Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Black Shaker Minstrels And The Comic Performance Of Shaker Worship, Robert P. Emlen

American Communal Societies Quarterly

Among the many visual images of Shaker life published in the popular press of nineteenth-century America are several small wood engravings picturing two rows of dancing figures. Used in the 1850s to illustrate a popular ditty called “The Celebrated Black Shaker Song,” this scene in twenty-first-century America has become a curious artifact whose original meaning has been obscured with time. The reason for this incongruity becomes apparent when these “Black Shaker” illustrations are examined in the wider context of the visual culture of popular amusements in nineteenth-century America: the figures pictured in these engravings are now recognized as neither black …

Medical Practice In The Harvard Shaker Church Family 1834-1843, Merry B. Post

American Communal Societies Quarterly

The Church Family medical shop was in the center of the Shaker community in Harvard, Massachusetts. Located behind the brethren’s workshop, this small, two-story frame building stood conveniently close to the institutional kitchen for the Church Family as well as to the herb shop where medicinal herbs were processed. Though the building itself no longer stands, the history of the shop remains an important reflection of the core Shaker values of cooperation, charity, spirituality, and respect for the elderly.

“We Live At A Great Distance From The Church”: Cartographic Strategies Of The Shakers, 1805-1835, Carol Medlicott

American Communal Societies Quarterly

While Shakerism was spreading in the several decades following the 1780s, America itself was also expanding territorially. Just as America’s territorial expansion was the stimulus for map-making, Shaker expansion produced a need for maps and for the skills of the surveyor and the cartographer. The Shaker movement was long distinctive among American utopian sects, in that it attempted to encompass a large number of communities arrayed across a thousand miles of geographic distance. This expansive geographic structure produced an array of interesting and contradictory strategies among the Shakers. Even while leading Shakers expressed doubt about the appropriateness of geography as …

The Shakers In Eighteenth-Century Newspapers—Part One: “From A Spirit Of Detraction And Slander”, Christian Goodwillie

American Communal Societies Quarterly

An overview of the earliest newspaper accounts of the Shakers, paying particular attention to how the Shakers were portrayed in the press over time, and to the inaccuracies, both deliberate and accidental, occurring in those accounts.

The Mob At Enfield: Introduction, Elizabeth De Wolfe

American Communal Societies Quarterly

For five days in May 1818, a mob set fear into the hearts of the Enfield, New Hampshire, Shakers. This little-known confrontation, provoked by two women whose husbands and children lived within the Enfield Shaker village, rallied public opinion against the Shakers and their way of life. The rare manuscript reprinted on the following pages records the Shakers’ account of the five-day mob, one of two lengthy Shaker recollections of this volatile event. Although written in the present tense, the document is retrospective and written after the conclusion of the mob, likely as part of the legal proceedings that followed.

A Statement Concerning The Mob At Enfield

American Communal Societies Quarterly

Transcription of a May 25, 1818, manuscript in the Hamilton College Library titled “A Statement Concerning the Mob at Enfield.” The manuscript records the Shakers’ account of the five-day mob, one of two lengthy Shaker recollections of this volatile event. Although written in the present tense, the document is retrospective and written after the conclusion of the mob, likely as part of the legal proceedings that followed.

The Shakers Of Canterbury: Their Agriculture And Their Machinery, Elizabeth Gleason Bervy

American Communal Societies Quarterly

From the very first years of the existence of this Society, the people were industrious and hard working. Their founder and spiritual leader, Ann Lee, had instructed them, “Put your hands to work and your heart to God.” There was a pervasive concern for quality in every form of production among the Shakers, as well as for honesty in dealing with the world in the selling of their products.

Shaker farms were models of efficiency and orderliness and greatly admired by agricultural experts. From the early nineteenth century on, they implemented revolutionary agricultural practices: whenever possible they endorsed the use …

The History Of The Shaker Gathering Order, Stephen J. Paterwic

American Communal Societies Quarterly

The Shakers were ever changing their policies and daily practices. To imagine that the Shakers never changed or did so reluctantly is to rob Shakerism of its dynamism for the sake of obtaining easy characterizations. An excellent example of Shaker willingness to innovate and adapt to changing circumstances may be found in the development of the Shaker Gathering Order. A full treatment of its history provides many ways through which to examine the ever-living, vital Shaker religion.

Benn Pitman's "Visit To The Shaker Settlement—Whitewater Village, O.": Introduction, David D. Newell

American Communal Societies Quarterly

What may be the most interesting and detailed outsider’s account of the White Water community also has a history of scholarly elusiveness. It was written by Benn Pitman (1822-1910), a pioneer in the field of phonography and phonetics, who played a leading role in the development of the science of stenography. Pitman visited the White Water Shakers in 1855, two years after he had immigrated to Cincinnati from Wiltshire, England. Following his visit, he wrote and published an article entitled “Visit to the Shaker Settlement — Whitewater Village, O.” in The Phonographic Magazine in 1855.

“Cummings And Goings”: The Impact Of Shakerism On The Family Of Edward T. Cummings, Mary Ann Haagen

American Communal Societies Quarterly

The enthusiasm of Edward Cummings for a Shaker life was a passing thing, but his decision to bring his family to Enfield, New Hampshire, in 1844 profoundly affected the character of the Enfield Shaker community for the next eighty years. From our vantage point, the contributions of his children John, Henry, Enoch, Rosetta and Ann cannot be fully measured. But their creativity, business acumen, and leadership abilities, their intellects and distinctive personalities shine brightly in the record of the community.

Though John Cummings had a period of doubt about having chosen a Shaker life, he and his sisters Rosetta and …

Visit To The Shaker Settlement— Whitewater Village, O., Benn Pitman

American Communal Societies Quarterly

Transcript of an article published employing shorthand in The Phonolographic Magazine (1855): 85-95 and using the phonetic alphabet in the American Phonetic Journal 2, no. 1 (July 1855): 12-16.