Shaker Studies

Shaker Studies, no 19, 339 pages, 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-40-4 ($35)

Description:
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.

Four volumes, 2023.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-35-0 ($150 plus $20 shipping)

Description:
The Shakers: A Bibliography comprises more than 17,500 entries for printed materials by and about the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, more commonly called Shakers. This work more than quadruples the number of entries contained in Mary Richmond’s Shaker Literature (1977), the standard bibliography on the Shakers until now. The product of fifteen years of painstaking research by a team of bibliographers, The Shakers: A Bibliography comprehensively documents the written record of this remarkably influential communal Christian sect. Each entry provides publication information, annotation and commentary, and holdings information. Additionally, brief biographies are provided for a number of Shaker authors. The Shakers: A Bibliography provides scholars with a tremendous amount of new source material and information to undergird future research and writing about the United Society.

Shaker Studies, no. 18. 242 pages, 2022.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-30-5 ($65)

Description:
In the mid-nineteenth century, both Shaker sacred texts and gift drawings were rich with theological arguments for the millennial vision of a heaven celebrating the Heavenly Father and Holy Mother Wisdom and of a communal society embodying its teachings in celibacy and peace. This richly-illustrated, full color volume, explores these Shaker visions of the divine.

Jane Freeman Crosthwaite first encountered the Shakers when preparing a course on women in American religious history for a class at Mount Holyoke College. Mother Ann Lee, her teachings, her followers, and their musical, scriptural, and artistic ventures in theological expression became the focus of numerous seminars, lectures, and articles in the years to follow. Most notably, she and Christian Goodwillie edited Millennial Praises: A Shaker Hymnal which brought together the early, theologically-rich hymn texts with the scattered musical records.

Now retired from teaching courses in religion and ethics (and delivering a number of baccalaureate addresses), Professor Crosthwaite has tucked away a teaching award from Mount Holyoke, inclusion in The Princeton Review’s 300 Outstanding Teachers, a Distinguished Alumni Award from Wake Forest University, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree, from Queens University of Charlotte.

Shaker Studies, no. 17. 321 pages, 2021.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-33-6 ($50)

Description:
Beech Hill traces the Elkins family's forty year Shaker journey using newly discovered journals and letters. Apostate Hervey Elkins is best known for publishing Fifteen Years in the Senior Order of Shakers, an insider's account of life at Enfield, New Hampshire. Although relations between the Shakers and apostates were often quite contentious, the Elkins family papers reflect a different reality. Out of sixteen members of the Elkins family who joined the Shakers eleven apostatized, while five died in the faith. Beech Hill examines the enduring bond between the Elkinses and the Shakers- within the community, and beyond Enfield’s boundaries- recounting the Shakers’ continued relationships with apostate Elkinses, welcoming their visits, lodging with them while traveling, and writing letters providing support and advice. Combining the official Shaker record with intimate details of one family’s interactions with the Shakers affords a more positive view of relations between Shakers and apostates.

Shaker Studies, no. 16. approx. 550 pages, 2020.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-29-9 ($55)

Description:
The Shaker community at Enfield, Connecticut, lasted from 1792 to 1914. Shaker founder Mother Ann Lee gathered converts there, and her successor Father Joseph Whittaker ministered to them before he died there in 1787. This is the first book devoted to telling the 130-year story of this relatively unknown celibate Christian community. Additionally, eighteen appendices provide rich primary source information for further research.

Shaker Studies, no. 15. 338 pages, full color illustrations, 2019.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-28-2 ($45)

Description:
In the half century between 1830 and 1880 the visual culture of America's oldest, largest, and most distinctive communal religious society was portrayed in scores of printed images published in the popular illustrated press. In this complement to his 1987 book Shaker Village Views , Robert P. Emlen identifies and explicates every known engraving or lithograph that pictured the Shakers in the years of their greatest prosperity and before photography became popular in Shaker communities. Many of these images are reproduced here for the first time.

