Publications
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American Communal Societies Series, no. 18. 362 pages, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-937370-42-8 ($40)
The utopian socialism of Charles Fourier inspired the most popular and influential communal movement during America’s pivotal “utopian moment” in the pre-Civil War era. Far from a colorful curiosity, the Fourierists were serious participants in the debate over the future of the young republic. This collection of essays supplements Carl Guarneri’s award-winning earlier volume on the Fourierists by examining such topics as Emerson’s private fascination with Fourierism, the experience of women in Fourierist communities, and the utopian socialists’ relation to slavery and the Civil War. Pursuing unexplored affinities and connections, Guarneri demonstrates the Fourierists’ influence on the free-love Oneida Community, documents exchanges between American and European social reformers, and situates the Fourierist movement in the larger context of American, transatlantic, and communal history.
Carl Guarneri is Brother James Ash Professor of History, Emeritus at Saint Mary’s College of California and Affiliated Scholar in History at Colgate University. He has published a dozen books on utopian socialism, the Civil War, and American history in global context, as well as numerous articles and reviews. His earlier volume on the utopian socialists, The Utopian Alternative: Fourierism in Nineteenth-Century America (1991), was awarded the annual book prize of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. Guarneri received the Communal Studies Association’s Distinguished Scholar Award in 2006.
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- From the Editor
- “God loves such a building”: Three Diagrammatic Shaker
- Drawings at Library of Congress by Carol Medlicott
- Alpha and Omega: The 1804 Shaker Church of Christ
- Missionary Letter and Richard McNemar’s 1838 Response by Christian Goodwillie
- Document: “The Church of Christ,” 1804
- Document: Church of Christ as printed by Richard McNemar, ca. 1831
- Document: Richard McNemar, Draft of an Answer, ca. 1838
- Document: BIGOTRY.
Front cover illustration: Drawing of three Shaker buildings. For reasons that are not clear, this drawing was catalogued together with, “A Plan of Alfred, Maine,” by Joshua H. Bussell, 1845. Library of Congress Call Number G3734.A432 1845.B8.
Back cover illustration: BIGOTRY. Ear Am 20, Book Collection, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin -
American Communal Societies Series, no. 17. 260 pages, 2024
ISBN: 978-1937370411 ($30)Who was Dr. Alesha Sivartha, the visionary artist whose strange inscribed mind maps, occult diagrams, and painstaking anatomical drawings were printed in a variety of obscure books and pamphlets in the late nineteenth century?
Religious historian John Buescher here draws Dr. Sivartha out of mysterious obscurity and traces the story of his wild life, from his birth as Elisha Holmes Dodge in upstate New York in 1834, to his transformation, under the name of Arthur E. Merton, into a phrenologist, free-lover, utopian socialist, and cult leader. At the time of his death in 1915, he had assumed the name of Alesha Sivartha, and transformed himself into an occult documentarian who sought to map the structures of the “New Jerusalem” onto the biological and chemical world. This richly illustrated volume includes an extensive album of Sivartha’s drawings.Dr. John B. Buescher is the author of books and articles on the history of nineteenth-century American Spiritualism. He is a co-director of the International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals (IAPSOP).
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- From the Editor
- Rabbit Heads, Indian Maidens, and a Can of Peas: Entertainments with the Canterbury Shakers by Rebecca Soules
- Canterbury Takes the Lead by Stephen J. Paterwic
- White Water Shaker Society Burial Grounds by Beth J. Parker Miller
- Document: We Appeal to the Sovereign People by Christian Goodwillie
Front cover illustration: At Easter 1932, members of the Junior Orchestra pose in front of the Canterbury water tower in their rabbit masks and vests. (CSV P0271)
Back cover illustration: Judith, with Sister Marguerite Frost onstage amongst a forest of potted trees and painted backdrops. (CSV 2-PN299) -
- From the Editor
- How Father Joseph Emerged as the Leader of the Shakers: A Closer Look at the 1780s and Beyond by Stephen Paterwic
- “Fall on the rock”: Excavating a Shaker Spiritual Motif by Carol Medlicott
- “The Picturesque Shakers” and “Hands to Work: Picturing the Shakers as Handicraft Workers in 19th Century Photographs” by Robert P. Emlen
- The Grand Survivor: The Harvard Shakers’ New Office of 1839–40 213 by Ned Quist
Front cover illustration: “J. W.” Stone. Photo by Winthrop B. Coffin, The Peg Board, 1936. Back cover illustration: The grave marker of Sarah Wright Meacham, mother of Father Joseph Meacham. Photo by author.
