia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=22877973)
McKinstry, E. Richard. The Edward Deming Andrews Memorial Shaker Collection. New York
& London: Garland Publishing, 1987.
Morgan, John H. The United Inheritance: The Shaker Adventure in Communal Life
(Exemplified in Their Religious Self-Understanding). Bristol, IN: Quill Books, 2002.
Murray John E. "Determinants of Membership Levels and Duration in a Shaker Commune,
1780–1880". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34 (1995): 35–48. JSTOR 1386521
(https://www.jstor.org/stable/1386521).
Paterwic, Stephen J. Historical Dictionary of the Shakers. Scarecrow Press, 2008.
Promey, Sally. Spiritual Spectacles: Vision and Image in Mid-Nineteenth-Century
Shakerism. Indiana University Press, 1993.
Stein, Stephen J. The Shaker Experience in America: A History of the United Society of
Believers (Yale University Press, 1992), a standard scholarly history
Wergland, Glendyne R. Visiting the Shakers, 1850–1899. Clinton, N.Y.: Richard W. Couper
Press, 2010.
Wergland, Glendyne R. Visiting the Shakers, 1778–1849. Clinton, N.Y.: Richard W. Couper
Press, 2007.

Arts, crafts, music

Andrews, Edward D. The Gift to Be Simple: Songs, Dances & Rituals of the American
Shakers. Dover Publications, NY. 1940.
Emlen, Robert P. "The Shaker Dance Prints." Imprint: Journal of the American Historical
Print Collectors Society. Volume 17.2 (Autumn 1992): 14–26.
Goodwillie, Christian. Shaker Songs: A Celebration of Peace, Harmony, and Simplicity. New
York: Black Dog and Leventhal, 2002. See also Millennial Praises.
Gordon, Beverly. Shaker Textile Arts. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England,
1980.
Hall, Roger L. Invitation to Zion: A Shaker Music Guide. PineTree Press, 2017.
Hall, Roger L. Simple Gifts: Great American Folk Song. PineTree Press, 2014.
Hall, Roger L. Blended Together: Discoveries Along The Shaker Music Trail. PineTree
Press, 2011.
Hinds, William Alfred. American Communities and Cooperative Colonies. (https://archive.or
g/details/AmericanCommunitiesAndCo-operativeColonies) [1902] Second Revision.
Chicago, IL: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1908.
Kelly, Andrew. Kentucky by Design: The Decorative Arts and American Culture. University
Press of Kentucky. 2015.
Millennial Praises: A Shaker Hymnal. Christian Goodwillie and Jane Crosthwaite, eds.
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009.
 Miller, Amy Bess Williams (June 1, 1972). Darragh, William C. (ed.). "A Shaker heritage".
The Herbarist. Boston: Herb Society of America (38): 13–19. ISSN 0740-5979 (https://www.
worldcat.org/issn/0740-5979). OCLC 399892733 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/39989273
3).
Miller, Amy Bess Williams (1976). Shaker Herbs : a History and a Compendium (https://archi
ve.org/details/shakerherbshisto0000mill). New York: Clarkson N. Potter Publishers.
ISBN 9780517524947. OCLC 476947309 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/476947309).
Miller, Amy Bess Williams; Fuller, Persis Wellington, eds. (1983). The Best of Shaker
Cooking. Magnolia, Massachusetts: Peter Smith Publishing. ISBN 9780844660318.
OCLC 89096 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/89096).
Miller, Amy Bess (1998). Shaker Medicinal Herbs: A Compendium of History, Lore, and
Uses. Pownal, Vermont: Storey Books. ISBN 1-58017-040-4. OCLC 40610021 (https://www.
worldcat.org/oclc/40610021).
Plummer, Henry. Stillness and Light: The Silent Eloquence of Shaker Architecture (2009)
Rieman, Timothy D. & Muller, Charles R. The Shaker Chair; Line Drawings by Stephen
Metzger (The Canal Press, 1984) This is the definitive work .
Rieman, Timothy D. & Buck, Susan L. The Art of Craftsmanship: The Mount Lebanon
Collection (Art Services International, and Chrysler Museum, 1995).
Rotundo, Barbara. "Crossing the Dark River: Shaker Funerals and Cemeteries." Communal
Societies Volume 7 (1987): 36–46.
Sprigg, June and Larkin, David. Shaker: Life, Work, & Art. 1987.

