Publications

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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.

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.

Shaker Studies, no. 1. 79 pages with 32 black and white illustrations, 2009.
ISBN: 978-0-9796448-4-9 ($9)

In this work Sandra Soule provides a detailed examination of the role Robert White Jr. played in spreading and defending the Shaker message. His activities ranged from persuading the Shaker leadership to publish certain important works, to funding their publication, and actively taking part in their distribution. Although White toiled tirelessly to advance the cause of Shakerism in the mid-nineteenth century, little has been written about him and his endeavors in the area of Shaker publication. Soule fills that void with her meticulous research based on Shaker manuscript records.