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- From the Editor
- The Rise of Anti-Masonry in Western New York and Its Connection to the Rise of Mormonism by Bruce A. Van Orden
- “There’s no combination, so firm as freemason”: William Wines Phelps — New York Journalist, Mason, and Anti-Mason by Michael W. Homer
- A “Prophet to Your Father”: Martin Harris and the Printing of the Book of Mormon by Rick Grunder
- The Key to William Morgan’s Jail Cell in Canandaigua, New York by Christian Goodwillie
Front cover illustration: The original copyright title page for the Book of Mormon filed June 11, 1829. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Back cover illustration: Rick Grunder photographing the key to William Morgan’s cell at St. Patrick’s Lodge, No. 4, Johnstown, New York, June 22, 2023. Photograph by Christian Goodwillie.
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Shaker Studies, no 19, 339 pages, 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-40-4 ($35)
This study—the first of of its kind— is a comprehensive examination of one of the most fascinating and colorful periods of American religious history: the Shakers’ Era of Manifestations. Based on a comprehensive reading of primary sources from Shaker communities in Ohio and Kentucky, this volume documents the spiritual highs and lows promulgated by Shaker visionists (spirit mediums) as their gifts impacted their communities in a variety of ways —both positive and negative. Visits from Mother Ann Lee, Holy Mother Wisdom, the Eternal Father, and the Holy Savior (Jesus) are detailed herein, as well as the establishment of outdoor worship sites—Feast Grounds—the reception of gift songs, new dances, and most intriguing of all, interactions with the departed of many races and nations, including an exceptional series of encounters with Indigenous American (Indian) spirits, historical figures like George Washington, and many Shaker founders.
Thomas Sakmyster is an emeritus professor at the University of Cincinnati, where he was the Walter Langsam Professor of Modern European History. He has published widely on his areas of specialization, including modern East European history, the American Communist Party, world communism, and Shaker history. He is co-editor of The Shakers of White Water, 1823-1916 and author of The Last Shaker Apostate: Augustus Wager and Union Village, Ohio and articles on various themes in the history of the Shakers.Topic -
- From the Editor
- Johann Adam Gruber – His Life and Times by Emilie Hoppe
- Thoughts on Barbara Heinemann Landmann by Janet W. Zuber
- Places to Pray: A Survey of Inspirationist Meeting Houses by Peter Hoehnle
- Book Production in Communal Ebenezer, New York, and Amana, Iowa by Lanny Haldy
- A Question of Pacifism or Patriotism: The Amana Society during World War I by Jon Childers
Front cover illustration: The author’s [Lanny Haldy] grandmother’s Bücherschrank (book cabinet) containing most of the over 300 Inspirationist imprints. Photo by Lanny Haldy. Back cover illustration: Ronneburg, 2023. Photo by Reiner Erdt.
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- From the Editor
- “This imperfect scrawl”: Neighbor Maria G. Ham Remembers the Canterbury Shakers, 1839-1908 by Brian D. Carroll
- Frederick Williams Evans’s Letter to Alcander Longley in the Phalansterian Record by Christian Goodwillie
- Defending the House of David: Mary Purnell’s 1923 Testimony before a Michigan Grand Jury by Brian D. Carroll
- Kaliflower: A Selection of Covers
Front and back cover illustrations: Kaliflower
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- From the Editor
- Canterbury’s Shaker Museum: Curating the Past During Times of Change and Crisis by Becky Soules
- Holes in the Fabric of a Shaker Village: Three Lost Buildings of the Harvard Shaker Society by Ned Quist
- “For the benefit of Believers only”: The Remarkable Odyssey of Thirty Medical Receipts by Kerry Hackett
Front cover illustration: Only known photograph of the museum in situ in the Brethren’s South Shop (ca. 1877–1917). (Communal Societies Collection, Hamilton College)
Back cover illustration: William Wright: North Family Dwelling, 1896. (Courtesy of the Trustees Archives and Research Center)
