Shakers (sect)

• Motto: "Hands to work, and hearts to God."
• Formation: 1771
• Founders: Ann Lee (Mother Ann)

Overview

The Shakers, formally known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, are a successful utopian religious community dating back to the eighteenth century. Its founding members were originally part of the Quakers who started the sect in England before arriving in America just as the Revolutionary War was under way. The Shakers started with one small community in New York State; at the height of the movement, there were nineteen Shaker communities up and down the eastern part of the country from Maine to Kentucky.

Some of the key things Shakers are known for include an emphasis on equality both in religious and everyday life. This includes equality between genders and extends to those outside their community as well, regardless of race or religion. They are also keenly opposed to killing, even during wartime. As pacifists, Shakers were among the first in the country to be recognized as conscientious objectors.

History

The seventeenth century was a time of much turmoil in the Protestant church as a number of groups split from the Church of England and then split again over various differences in beliefs. Two of these groups, the Quakers and the Camisards, would give rise to the Shakers. The Quakers were founded in England in 1652. They put great emphasis on the inner light of Christ and the individual’s ability to obtain knowledge of Christ. For a period in the 1740s, Quakers at worship were often said to tremble, or quake, because they danced and sang in tongues. One particular group of Quakers came to be known for this practice and were called the Shaking Quakers, later called the Shakers.

The Camisards, who put much faith in prophets and prophetic visions, originated in France, where their beliefs were not in line with those of the French authorities. Fleeing the resulting persecution, some of them moved to England in the early 1700s and joined the Shaking Quakers. The Shakers would subsequently separate from the rest of the Quakers in 1747 and become their own sect.

One of these Shakers was Ann Lee. She grew up in Manchester, England, and married the town blacksmith in 1762. They had four children, but all of them died. Shaker tradition says that after losing her fourth child, Lee had a heavenly vision that revealed to her that sex was sinful and serving God required celibacy. The visions also revealed to Lee that because both men and women were made in God’s image, everything in nature, including humans, had a male and a female nature. The Shakers came to see "Mother Ann" as the female half of Jesus Christ and thought her to be the second coming of Christ on Earth.

After another vision revealed that a place was ready for them in America, Lee, her husband, and seven followers left England for America on May 10, 1774. They settled in an area of New York near present-day Albany, where they built a community they called Niskayuna. Lee was briefly imprisoned under suspicion of being a Loyalist during the Revolutionary War, but she was freed after agreeing not to work in support of the British. Following Lee’s death in 1784, a number of other leaders—both male and female—led the Shakers. About a dozen new communities were formed between 1787 and 1792, all in the northeastern United States. Missionaries preaching at revivals soon carried Shaker beliefs to Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana and established new communities in these states as well.

By the mid-1800s, the Shakers had reached their time of greatest size and influence. This was also what came to be known as the Era of Manifestations when many young Shaker girls reportedly received visions from heavenly spirits who came to earth. These visions were manifested in dance, speaking in tongues, and drawings. This period was also a time of great industrial success for the Shakers. Their self-contained communities relied on the sale of handmade items for support, and they became well-known for their handcrafted Shaker furniture and other goods. They also invented a number of items, including a flat broom, the circular saw, and an early washing machine.

During the American Civil War, the Shakers refused to fight and were granted conscientious objector status by President Abraham Lincoln. This brought a number of new members to their ranks in the form of young men who could not see their way clear to fighting in the war. After the war, however, many of these members faded away. The way things were manufactured changed as well, making it harder for Shakers to support themselves by means of handmade goods. This made it even harder to gain new members. Throughout the twentieth century, many Shaker communities began to close. In the twenty-first century, only one community remained—Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community in New Gloucester, Maine, which had fewer than a dozen members.

Only two Shakers, Brother Arnold Hadd and Sister June Carpenter, were left after the death of Sister Frances Carr at the age of eighty-nine on January 2, 2017. Carr had come to the Sabbathday Lake community from Lewiston, Maine, as a ten-year-old orphan. She is remembered as a community leader and for publishing a 1985 cookbook, Shaker Your Plate: Of Shaker Cooks and Cooking.

Beliefs & Practices

Shaker beliefs originated with the visions Lee had before she and her small band of pilgrims arrived in America. They believed in equality, in holding all goods in common, in the confession of sins, and in celibacy. Shakers do not believe in having sex, even for the purpose of having children; therefore, they replenish their community by adopting children and by allowing converts from outside to join Shaker communities. The adopted children are given the choice to remain or to leave the community once they turn twenty-one years old.

Gender equality is also important to the Shakers. Men and women each have their own tasks they are thought best suited to perform, but none is considered better or worse, and all are considered necessary for the success of the community. Men and women are housed separately and sit separately for worship. Until the early nineteenth century, Shaker worship included spontaneous dance. That was replaced by choreographed dancing for a time, and that, in turn, was replaced once again by spontaneous dance later in the nineteenth century. During the twentieth century, however, worship began to involve more hymn singing, preaching, and silence. In 1995, the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community Chorus, along with the Boston Camerata and Schola Cantorum of Boston, released an album of Shaker religious music, Simple Gifts: Shaker Chants and Spirituals.

The Shakers continue to believe a vision that Ann Lee had before her death. The vision told her that the community would increase again in numbers once its membership dropped to a low of five.

Shaker Furniture

While the Shakers declined in numbers and influence from the end of the nineteenth century into the twenty-first century, they made a lasting impression with their craftwork. This included textiles and boxes, but most notable were their furniture designs. The dominant feature of Shaker furniture is simplicity, with every element intended to function as best as possible with no distracting decorations such as inlays, veneers, or carvings. The pieces use local woods such as pine, cherry, and maple, which are inexpensive and practical. Like other aspects of Shaker life, this design philosophy arose from their religious beliefs which holds that the act of crafting a useful object is akin to prayer and that the way things look should reflect their use. In this way, the Shakers anticipated the functionalist school of thought, which would not be fully articulated for about a hundred years after the height of the Shaker movement. They also greatly influenced other trends, such as minimalism.

Crafting and selling furniture were long staples of Shaker society, but the decorative arts community only began to show real interest in the designs in the twentieth century, when many Shaker communities had already dissolved. During this time, there was renewed interest in hand-made craftsmanship, and scholars and artists alike admired Shaker furniture as extremely well-built. Many also noted that the furniture was of uniquely American design, eschewing the European influences that had typically directed design trends. Original Shaker furniture became highly sought after and valuable, and remaining Shaker craftspeople found new outlets for their work. Mainstream furniture makers have also frequently adopted Shaker styles. Many major art museums include original examples of Shaker furniture in design collections, and the various museums at former Shaker villages or houses also often display examples of the signature furniture style.

Bibliography

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"The Shakers." PBS, www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-shakers. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.

"The Shakers." University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 10 Dec. 2001, ils.unc.edu/dpr/path/shakers. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.

"Travel the Shaker Historic Trail." National Park Service, 26 Mar. 2018, www.nps.gov/subjects/travelshaker/index.htm. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.

Vincent, Nicholas C. "Shaker Furniture." The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mar. 2012, www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/shak/hd‗shak.htm. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.

"We Make You Freely Welcome." Shaker Village, www.maineshakers.com. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.

“Why Are There Only Two Shakers Left?” Times of India, 10 Sept. 2024, timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/why-are-there-only-two-shakers-left/articleshow/113230307.cms. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.