Biographies

Carr, Frances Ann (1995). Growing up Shaker. New Gloucester, Maine: United Society of
Shakers.
Hoehnle, Peter (2010). A Bruised Idealist: David Lamson, Hopedale and the Shakers.
Clinton, N.Y.: Richard W. Couper Press. ISBN 9780979644870.
Mercadante, Linda A. Gender, Doctrine & God: The Shakers and Contemporary Theology.
Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1990.
Thurman, Suzanne. " 'Dearly Loved Mother Eunice': Gender, Motherhood, and Shaker
Spirituality." Church History. Volume 66.4 (1997): 750–61. JSTOR 3169212 (https://www.jsto
r.org/stable/3169212). doi:10.2307/3169212 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F3169212).
Wenger, Tisa J.. "Female Christ and Feminist Foremother: The Many Lives of Ann Lee."
Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. Vol. 18, No. 2 (2002):5–32. JSTOR 25002436 (http
s://www.jstor.org/stable/25002436).
Wergland, Glendyne R. One Shaker Life: Isaac Newton Youngs, 1793–1865. Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 2006.

Gender related topics

Brewer, Priscilla. " 'Tho' of the Weaker Sex': A Reassessment of Gender Equality among the
Shakers." Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society 17 (spring 1992): 609–35.
JSTOR 3174625 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3174625).
Campbell, D'Ann. "Women's Life in Utopia: The Shaker Experiment in Sexual Equality
Reappraised, 1810–1860." New England Quarterly 51 (March 1978): pp. 23–38.
JSTOR 364589 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/364589).
De Wolfe, Elizabeth. Shaking the Faith: Women, Family, and Mary Marshall Dyer's Anti-
Shaker Campaign, 1815–1867 (Palgrave 2002).
 Foster, Lawrence (1991). Women, Family, and Utopia: Communal Experiments of the
Shakers, the Oneida Community, and the Mormons (https://books.google.com/books?id=xY
VdM7fJ5iMC). Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0-8156-2535-3. Retrieved May 8, 2021.
Humez, Jean. "If I had to Study the Female Trait: Philemon Stewart, 'Petticoat Government'
Issues and Later Nineteenth-Century Shakerism." Shaker Quarterly. Volume 22, no. 4
(winter 1994):122–52.
Humez, Jean. "The Problem of Female Leadership in Early Shakerism." Shaker Design: Out
of this World. ed. Jean M. Burks. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008. pp. 93–
119.
Humez, Jean. " 'Weary of Petticoat Government': The Specter of Female Rule in Early
Nineteenth-Century Shaker Politics." Communal Societies. Volume 11 (1991): 1–17.
Humez, Jean. Mother's First-Born Daughters: early Shaker writings on women and religion.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
Kern, Louis J. An Ordered Love: Sex Roles and Sexuality in Victorian Utopias: The Shakers,
the Mormons, and the Oneida Community (University of North Carolina Press, 1981) online
(https://www.questia.com/read/15223266/an-ordered-love-sex-roles-and-sexuality-in-victoria
n)
Wergland, Glendyne R. Sisters in the Faith: Shaker Women, 1780–1890. Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 2011.

Theology

Deignan, Kathleen. Christ Spirit: The Eschatology of Shaker Christianity. Scarecrow Press /
American Theological Library Association, 1992
Francis, Richard. Ann the Word: The Story of Ann Lee Female Messiah Mother of the
Shakers, The Woman Clothed with the Sun. The Fourth Estate, London 2000.
Humez, Jean. " 'Ye Are My Epistles': The Construction of Ann Lee Imagery in Early Shaker
Sacred Literature." Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. Spring 1992. pp. 83–103.
JSTOR 25002172 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/25002172).
Sasson, Diane. The Shaker Spiritual Narrative. Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee
Press, 1983.
Patterson, Daniel W. The Shaker Spiritual 2000.
Skees, Suzanne. God Among the Shakers. New York: Hyperion, 1998.
Stein, Stephen. "Shaker Gift and Shaker Order: A Study of Religious Tension in Nineteenth-
Century America." Communal Societies. Volume 10 (1990): 102–13.