Shaker Studies, no. 14. Volume 1: 519 pages, Volume 2: 539 pages, 2018.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-23-7 ($80)

Description:
For thirty-one years, Elder Rufus Bishop was at the top of the Shaker hierarchy. From 1821 until his death in 1852, Elder Rufus was one of the male members of the Ministry of New Lebanon, N.Y., overseeing the bishopric, hosting visitors from other Shaker communities, and traveling to both eastern and western congregations. From 1815 until his death, and daily starting in 1829, he kept a detailed record of the weather, visitors, deaths, problems, joys, and other happenings. These volumes contain the annotated journals of Elder Rufus, a fascinating look deep into the halcyon years of the Shakers. Isaac Newton Young’s journal for their 1834 western trip is also included, to ll in the gap in Elder Rufus’s records. So many Shakers are mentioned by Elder Rufus that there are about 1750 entries in the Appendix of Biographical Sketches. These volumes also include a survey of Elder Rufus’s life and a foreword by the editor, who is the third great-grandnephew of Elder Rufus. The hope is that these journals will aid Shaker scholarship and help with the understanding of this important period in Shaker history.

Shaker Studies, no. 13. 153 pages, 2018.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-25-1 ($20)

For some time there has been a consensus among scholars that the last substantial Shaker apostate account was that of Hervey Elkins, which appeared in 1853. In this book Professor Tom Sakmyster provides an analysis of a previously unknown apostate account written by Augustus Wager in 1872, shortly after he left Union Village, the Shaker society located near Lebanon, Ohio. Wager, who had lived for fourteen years at Union Village, was embittered by his experiences as a Shaker and determined to destroy the increasingly favorable public image of the Shakers, which he believed was based on ignorance and misconceptions. He wanted to alert Americans to the darker aspects of Shaker life and the fact that Shakerism was in its death throes. Wager’s apostate account, which appeared as a series of articles in a Cincinnati newspaper, is reprinted in this book. The account throws important new light on everyday life and economic activity in a Western Shaker village during the period of decline in the post-Civil War era.

Shaker Studies, no. 12. 277 pages, 2017.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-22-0 ($40)

Shaker Brother Isaac Newton Youngs served his community at New Lebanon, New York, as a tailor, clockmaker, mapmaker, mechanic, inventor, musician and hymn writer, lens-grinder, stonecutter, button maker, bookkeeper, journalist, tinsmith, printer, pipe fitter, joiner, and blacksmith. He built a sundial, made tools including a weaver’s reed, turned clothespins, made knitting needles, and laid floors. He was also an architect and roofer. Few aspects of life at New Lebanon were outside of Youngs’s sphere of activity. Therefore, it is fitting that he undertook to write a comprehensive history of his community, systematically treating all facets of Shaker life and culture. Youngs’s A Concise View Of the Church of God and of Christ, On Earth is printed here for the first time in unabridged form. The editors have carefully transcribed and annotated the text, and have selected illustrations to complement Youngs’s descriptive text.  Additionally, appendices supplying vital statistics,  and information on the occupations of New Lebanon Shakers (many of which were compiled by Youngs) are included. Finally, a selection of Youngs’s poetry rounds out a rich portrait of the lives and talents of Brother Isaac Newton Youngs, and his beloved Shaker brethren and sisters, as they labored humbly in the creation of a unique world where work was worship, and heaven was all around them.

Shaker Studies, no. 11. 428 pages, 2016. Illustrations (some color)
ISBN: 978-1-937370-18-3 ($35)

Robert White’s spiritual journey eventually led him to the Shakers, but, much to his dismay, his wife did not share his views and remained committed to Quakerism. As a married, celibate Believer, Robert White had to balance the often-conflicting roles he played in his two families, natural and Shaker. How he functioned as a Shaker convert living “in the world” is a story of faith and challenges; an exceptional Shaker experience in the mid-nineteenth century.

Shaker Studies, no. 10. 69 pages, with 44 illustrations, 2015.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-16-9 ($25)

The collection assembles for the first time the rich body of visual images depicting the Shakers during the Era of Manifestations.

Shaker Studies, no. 9. 311 pages, with 90 b/w illustrations, 22 music scores, 9 poems, and 9 maps, 2014.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-12-1 ($30)

This work is a comprehensive examination of the history and life of White Water Village by leading experts on the community. As an offshoot of Union Village, the “mother” of Ohio Shaker communities, White Water has received scant attention in the past. This work rectifies the situation and serves as an example of what should be done for all of the Shaker communities.

