Publications

• From the Editor
• The Copley-Lyman Shaker Family of Enfield, Connecticut:
• An Annotated Genealogy
• Genealogical Charts by M. Stephen Miller
• Michigan’s Siberia: The House of David on High Island by Clare E. Adkin, Jr.
• News and Notes by Walter A. Brumm
• Hamilton College Library “Home Notes”
• Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions
• News from the Communal Studies Association

Front cover illustration: [Product label, detail]. “Pure Cayenne, put up in the United Society, Shirley Village, Mass. Address John Whitely.” Detail of an uncut sheet of five labels, 10” x 8”, each label 3 1/8” x 1 7/8”. The labels date from ca. 1875-1885. Note the “e” missing from “Village” in the bottom label. Brother John Whitely (1819-1905) joined the South Family at Shirley in 1849 and moved to the North Family in 1861 where he became first elder. He was appointed to the Harvard/Shirley ministry in 1871.

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193 pages with 32 black and white illustrations, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-9796448-1-8 ($25)

Chester Gillette was accused of the murder of Grace Brown in 1906. After a sensational trial, covered by newspapers across the country, Gillette was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair. This case was the basis for Theodore Dreiser’s classic novel An American Tragedy, the 1951 Academy-award-winning movie A Place in the Sun, and a 2006 opera. Revealed here for the first time are Chester’s private thoughts in his final months as he recorded them in his diary from September 1907 through March 1908. The diary was believed lost for nearly a century and only came to light in 2007 when Marlynn McWade-Murray, the grandniece of Chester Gillette, donated it to Hamilton College. In addition to the diary, the publication contains twelve letters Chester wrote from prison: eleven to Bernice Ferrin, a friend of the family; and one to his sister Hazel, written the day before his execution.

• From the Editor
• The Road From Harmony by Eileen Aiken English
• Mother Lucy’s Last Visit to Watervliet
  • Introduction by David D. Newell
  • Reprint of manuscript
• A Sampling of Rare Shaker Broadsides by Christian Goodwillie
• Hamilton College Library “Home Notes”
  • Hamilton College Library’s Special Collections: An Overview
  • Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Front cover illustration: Card. A Tribute of Thanks to our Neighbors. New Lebanon [N.Y.], 1852. See p. 32 for full description.

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American Communal Societies Series, no. 1. 382 pages with 15 b/w illustrations, 2007.
ISBN: 978-0-9796448-0-1 ($35)

Visiting the Shakers is a compilation of ninety-eight accounts written by visitors to four Shaker villages. According to the preface by Elizabeth De Wolfe, “This volume gathers together these period observations, ranging from short diary entries to lengthy periodical articles. The majority of these sources have not been seen in print for more than 150 years. An award-winning independent scholar, Wergland guides the contemporary reader through the phenomenon of ‘visiting the Shakers,’ providing the social and historical context for the praise and criticism offered by these numerous and diverse visitors.”

About the author:
Glendyne Wergland grew up in the Southwest and spent her twenties as the trailing spouse of an engineer who moved nine times in eight years. After they settled in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, she “met” the Shakers through volunteer work at Hancock Shaker Village. Returning to school at age forty, she pursued her interest in the Shakers at Mount Holyoke College, where she graduated with honors before going to University of Massachusetts Amherst for her PhD. Her book, One Shaker Life: Isaac Newton Youngs, 1793-1865, won the Communal Studies Association's Outstanding Publication Award in 2006. Wergland’s current work on Shaker sisters examines the difficulties and rewards of nineteenth century communal life.

• From the Editor
• Introducing the Richard W Couper Press
• William Scales' 1789 "Mystery of the People Called Shakers"
  • Introduction by David D. Newell
  • Reprint of Scales' article
• News and Notes by Walter A. Brumm
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  • The Shaker Manifesto Digitized
  • New Acquisitions by Hamilton College Library's Communal Societies Collection
• Subscription information

Front cover illustration: Hamilton College Library recently acquired Honey: Soul of Flowers to Sweeten the Soul of Man, a four-page price list from Mount Lebanon. The cover illustration is unusual and striking. Mary Richmond notes (Shaker Literature, no. 340) that W H. Cathcart attributes the cover design to "Brother Peter Neagoe, a Roumanian living at the North Family, Mount Lebanon, N.Y in 1906."

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299 pages with 123 illustrations (mostly color),  2005 ($10)

This lavishly illustrated catalog highlights the Hamilton College Library’s holdings of Ezra Pound material. Pound, a Hamilton alumnus (class of 1905), was one of the most important and influential poets of the twentieth century. The first third of the book focuses on materials unique to the Hamilton collection, while the rest of the book identifies works by and about Pound held by the Hamilton College library. This catalog reveals the importance of this collection for Pound scholars and places it among the best in the country.