Publications

Shaker Studies, no 19, 339 pages, 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-40-4 ($35)

This study—the first of of its kind— is a comprehensive examination of one of the most fascinating and colorful periods of American religious history: the Shakers’ Era of Manifestations. Based on a comprehensive reading of primary sources from Shaker communities in Ohio and Kentucky, this volume documents the spiritual highs and lows promulgated by Shaker visionists (spirit mediums) as their gifts impacted their communities in a variety of ways —both positive and negative. Visits from Mother Ann Lee, Holy Mother Wisdom, the Eternal Father, and the Holy Savior (Jesus) are detailed herein, as well as the establishment of outdoor worship sites—Feast Grounds—the reception of gift songs, new dances, and most intriguing of all, interactions with the departed of many races and nations, including an exceptional series of encounters with Indigenous American (Indian) spirits, historical figures like George Washington, and many Shaker founders.

Thomas Sakmyster is an emeritus professor at the University of Cincinnati, where he was the Walter Langsam Professor of Modern European History. He has published widely on his areas of specialization, including modern East European history, the American Communist Party, world communism, and Shaker history. He is co-editor of The Shakers of White Water, 1823-1916 and author of The Last Shaker Apostate: Augustus Wager and Union Village, Ohio and articles on various themes in the history of the Shakers.

Four volumes, 2023.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-35-0 ($150 plus $20 shipping)

The Shakers: A Bibliography comprises more than 17,500 entries for printed materials by and about the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, more commonly called Shakers. This work more than quadruples the number of entries contained in Mary Richmond’s Shaker Literature (1977), the standard bibliography on the Shakers until now. The product of fifteen years of painstaking research by a team of bibliographers, The Shakers: A Bibliography comprehensively documents the written record of this remarkably influential communal Christian sect. Each entry provides publication information, annotation and commentary, and holdings information. Additionally, brief biographies are provided for a number of Shaker authors. The Shakers: A Bibliography provides scholars with a tremendous amount of new source material and information to undergird future research and writing about the United Society.

Shaker Studies, no. 18. 242 pages, 2022.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-30-5 ($65)

In the mid-nineteenth century, both Shaker sacred texts and gift drawings were rich with theological arguments for the millennial vision of a heaven celebrating the Heavenly Father and Holy Mother Wisdom and of a communal society embodying its teachings in celibacy and peace. This richly-illustrated, full color volume, explores these Shaker visions of the divine. (Click title for more)

Beech Hill traces the Elkins family's forty year Shaker journey using newly discovered journals and letters. Apostate Hervey Elkins is best known for publishing Fifteen Years in the Senior Order of Shakers, an insider's account of life at Enfield, New Hampshire. Although relations between the Shakers and apostates were often quite contentious, the Elkins family papers reflect a different reality. Out of sixteen members of the Elkins family who joined the Shakers eleven apostatized, while five died in the faith. Beech Hill examines the enduring bond between the Elkinses and the Shakers- within the community, and beyond Enfield’s boundaries- recounting the Shakers’ continued relationships with apostate Elkinses, welcoming their visits, lodging with them while traveling, and writing letters providing support and advice. Combining the official Shaker record with intimate details of one family’s interactions with the Shakers affords a more positive view of relations between Shakers and apostates.

Shaker Studies, no. 16. approx. 550 pages, 2020.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-29-9 ($55)

The Shaker community at Enfield, Connecticut, lasted from 1792 to 1914. Shaker founder Mother Ann Lee gathered converts there, and her successor Father Joseph Whittaker ministered to them before he died there in 1787. This is the first book devoted to telling the 130-year story of this relatively unknown celibate Christian community. Additionally, eighteen appendices provide rich primary source information for further research.

Shaker Studies, no. 15. 338 pages, full color illustrations, 2019.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-28-2 ($45)

In the half century between 1830 and 1880 the visual culture of America's oldest, largest, and most distinctive communal religious society was portrayed in scores of printed images published in the popular illustrated press. In this complement to his 1987 book Shaker Village Views , Robert P. Emlen identifies and explicates every known engraving or lithograph that pictured the Shakers in the years of their greatest prosperity and before photography became popular in Shaker communities. Many of these images are reproduced here for the first time.

