Publications

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. 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.

American Communal Societies Series, no. 8. 165 pages,  illustrations, 2012.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-04-6 ($20)

At the height of the prudish Victorian age, the utopian Oneida Community (1848-1880) openly practiced group marriage which, it was said, freed women from unwanted pregnancy, marital bondage, and household drudgery. This radically successful social experiment was based on the teachings of the commune's leader, John Humphrey Noyes, whose key writings on gender relations are assembled here for the first time.

About the author:
Anthony Wonderley is curator of collections and interpretation at the Oneida Community Mansion House, the museum of the famous nineteenth-century utopia in upstate New York.

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.

American Communal Societies Series, no. 7. 239 pages with 214 b/w illustrations, 2012.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-03-9 ($30)

In 1936 the Index of American Design commissioned photographer Noel Vincentini to photograph the Shaker villages of Mount Lebanon, Hancock, and Watervliet. This book presents the 206 pictures taken by Vincentini. The identifications Vincentini provided were often erroneous. Edward and Faith Andrews, who were employed by the Index to work with Vincentini, corrected many of the identifications, but even those were incomplete. This book presents the complete set of photographs for the first time and with corrected identifications. An introduction by Lesley Herzberg, curator of collections at Hancock Shaker Village, describes the tumultuous series of events that surrounded the production of these images. The book is a companion to an exhibit at Hancock Shaker Village.

About the author:
Lesley Herzberg is curator of collections at Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

American Communal Societies Series, no. 5. 106 pages, 2011.
ISBN: 978-0-9796448-9-4 ($20)

"The Days of My Youth is a memoir of childhood in the utopian Oneida Community that limns the past with loving acuity. In successfully conveying what it felt like being a young girl there, it is an important source of information about one of the longest-lasting and most successful ventures in utopian living in American history." (Anthony Wonderley, Curator, Oneida Community Mansion House) This intimate memoir is made available for a third printing through the tireless efforts of Jessie Mayer who compared every word of the transcript to the original.

American Communal Societies Series, no. 6. 212 pages, 2011.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-01-5 ($20)

The Shakers through French Eyes contains fourteen essays by thirteen authors originally written in French about the Shaker religious sect. Translated into English and presented in chronological order, the essays cover a wide range of topics, each author writing within the context of his or her own background and interests. For example, Henri-Baptiste Gregoire wrote as a learned theologian, while Marie Therese de Solms Blanc, wrote as a woman of letters and a critic. Some authors simply recorded facts about the Shakers as they understood them, and others penned thoughtful observations and analyses. One essay is more than 15,000 words long; some are less than 1,000 words. The essays add to the ever-growing bibliography on Shakerism, which began three centuries ago with reports in the Manchester, England, press about how Shaker leader Ann Lee and her followers challenged the culture and conventional religious practice of their time. Each essay, important in its own right, should be of interest to those already acquainted with or new to the Shakers.

About the author:
E. Richard McKinstry is Library Director and Andrew W. Mellon Senior Librarian at the H.F. du Pont Winterthur Museum. McKinstry has written four books describing the Winterthur library's holdings, including The Edward Deming Andrews Memorial Shaker Collection, articles on bibliographical topics, a newspaper column on ephemera, and a number of book reviews.

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.