Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Harvard Shakers’ Mill On Bennett’S Brook, Ned Quist

American Communal Societies Quarterly

Built in by the Church Family in 1806 as a grist mill, the mill on Bennett’s Brook and its associated buildings supported the Harvard Shaker community’s industrial efforts for over one hundred years, almost until the community’s closing in 1918. The mill buildings no longer stand, and all that remains are the foundation structures, a reconstructed dam, and a magnificent granite tailrace. Fortunately, the mill buildings were photographed by a number of amateur and professional photographers and over a dozen images survive from the 1890s through 1925. Surviving documentary evidence about the mill and what went on inside it comes …

Shaking The Faith At Twenty-Five: Reflections On Shaker Research In The Digital Age, Elizabeth Dewolfe

American Communal Societies Quarterly

Starting my dissertation research today with the abundance of online resources would no doubt save time and money, and there are few humanities grad students out there who couldn’t use more of both. I could have so much at my fingertips that I could more quickly determine if I had a project worth doing and could see the scholarly gaps into which my work could fit. With digitization, we can research more deeply, recover more voices, and tell more stories.

But the bounty of the digital age comes with cautions. An online search does not eliminate the necessity to look …

The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts Vs. The Harvard Shakers, Cynthia Barton

American Communal Societies Quarterly

In the spring of April, 1826, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts concluded court proceedings against Elder John Warner and others of Harvard’s Shakers. The trial took place in Worcester and had been continued from the previous fall. According to a local newspaper, the head men of the Society were indicted and charged with "having falsely imprisoned one Seth Babbit, from the year 1823 to the finding of the indictment, and with having, at sundry times during that period, violently assaulted and beaten him."

Testimony at the trial made it clear that the Shakers were taking care of one of their own …

The South Family Of The Hancock Shakers, Circa 1818–1849, Stephen J. Paterwic

American Communal Societies Quarterly

On July 17, 2021, Hancock Shaker Village will open the site of the former South Family to visitors for the first time in the museum’s history. Historian of Shakerism Stephen J. Paterwic, a member of the museum’s Collections Committee, was asked to research this little studied Shaker family. The results of his efforts will be used by Hancock Shaker Village staff to interpret the site, they are published in full below.

Elwin E. Damkohler’S Account Of The Koreshan Unity

American Communal Societies Quarterly

Lyn Millner’s excellent history of the Koreshan Unity, The Allure of Immortality: An American Cult, a Florida Swamp, and a Renegade Prophet, made use of many heretofore inaccessible primary sources about the Koreshans. One of these was Elwin E. Damkohler’s scarce pamphlet Estero, Fla., 1882: Memoirs of the First Settler (Fort Myers Beach, Florida: Island Press, 1967). As Millner recounts, Elwin and his father Gustave were convinced by Teed and the Koreshans to legally sign the title to their lands over to the community. This reprint is Elwin’s bitter memories of the Koreshans, excerpted here from his extremely rare …

“A Great Blessing To Mankind”: The Medicated Vapour Bath At The Shaker Community Of New Lebanon, Kerry Hackett

American Communal Societies Quarterly

Shaker diaries and journals show that over the years brethren and sisters experimented with numerous treatment forms such as humoural medicine, Thomsonianism, hydrotherapy, Grahamism, medical electricity, sea air cure, and taking the waters at various medicinal springs. Yet despite the informal and often inconsistent use of these therapies, one invention appears to have inspired an official commitment between the Society and the “world” (non- Shakers): the “medicated vapour bath.”

This commitment was recorded in an 1826 letter between Union Village (O.) and South Union (Ky.). Like many Shaker Ministry communications, it opened with a report from New Lebanon that detailed …

Mothers And Daughters At White Water Shaker Village, Thomas Sakmyster

American Communal Societies Quarterly

One of the core beliefs of the Shakers was that only by making a firm commitment to a life of purity and piety as a member of a community of Believers could an individual escape the sinfulness of the world and properly prepare for salvation. This required that individuals sever ties with their natural, biological families and become a member of a new spiritual family, which would offer the love and emotional support that natural family members had formerly provided.

It must also have been difficult for some to abide fully and faithfully by the rules designed to break down …

Six Scenes From The Sixties, Tom Fels

American Communal Societies Quarterly

As a veteran of the 1960s, I have been interested, over the years, to investigate the significance of those times, to look at the background from which they emerged, and to assess—to the extent possible after such a relatively short time—the effects of the political and social turmoil with which we associate them. In the essay that follows, I explore six experiences of my own, looking at how a time of activism and change affected the post-World War II generation, and might influence the world of today.

My experiences are drawn from the trajectory created, over the course of some …