Publications

209 pages with 13 black and white illustrations, 2015. ISBN: 978-1-937370-17-6 ($20)

Distills an oral history project that began in 1995 under the auspices of the Fillius Jazz Archive at Hamilton College in Clinton N.Y. Excerpts drawn from 325 one-on-one sessions conducted for the Archive are organized into categories including first-hand accounts of life on the road, inspiration, race and jazz, improvisation, and work inside the studios. Interviewees quoted in the book include icons in jazz world such as Joe Williams, Dave and Iola Brubeck, Jon Hendricks, Steve Allen, and Marian McPartland. Stories from unsung sidemen offer a rare perspective on the life and times of jazz artists who balance the love of music with the sacrifice inherent in the jazz lifestyle. The author provides informative commentary with personal insights into the accomplishments and personalities of over one hundred jazz artists.

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.

2nd ed.  American Communal Societies Series, no. 11. 597 pages, 2015.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-15-2 ($75)

Commune! The word conjures up images of a few isolated idealists, religious fanatics, and social misfits. A commune is a decidedly marginal blip on the American landscape. Nevertheless communes have studded American history — many thousands of them from the seventeenth century to the present. Although many have heard of the Shakers and (perhaps) the Hutterites and the Harmonists, communes — most of which now prefer to be known as intentional communities — represent a largely hidden slice of American history, despite the fact that they have been home to over a million Americans. Many small studies and surveys of American communal movements have been published over the last two hundred years, but the phenomenon of communal living in its fullness remains largely in the shadows. This work has been compiled to dispel those shadows by providing brief sketches of as many American intentional communities as I have been able to identify from the early days of European colonization down to the present [approximately 3,000]. The work also seeks to provide a few reliable references to primary and secondary sources of information on each community. This second edition contains descriptions of twenty additional communities, and additions and corrections to descriptions of over one hundred communities included in the first edition.

About the author:
Timothy Miller is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas. He studies new religious movements in the United States, with a special focus on groups in the past and present that practice communal living.

From the Editor
Three Months with the Shakers—II
Hamilton College Library “Home Notes”
Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Front cover illustration: A patriotic drawing from Charles Frederick Crosman, Manuscript Journal 1856-1866. See pp. 225-27.

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From the Editor
The Tate Family of Shakers and Non-Shakers by M. Stephen Miller
The Rise and Fall of Prince Michael Mills and the Detroit Jezreelites by Julieanna Frost
Three Months with the Shakers—I

Front cover illustration: Michael Mills, self-proclaimed seventh messenger, seated in front of Jezreel’s tower. (Courtesy of The Panacea Charitable Trust)

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• From the Editor
• Lunacy and Dissent Among the Shakers by Tom Sakmyster
• The Nurturing Communities Project: Fostering Persistence and Emergence in Intentional Christian Communities by Margie DeWeese-Boyd
• Hamilton College Library “Home Notes”
• Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Front cover illustration: Front cover of the January 1907 issue of The Flaming Sword, a publication of Koreshan Unity, published by The Guiding Star Publishing House in Estero, Fla.

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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.

American Communal Societies Series, no. 9. 161 pages, with 19 b/w illustrations, 2014.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-14-5 ($15)

The first biography of Mary Purnell who along with her husband Benjamin, led the Israelite House of David in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Mary later formed her own community, Mary’s City of David. Both communities are functioning today. The communities are best known for their bearded baseball teams, but, as Frost’s book shows, they were only a small part of the story.

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.

• From the Editor
• Zion’s Whistleblowers: Reflections on Shaker Apostate and Anti-Shaker Writings 
• & Writings of Shaker Apostates and Anti-Shakers, 1782-1850: An Expanded Table of Contents with Annotations and Notes by Carol Medlicott
• A Postscript to Writings of Shaker Apostates and Anti-Shakers, 1782-1850: New Light on Benjamin West, William Scales, Benjamin Green, and Zebulon Huntington by Christian Goodwillie

Front cover illustration: Benjamin Green, Shaker apostate from Enfield, New Hampshire. This image probably dates to c.1860. This version was sourced from the article by Frank West Rollins, “The Old North End: Concord,” Granite Monthly 22, no. 6 (June 1897): 337.

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