Publications

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.

American Communal Societies Series, no. 7. 239 pages with 214 b/w illustrations, 2012.
ISBN: 978-1-937370-03-9 ($30)

In 1936 the Index of American Design commissioned photographer Noel Vincentini to photograph the Shaker villages of Mount Lebanon, Hancock, and Watervliet. This book presents the 206 pictures taken by Vincentini. The identifications Vincentini provided were often erroneous. Edward and Faith Andrews, who were employed by the Index to work with Vincentini, corrected many of the identifications, but even those were incomplete. This book presents the complete set of photographs for the first time and with corrected identifications. An introduction by Lesley Herzberg, curator of collections at Hancock Shaker Village, describes the tumultuous series of events that surrounded the production of these images. The book is a companion to an exhibit at Hancock Shaker Village.

About the author:
Lesley Herzberg is curator of collections at Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

• From the Editor
• The Harvard Shaker Cemetery by Roben Campbell
• The Tribulations of the White Water Shakers: The Child Molestation Trial of 1840 by Thomas Sakmyster
• Hamilton College Library “Home Notes”
• Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Front cover illustration: [Postcard]. Shaker Burying Ground, Harvard, Mass. [detail]. The picture shows the Harvard Shaker cemetery with both stone and metal markers.

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• From the Editor
• Peter Ayers, Defender of the Faith by Galen Beale
• Free Press of the House of Israel: The First Publication of Benjamin Purnell Reprint
• Commentary by R. James Taylor
• Making the Bible Argument: John H. Noyes’ Mission
• Statement for the Oneida Community by Anthony Wonderley
• Hamilton College Library “Home Notes”
• New Publications from Richard W. Couper Press

Front cover illustration: Garden Seeds, Raised at New-Lebanon, Columbia County, New-York, and put up in papers, for sale by [blank]. [Albany: Printed by Packard & Van Benthuysen, between 1816 and 1824]. 33 x 21 cm.

Hamilton College has recently acquired this seed order form, one of the earliest known examples printed for the New Lebanon, New York, Shaker community. An example similar to this one is in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society but there are distinct typographical and a few price differences between the two. Neither is dated, and the date range given for this example is based on the cataloging of the example at AAS. The Hamilton College copy has the “N.B.” (nota bene, or note well) post-script about ordering seeds in July, which is not present on the AAS copy. Additionally, the Hamilton copy has been completed in manuscript, while the AAS example was never completed.

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• From the Editor
• How the Harmonists Suffered Disharmony: Schism in Communal Utopias by Donald E. Pitzer
• The Story of Brother Ricardo’s Song by Darryl Charles Thompson
• Pilgrims and Martyrs: The Engraved Title Page of Ephrata’s Martyrs Mirror by Jeff Bach
• Hamilton College Library “Home Notes”
• Reopening the Rare Book Room
• Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Front cover illustration: Detail from the engraved title page of Martyrer=Spiegel der Tauffs-gesinnten, druckts und verlegts der Brüderschaft in Euphratha.

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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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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.

• 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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