Primary sources

Authorized rules of the Shaker community, Given of the protection and guidance of the
members in the several societies (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.3117500004119
7&view=1up&seq=3). Rules of the Shaker community. New Lebanon: United Society of
Shakers. 1894.
Bates, Paulina (1849). Green, Calvin; Wells, Seth Youngs (eds.). The divine book of holy
and eternal wisdom (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951001499058j&view=1up
&seq=7). New Lebanon: United society called "Shakers".
Crossman, Charles F.; New Lebanon Shakers, eds. (1976) [First-pub. 1843]. The gardener's
manual: containing plain instructions for the selection, preparation, and management of a
kitchen garden; with practical directions for the cultivation and management of some of the
most useful culinary vegetables (2nd ed.). Hancock, Massachusetts; original location New
Lebanon, New York: Hancock Shaker Village; originally published by the United Society at
New Lebanon. OCLC 78471903 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/78471903).
 Dyer, Mary Marshall (1818). A brief statement of the sufferings of Mary Dyer, occasioned by
the society called Shakers. Written by herself. To which is added, affidavits and certificates;
also, a declaration from their own publication ... (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33
433082356829&view=1up&seq=7) Boston: William S. Spear.
Green, Calvin; Seth Youngs Wells; Richard McNemar (1834). A brief exposition of the
established principles and regulations of the United Society of believers, called Shakers (htt
ps://books.google.com/books?id=LsAOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA31).
Haskett, William J. (1828). Shakerism Unmasked, Or The History of the Shakers ... (https://b
ooks.google.com/books?id=UbESJzwY-7UC) Pittsfield.
Jackson, Rebecca. (1981). Jean McMahon Humez (ed.). Gifts of Power: The Writings of
Rebecca Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress (https://books.google.com/books?id=b9I
ufImEoxUC). ISBN 9780870235658.
Lamson, David Rich (1848). Two Years Experience Among the Shakers ... (https://archive.or
g/details/twoyearsexperie00conggoog/page/n7) West Boylston.
Rathbun, Valentine Wightman (1781). An account of the matter, form, and manner of a new
and strange religion, taught and propagated by a number of Europeans, living in a place
called Nisqueunia, in the state of New-York (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.112136
04&view=1up&seq=7). Providence: Bennett Wheeler.
Stewart, Philemon (1843). A holy, sacred, and divine roll and book; from the Lord God of
heaven, to the inhabitants of earth: revealed in the United Society at New Lebanon, State of
New York. In two parts (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433082159876&view=1u
p&seq=432). New Lebanon: The United Society of Shakers.
White, Anna; Leila S. Taylor (1904). Shakerism, Its Meaning and Message: Embracing an
Historical Account, Statement of Belief and Spiritual Experience of the Church from Its Rise
to the Present Day (https://books.google.com/books?id=j4MuAAAAYAAJ). Columbus, Ohio:
Fred J. Heer.
Whitson, Robley Edward, ed. (1983). The Shakers: Two Centuries of Spiritual Reflection (htt
ps://books.google.com/books?id=8NFFknegLWUC&pg=PA38). Mahwah, New Jersey:
Paulist Press. ISBN 9780809123735.
Youngs, Benjamin Seth; Richard McNemar (1810). Transactions of the Ohio mob, called in
the public papers "An expedition against the Shakers." (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=
mdp.69015000000758&view=1up&seq=1). Albany, N.Y.: E. & E. Hosford.

Shaker periodicals

The Shaker Manifesto (https://communalsocieties.hamilton.edu/shaker-publications). 1871–

1899. United Societies of Shakers of America.
The Shaker Quarterly (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1681198). 1961–1975, 1987–1996.
Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village.

External links
Shakers (https://curlie.org/Society/Religion_and_Spirituality/Christianity/Church_History/Nor
th_America/United_States/Shakers/) at Curlie
The United Society of Shakers at Sabbathday Lake (includes Museum and Library), Maine
(http://www.maineshakers.com/)
Shaker Historical Society (http://www.shakerhistoricalsociety.org)
Shaker Heritage Society (http://www.shakerheritage.org/home)
Fruitlands (http://www.fruitlands.org/exhibitions,permanent-collections)
Friends of the Shakers (http://www.friendsoftheshakers.org/)
 Shaker collection (https://archivesspace.williams.edu/repositories/2/resources/346) at
Williams College Archives & Special Collections
Music of the Shakers (http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/shakermusic.htm)
Shakerpedia (http://www.shakerpedia.com)
Shaker members database (http://memoirs.shakerpedia.com/)

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