Shaker Studies, no. 8. 97 pages, illustrations, 2014.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-10-7 ($35)

Stark images and inspired messages appear in Shaker cut-and-fold booklets, one of the more unusual forms of gift drawings created in the early 1840s during the Shakers’ internal revival known as Mother’s Work. This study unfolds some of the puzzling aspects of these heavenly communications. The Shaker concept of union is embodied in the mysteriously decorated, interleaved sheets bearing prophetic spiritual messages. New findings about the visionary activities of Emily Babcock point to her as the instrument of these uniquely constructed gift drawings. This volume features full color facsimiles of a number of examples.

Shaker Studies, no. 7. 45 pages, illustrations, 2013.
ISBN:  978-1-937370-09-1 ($30)

Reproduces four sixteen-page manuscript books by Eleanor Potter which record her spirit messages for the leaders of the Shaker Ministry. These manuscripts include spirit drawings as well as text. Crosthwaite provides an introductory essay setting the context for the messages and an analysis of them.

Shaker Studies, no. 6. 142 pages, illustrations, 2013.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-08-4 ($20)

A compilation of essays and statistical information on the Tyringham Shakers, by one the leading scholars on that community. It is the largest compilation of information on Tyringham in one source. It includes a series of rare of photographs of the village.

Shaker Studies, no. 5. 188 pages, illustrations, 2013.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-07-7 ($20)

Shaker leaders built big dairy barns, sent articles and barn diagrams to the specialized agricultural press, and hosted editors and writers on barn tours. This richly illustrated book explores the unexpected relationship between nineteenth century Shaker religious leaders and scientific agricultural journalists.

Shaker Studies, no. 4. 259 pages, illustrations, 2012.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-02-2 ($25)

Henry Cumings was ten years old when he and his family joined the Enfield, New Hampshire, Shakers in 1845. Capable and intelligent, he was entrusted with increasing leadership responsibilities as he came of age. For twenty years he served as one of the Society’s most eloquent spokespersons for a Shaker way of life. In 1881, at the age of forty-five, Cuming reappraised his commitment to Shakerism and left the community. He did not, however, repudiate his Shaker heritage. Between 1904 and 1913 he wrote a series of historical essays for the local newspaper, the Enfield Advocate, in which he shared his personal reflections on Shakerism. Collected here for the first time, this volume of Henry Cumings’ writings offers the reader a lively and detailed account of the Shaker community he knew so well, and its influence on the town of Enfield, New Hampshire.

Shaker Studies, no. 3. 89 pages, illustrations, music, 2011.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-00-8 ($15)

Among the various forms of Shaker song, hymns have sustained the worship of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing — or Shakers — for over two hundred years. Distinguished from other song types by their lengthy texts of metrical rhymed poetry, hymns can accommodate an endless range of theological and spiritual ideas. During the nineteenth century, Shakers produced hundreds of individual hymns, which were recorded by countless individual Shakers in myriad manuscript hymn books. Yet from this enormous body of hymnody, a core group of hymns readily emerges — hymns that were used and beloved for decades across the Shaker world, from Maine to Kentucky. Remarkably, the hymns in this core group are virtually unknown today. This study helps today’s reader to “partake a little morsel” of a relatively untapped vein of American folk hymnody, revealing a fresh understanding of the Shakers’ amazing complexity and vitality.

Shaker Studies, no. 2. 105 pages, 2010.
ISBN: 978-0-9796448-6-3 ($10)

This work traces the spiritual journey and accomplishments of Aquila Massie Bolton who had joined the Shakers at Union Village, Ohio after twenty-five years of spiritual seeking. His poetry praised Shakerism, but in time, he challenged the beliefs of Shaker leaders, which inevitably led to controversy and his apostasy. Soule's careful analysis sheds light on the struggles of Bolton to find a spiritual home and on how the Shakers responded to the challenges he raised to their theology and leadership.

Shaker Studies, no. 1. 79 pages with 32 black and white illustrations, 2009.
ISBN: 978-0-9796448-4-9 ($9)

In this work Sandra Soule provides a detailed examination of the role Robert White Jr. played in spreading and defending the Shaker message. His activities ranged from persuading the Shaker leadership to publish certain important works, to funding their publication, and actively taking part in their distribution. Although White toiled tirelessly to advance the cause of Shakerism in the mid-nineteenth century, little has been written about him and his endeavors in the area of Shaker publication. Soule fills that void with her meticulous research based on Shaker manuscript records.