LITR 4328 American Renaissance Research Posts 2015 (research post assignment) Research Post 1

Sarah Hurt

In what ways did the Shaker’s represent American Renaissance ideas?

          I have always found the different ways that people connect with God or another higher power fascinating and because of this I have at different times researched religious movements and groups that stood out to me. While I have studied the ideas of several religious groups, the Shakers have always been the religious movement of the past that I connected with the most. While I do not believe I would have ever been capable of becoming a Shaker, some of their ideas have always resonated with me, and because in this class we are studying the time period and the literary works surrounding the popular ideas of the time, I wanted to reexamine the Shaker way of life with an eye on possible connections to the concepts explored in the literary works we are reading.

          In June Sprigg and David Larkin’s book Shaker: Life, Work, and Art, Mother Ann’s, the woman who brought the Shaking Quakers to America and created the Shakers, pre-Shaker life is described. Mother Ann felt an overwhelming sense of pressure on herself in regards to being a sinner, and after being forced to marry followed by the death of all four of her children in infancy Mother Ann felt the need to live a different kind of life. Mother Ann’s move from England to America in search of her promise land after her vision from God, along with her ideas regarding the need for celibacy and striving for better workmanship (i.e. perfection) are easier to understand with the book’s description of Mother Ann’s life. The book also takes a close look at the musical aspect of the Shakers' worship including photographs showing the typical movements that categorized the dancing part of worship. Most interesting, though, is the mention of Emerson’s ideas regarding the Shakers' form of worship. He clearly did not approve of the Shakers’ dancing and was rather nasty about it, I found this fascinating considering that Emerson’s fellow Transcendentalist Hawthorne actually considered joining the Shakers (he did not join due to the Shaker’s love of long meetings, some taking as long as 22 hours).

          While Sprigg and Larkin’s book focused on the desire the Shakers had to step away from the world and live closer to God, Michael Capek in his book A Personal Tour of a Shaker Village focuses on the progressive ideas regarding women’s rights and equality the Shakers had. The Shakers exemplified the Romantic ideas of equality and goodness. Capek specifically looked at the way that women and former slaves had equal rights in the Shaker community and how all Shakers regardless of their education, wealth, or race were equal within the walls of their community. The Shakers were one of the first conscientious objectors to a draft, and Abraham Lincoln during the civil war allowed the male Shakers not to be drafted for the war. While the Shakers were pacifists, and as such would not fight in a war, this did not stop them from being against slavery and helping those slaves whom they could. There is more than one record showing how the Shaker communities saved slaves who were Shakers from being sold away from the community. They taught Shakers who were former slaves to read and some of their hymns were written by the former slaves that they purchased and set free to either remain part of their community or live elsewhere.

          While researching the Shakers with a specific question in mind, that of how the Shakers represented the ideas and concepts linked to the American Renaissance, I discovered more than I thought I would. The Shaker faith’s ideas strongly connect with the desire many people felt during the time to connect with God on a personal level and to feel God. Their way of running their communities with the goal of equality and a lack of emphasis on things that made them different from one another (race, gender, education, class) and focusing instead on their common goal of bettering themselves and their lives both spiritually and in regards to physical labors connects with the Romantic idealized notions of the time. The Shakers in many ways were living examples of some of the best ideas of the American Renaissance; however, like the American Renaissance the Shakers' romantic narrative had to come to an end due to further industrialization and consumer culture.

Works Cited

Capek, Michael. A Personal Tour of a Shaker Village. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publications, 2001. Print.

Miller, Amy Bess Williams. Shaker Medicinal Herbs: A Compendium of History, Lore, and Uses. Pownal, VT: Storey, 1998. Print.

The Shakers. Dir. Ken Burns. PBS, 1989. DVD.

Sprigg, J., D. Larkin, and M. Freeman. Shaker. Life, Work, Art. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1987. Print.