Shakers

This article is about the Shakers, a religious denomination. For other uses of the term shakers or shaker, see Shakers (disambiguation).

Culture and artifacts

Shaker beliefs have generated a unique culture and ways of life that have enriched the cultural history of the United States as well as subsequently inspired many modern fields.

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One of the major attributes of the Shakers was to build. This combined with their dedication to hard work and perfection has resulted in a unique range of architecture, furniture and handicraft styles. They relied on their own skills and natural resources for all these as well as for providing for their family. Shakers designed their furniture with care, believing that making something well was in itself, "an act of prayer". They never fashioned items with elaborate details or extra decorations, but only made things for their intended uses. The ladder-back chair was a popular piece of furniture. Shaker craftsmen made most things out of pine or other inexpensive woods and hence their furniture was light in colour and weight. Shaker interior spaces are characterised by an austerity and simplicity. For example, they had a continuous wooden device like a pelmet with hooks running all along the lintel level from which they hung the very light furniture pieces such as chairs when not in use. The simple, honest architecture of their homes, meeting houses, and barns have had a long lasting influence on American architecture and design. They have a collection of furniture and utensils outside of Pittsfield, Mass. famous for its elegance and practicality.

Related Topics:
Ladder-back chair - Pine - Wood - Pelmet - Lintel - Architecture

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Shakers won respect and admiration for their productive farms and orderly communities. Their industry brought about many inventions like the screw propeller, Babbitt metal, the rotary harrow, the circular saw, the clothespin, the flat broom and the wheel-driven washing machine. They were once the largest producers of medicinal herbs in the United States, and pioneers in the sale of seeds in paper packets. Shaker dances and songs are a main, but unknown, aspect of folk art.

Related Topics:
Farm - Invention - Screw propeller - Babbitt metal - Rotary harrow - Circular saw - Clothespin - Flat broom - Wheel-driven washing machine - Dance - Song - Folk art

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Shaker ways influenced many people to write books and adopt ways of life from Shakers. By the middle of the 20th century, as the Shaker communities themselves were disappearing, some American collectors whose visual tastes were formed by the stark aspects of the modernist movement found themselves drawn to the spare artifacts of Shaker culture, in which "form follows function" was also clearly expressed. Kaare Klint, an architect and famous furniture designer, used styles from Shaker furniture in his work. Another example is Doris Humphrey, an innovator in technique, choreography, and theory of dance movement. She made a full theatrical art with her dance entitled Dance of The Chosen Ones in which the nature of the Shakers’ religious fervor was depicted.

Related Topics:
Book - Modernist - Kaare Klint - Architect - Choreography

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