Publications
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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. -
- From the Editor
- “Freedom of the Press is Guaranteed Only to Those Who Own the Presses” by Henry M. Yaple
- Two Early Photographs of Amana by Peter Hoehnle
- The Shakers in Eighteenth-Century Newspapers Part Two: Voyages of the Shaker Ship and Other Adventures, both Legal and Social by Christian Goodwillie
- Richard W. Couper Press order form
Front cover illustration: Amana Society. Indigo Blue. Prints. [Product label]. 1890s. 7½ x 6 inches. Amana did not have the capability of four-color printing in the early 1890s so this label must have been commercially produced for the Society. According to Peter Hoehnle, the 1890s were the high point for calico production at Amana. It is likely that an outside person was commissioned to develop this label, whose design was more elaborate than the typical Amana label.
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- From the Editor
- Black Shaker Minstrels and the Comic Performance of Shaker Worship By Robert P. Emlen
- Medical Practice in the Harvard Shaker Church Family 1834-1843 By Merry B. Post
- Shaker Seminar 2010
- Hamilton College Library “Home Notes”
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- From the Editor
- “We Live at a Great Distance from the Church”: Cartographic Strategies of the Shakers, 1805-1835 by Carol Medlicott
- The Shakers in Eighteenth-Century Newspapers Part One: “From a Spirit of Detraction and Slander” by Christian Goodwillie
- Hamilton College Library “Home Notes”
- Richard W. Couper Press Order Form
Front cover illustration: “A General View of our Journey and of Several States” map from the Youngs/Kendall collection. See the article by Carol Medlicott. From the Library of Congress, Geography and Maps Division.
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- From the Editor
- The History of the Shaker Gathering Order by Stephen J. Paterwic
- The Mob at Enfield
- Introduction by Elizabeth De Wolfe
- A Statement Concerning the Mob at Enfield
- The Shakers of Canterbury: Their Agriculture and Their Machinery by Elizabeth Gleason Bervy
- Hamilton College Library “Home Notes”
- Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions
- News from Richard W. Couper Press
Front cover illustration: House of David Jellies and Jams [Product label]. 1950s? For more House of David ephemera recently acquired by Hamilton College Library, see p. 108-18.
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American Communal Societies Series, no. 2. 456 pages with 45 b/w illustrations, 2010.
ISBN: 978-0-9796448-5-6 ($35)
This is a companion volume to her earlier work published by the Couper Press in 2007, which covered 1788-1849. This volume is a compilation of eighty-five accounts written by visitors to four Shaker villages. These two volumes will have enduring value for historians of the Shakers and American culture in general. -
- From the Editor
- Strangers Along the Trail: Peoria’s Shaker Apostates
- Enter the World by Patricia L. Goitein
- Benn Pitman’s “Visit to the Shaker Settlement —Whitewater Village, O.”
- Introduction by David D. Newell
- Text
- “Cummings and Goings”: The Impact of Shakerism on the Family of Edward T. Cummings by Mary Ann Haagen
- Hamilton College Library “Home Notes”
- Visiting the Shakers, 1850-1899 Goes to Press
- Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions
Front cover illustration: The Ballance Family, ca. 1852, oil on canvas, by James Wilkins in Peoria. Courtesy of the Illinois State Museum. Depicted are Charles and Julia Ballance and seven of their children. Charles apostatized from Pleasant Hill Shaker community and settled in Peoria, Illinois. See the article by Patricia Goitein.
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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.Topic -
- From the Editor
- Shaker Seminar 2009: Enfield and Canterbury, N.H. by Christian Goodwillie
- Shaker Messages from Mary Magdalene and John Calvin by Jane F. Crosthwaite
- Daughter of the Shakers: The Story of Eleanor Brooks Fairs by Johanne Grewell
- Birth, Life, and Death of Olive Branch, 1896-1924 by Rev. Vernon Squire
- Remembering Gus Kermes by Sandra A. Soule
- Hamilton College Library “Home Notes”
- Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions
Front cover illustration: This marvelous, newly discovered caricature is the work of an artist named Korman. It is thought to have been drawn for an as-yet-unidentified New England newspaper between 1910 and 1921. Illustrated are Hancock Shakers Alexander and Ritcho Pettiff, Gladys Smith, and Trustee Frances Hall. The Pettiffs (also spelled Pettit, or as shown in the drawing, Petete) were part of a contingent of Bulgarians who came to live with the Hancock Shakers beginning in August 1900. Ritcho arrived at Hancock on November 17, 1905, at the age of fifty-nine. Alexander arrived on January 26, 1910, at the age of sixteen. Gladys Smith left the community on May 28, 1921, at the age of twenty-four. Soon thereafter, in 1922, young Alexander Pettit left to attend an auto show, and he never returned. Frances Hall eventually became first eldress in the Central Ministry and died at Hancock on March 10, 1957.
