SHAKER

member of United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing celibate millenarian sect that established communal settlements in the United States in the 18th century. Dedicated to productive labour as well as to a life of perfection, Shaker communities flourished economically and contributed a distinctive style of architecture, furniture, and handicraft to American culture before the sect's decline in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The Shakers derived originally from a small branch of radical English Quakers who had adopted the French Camisards' ritual practices of shaking, shouting, dancing, whirling, and singing in tongues. The Shaker doctrine, as it came to be known in the United States, was formulated by Ann Lee, an illiterate textile worker of Manchester, who was converted to the Shaking Quakers in 1758. After experiencing persecution and imprisonment for participation in noisy worship services, Mother Ann had a series of revelations, after which she regarded herselfand was so regarded by her followersas the female aspect of God's dual nature and the second Incarnation of Christ. She established celibacy as a cardinal principle of the sect. In 1774 Ann Lee came to America with eight disciples, having been charged by a new revelation to establish the millennial church in the New World. Settling in 1776 at Niskeyuna (now Watervliet), N.Y., the small group of believers benefited from an independent revival movement that was sweeping the district and, within five years, was enlarged by several thousand converts. After Mother Ann's death (1784), the Shaker church came under the leadership of Elder Joseph Meacham and Eldress Lucy Wright, who together worked out the communal pattern that was to be the distinctive Shaker social organization. The first Shaker community, established at New Lebanon, N.Y., in 1787, remained the head of influence as the movement spread through New England and westward into Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana. By 1826, 18 Shaker villages had been set up in eight states. Although often persecuted for pacifism or for bizarre beliefs falsely attributed to them, the Shakers won admiration for their model farms and orderly, prosperous communities. Their industry and ingenuity produced numerous (usually unpatented) inventions, of which the screw propeller, Babbitt metal, a rotary harrow, an automatic spring, a turbine waterwheel, a threshing machine, the circular saw, and the common clothespin are a few. They were the first to package and market seeds and were once the largest producers of medicinal herbs in the United States. In exchanges with outsiders they were noted for their fair dealing. Shaker dances and songs are a genuine folk art, and the simple beauty, functionalism, and honest craftsmanship of their meetinghouses, barns, and artifacts have had a lasting influence on American design. The Shaker impulse reached its height during the 1840s, when about 6,000 members were enrolled in the church. It later declined, however, and by 1874 the society was advertising for members, emphasizing physical comfort as well as spiritual values. By 1905 there were only 1,000 members, and by the late 20th century only a few survivors remained.