Shaker Studies, no. 13. 153 pages, 2018.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-25-1 ($20)

For some time there has been a consensus among scholars that the last substantial Shaker apostate account was that of Hervey Elkins, which appeared in 1853. In this book Professor Tom Sakmyster provides an analysis of a previously unknown apostate account written by Augustus Wager in 1872, shortly after he left Union Village, the Shaker society located near Lebanon, Ohio. Wager, who had lived for fourteen years at Union Village, was embittered by his experiences as a Shaker and determined to destroy the increasingly favorable public image of the Shakers, which he believed was based on ignorance and misconceptions. He wanted to alert Americans to the darker aspects of Shaker life and the fact that Shakerism was in its death throes. Wager’s apostate account, which appeared as a series of articles in a Cincinnati newspaper, is reprinted in this book. The account throws important new light on everyday life and economic activity in a Western Shaker village during the period of decline in the post-Civil War era.

Shaker Studies, no. 14. Volume 1: 519 pages, Volume 2: 539 pages, 2018.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-23-7 ($80)

For thirty-one years, Elder Rufus Bishop was at the top of the Shaker hierarchy. From 1821 until his death in 1852, Elder Rufus was one of the male members of the Ministry of New Lebanon, N.Y., overseeing the bishopric, hosting visitors from other Shaker communities, and traveling to both eastern and western congregations. From 1815 until his death, and daily starting in 1829, he kept a detailed record of the weather, visitors, deaths, problems, joys, and other happenings. These volumes contain the annotated journals of Elder Rufus, a fascinating look deep into the halcyon years of the Shakers. Isaac Newton Young’s journal for their 1834 western trip is also included, to ll in the gap in Elder Rufus’s records. So many Shakers are mentioned by Elder Rufus that there are about 1750 entries in the Appendix of Biographical Sketches. These volumes also include a survey of Elder Rufus’s life and a foreword by the editor, who is the third great-grandnephew of Elder Rufus. The hope is that these journals will aid Shaker scholarship and help with the understanding of this important period in Shaker history.

Shaker Studies, no. 12. 277 pages, 2017.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-22-0 ($40)

Shaker Brother Isaac Newton Youngs served his community at New Lebanon, New York, as a tailor, clockmaker, mapmaker, mechanic, inventor, musician and hymn writer, lens-grinder, stonecutter, button maker, bookkeeper, journalist, tinsmith, printer, pipe fitter, joiner, and blacksmith. He built a sundial, made tools including a weaver’s reed, turned clothespins, made knitting needles, and laid floors. He was also an architect and roofer. Few aspects of life at New Lebanon were outside of Youngs’s sphere of activity. Therefore, it is fitting that he undertook to write a comprehensive history of his community, systematically treating all facets of Shaker life and culture. Youngs’s A Concise View Of the Church of God and of Christ, On Earth is printed here for the first time in unabridged form. The editors have carefully transcribed and annotated the text, and have selected illustrations to complement Youngs’s descriptive text.  Additionally, appendices supplying vital statistics,  and information on the occupations of New Lebanon Shakers (many of which were compiled by Youngs) are included. Finally, a selection of Youngs’s poetry rounds out a rich portrait of the lives and talents of Brother Isaac Newton Youngs, and his beloved Shaker brethren and sisters, as they labored humbly in the creation of a unique world where work was worship, and heaven was all around them.

Shaker Studies, no. 11. 428 pages, 2016. Illustrations (some color)
ISBN: 978-1-937370-18-3 ($35)

Robert White’s spiritual journey eventually led him to the Shakers, but, much to his dismay, his wife did not share his views and remained committed to Quakerism. As a married, celibate Believer, Robert White had to balance the often-conflicting roles he played in his two families, natural and Shaker. How he functioned as a Shaker convert living “in the world” is a story of faith and challenges; an exceptional Shaker experience in the mid-nineteenth century.