American Studies Commons^™

The Quest For 392, Brian Ziebart

American Communal Societies Quarterly

In January 2015, I received a copy of Henry Yaple’s A Descriptive Bibliography of Imprints from the Israelite House of David and Mary’s City of David 1902-2010 from Christian Goodwillie of Hamilton College. This book lists the various books printed at the two colonies’ print shops. I was excited to receive it and immediately read it from cover to cover. The one thing that stuck out was Henry’s entry number 392: Free Press of the House of Israel (illustrated on page 202 of this issue), the one imprint that Henry had not found in any of the collections that he …

A Gentile’S Invitation To Shiloh, House Of David, Henry M. Yaple

American Communal Societies Quarterly

An account of the author's August 2017 visit to Shiloh, the main dwelling of the Israelite House of David in Benton Harbor, Michigan, to meet with Brian Ziebart, trustee and historian of the House of David.

Descriptive Bibliography Of Imprints In The House Of David Collection, Shannon Mcrae, Brian Ziebart

American Communal Societies Quarterly

This article represents the first phase of a new descriptive bibliography of imprints from the Israelite House of David. It is intended to supplement the comprehensive and monumental work of Henry M. Yaple, whose Descriptive Bibliography of the Israelite House of David and Mary’s City of David, 1902-2010 was published in 2014 by the Richard W. Couper Press. This partial supplement to Yaple’s work features some of the most significant finds from among the imprints newly discovered at Shiloh, but a small percentage of what is yet to be discovered and cataloged. The imprints enumerated here are those Yaple had …

A List Of People From The Valley Forge Community Who Joined The Shakers Between 1827 And 1831, Stephen J. Paterwic

American Communal Societies Quarterly

The list includes fifty-nine names with approximate age and outcome.

“Hope On – Work Ever”: The Valley Forge Community And The Shakers, Stephen J. Paterwic

American Communal Societies Quarterly

When most people hear the words “Valley Forge,” they conjure up pictures of poorly clad Revolutionary War soldiers starving in the backwoods of Pennsylvania while “fat cat” Redcoats feast on the colony’s spoils during the winter social season in Philadelphia. In contrast, very few individuals are aware of the attempt to found a community there during the 1820s that eventually resulted in almost sixty converts to Shakerism. This relatively forgotten chapter in Shaker history, however, is worth a detailed examination. While the Valley Forge community is a mere footnote in the history of communal societies in the United States, for …

Natural Man Illumined: Johann Gichtel’S Mystical Figures At Ephrata, Nick Siegert

American Communal Societies Quarterly

Recently, a new examination of some illustrations found in the papers of Jacob Martin, a member of the eighteenth-century Ephrata Community, have turned up some interesting results that may shed more light on the beliefs and world views of the Ephrata Community and one of its more interesting members. The Mystical Figure from the Jacob Martin papers is clearly a reproduction of the “Awakening Man,” the second in a series of four plates that come from a treatise published by Johann Georg Gichtel in 1696: Einekruz Eroffnung und Anweisung der drei Prinzipien und Weltenimim Menschen – “A Brief Opening and …

The Success And Failure Of Oneida Community Architecture, Kevin Coffee

American Communal Societies Quarterly

The Oneida Community Mansion House comprised multiple structures, including four large interconnected structures built as the 1862 Main House, the 1864 Tontine, the 1869 South Wing and the 1878 New House. Three of those structures were primarily residential. The 1864 Tontine building was designed as a workhouse and dining room. It is these four buildings that are the focus of this essay.

This essay proceeds from the assertion that the architecture of the Oneida Community is much more than background. The Community’s residential buildings reveal much about their communal experiment and the trans-Atlantic world with which they communicated. What follows …

Document: Reasons For Uniting With The People Called Shakers: Comprised In A Short Sketch Of The Author’S Religious Exercises, And A Brief Statement Of The Peculiar Doctrines And Practices Of That People, Proctor Sampson

American Communal Societies Quarterly

Proctor Sampson (ca.1773-1855) was instrumental in gathering the community at Sodus Bay, New York. He wrote Remains of Joseph A. H. Sampson (Rochester, N.Y.: E.F. Marshall, 1827), the first Shaker biography, as a loving elegy to his son, who died a Shaker at age twenty. This first section of his “Reasons for Uniting with the Shakers” has never been published. It is one of eighteen chapters, the rest devoted to theology, comprising a manuscript now in the collection of the Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio, (VII:B-50). Sampson’s colorful narrative sheds much light on the religious ferment in southern Maine …