Publications

278 Pages, Richard W. Couper Press, 2019 ISBN: 978-1-937370-26-8 ($25)

The President's Medium collects and carefully examines the available material on the colorful but nearly forgotten life of spiritualist medium John Benjamin Conklin and concludes that he most likely conducted private seances at the White House for a receptive Abraham Lincoln during the time the president was weighing the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. It also examines Conklin's association with communitarians and health reformers Thomas L. and Mary S. Gove Nichols, as well as his connections within the theatrical community of New York City during the 1850s.

Dr. John B. Buescher is the author of books and articles on the history of 19th-century American Spiritualism. He is a co-director of the International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals (IAPSOP).

• From the Editor
• Utopia, Ohio, 1844-1847: Seedbed for Three Experiments in Communal Living by Cori L. Flatt and Peter A. Hoehnle
• From Württemberg to Zoar: Origins of a Separatist Community by Eberhard Fritz
• Document: Questioning of the Separatists of Rottenacker after the Quartering of a Military Command, May 1804
• Document: Visitor's Account of the Shaker Community at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, by Clara von Gerstner

Front cover illustration: A Separatist star, the only one known to exist in Württemberg. It is attached to a document in the Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart. Courtesy of the Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart A 213 Bü 3091 Back cover illustration: Clermont Phalanx, as painted by A.J. MacDonald. Courtesy of the Beinecke Library, Yale University, GEN MSS 1394.

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.

• July and October 2018

• Gentile's Invitation to Shiloh, House of David by Henry M. Yaple
• Descriptive Bibliography of Imprints in the House of David Collection by Shannon McRae and Brian Ziebart
• The Quest for 392 by Brian Ziebart

Front cover illustration: The Star of Bethlehem. 2nd. ed. Book 1. 1903 M-048. Collection of the Israelite House of David Back cover illustration: Information for Excurstionists!. ca. 1910. M-007. Collection of the Israelite House of David.

• “Hope on - work ever”: The Valley Forge Community and the Shakers by Stephen Paterwic
• List of People from the Valley Forge Community who Joined the Shakers compiled by Stephen Paterwic
• Natural Man Illumined: Johann Gichtel’s Mystical Figures at Ephrata by Nick Siegert

Front cover illustration: Jacob Martin, Mystical Figure (ca. 1760’s?) (Courtesy of Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Ephrata Cloister.)

• From the Editor
• The Success and Failure of Oneida Community Architecture by Kevin Coffee
• Document: Reasons For Uniting with the people called Shakers: Comprised in a short sketch of the Author’s Religious Exercises, and a brief Statement of the Peculiar Doctrines and Practices of that People, by Proctor Sampson
• Hamilton College Library “Home Notes” Communal Societies Collection New Acquisitions, by Mark Tillson

Front cover illustration: The Oneida Community Mansion House. (Courtesy of the Oneida Community Mansion House.)

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.

American Communal Societies Series, no. 13. 175 pages with illustrations, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-937370-24-4 ($25)

The first work of its kind, the Annotated Bibliography of Inspirationist Imprints catalogs the considerable body of literature published by the Community of True Inspiration during its three hundred year history, both in Europe and the United States of America. There are 312 separate imprints listed, many identified as Inspirationist for the first time, complete with English translations of their titles and notes about their contents. Sixty-seven illustrations provide visual evidence of the stunning typography, and iconography, employed by Inspirationist authors and printers.

About the author:
Lanny Haldy served from 1983 to 2016 as Executive Director of the Amana Heritage Society, a non-profit organization whose mission is to preserve and interpret the cultural heritage of the Amana Colonies National Historic Landmark. His roots in the community go back to 1748 when Christian Haldy, a minister from Westerich and Billigheim near Strasbourg, joined the Inspirationist community in Gelnhausen.