The Shakers come to Massachusetts on a missionary venture because Ann Lee’s vision of the place and by 1781 the Shakers settled at the dreamed location (Mass Moment, 2011). Mother Anne Lee has been credited to be “the first great woman leader in America” (Wilder, 1917). This strong female leadership was the foundation of this Shaker culture/religion. The Harvard Shakers were the second Shaker community to be established in the colonies. The Shaker community was very industrious as they took a marshland and turned it into a productive farmland to feed the community (NPS).
Women of this time helped with everyday activities like harvesting, planting, weaving, sewing, mending, homemaking, and needle work. These chores would require needles, looms, brooms, dishes, irons, knives, and baskets. In the Shaker’s culture, the women had chores of ‘cooking, cleaning, washing, and ironed laundry, milking cow, boiling cider, picking, and processing fruit, whitewashing, and making soap, candles, and baskets’ (Thurman, 2001). The Shaker women would need to use all those of other women but include, latter, caners, axes, washboards, cider presses, paint brushes, and butter churner. Although Shakers had equality of the sexes, the chores were only slightly different than other women of the time. The Shaker women did value greatly skilled labor and loved to share their skills with others. Tabitha Babbitt was even recorded in one such encounter when she was teaching the Shirley South family to weave the bottom of a chair as another Shaker woman, Sally, taught them how to weave palm-leaf hats (Thurman, 2001).
The faith believed in the “sexes should live separate, celibate lives, they treated men and women equally” (Mass Moment, 2011). The group was organized were lead by two women and two men (Stein). The Shaker had segregation of the sexes with most everything they did except working. Shakers due to the celibate lifestyle had only converts or adopted members to join their ranks. The 1840’s created a new era for the Shaker’s faith. Anne Lee’s spirit was ‘awakened’ by the death of the last original Shaker members and was thought “she was sending her spirit to revive and refresh the faith of a new generation” (Mass Moments, 2011). This visit created a flurry of visions where members would have strange and even violent seizures, trembling, jerking, spinning, and falling to the floor until a message came to them from the other side. One message was to plant seeds of peace before planting of food seeds, and so Shakers would walk the fields and plant imaginary peace seeds before any food seed was planted. Other messages came in the form of drawings, dances, and songs (Mass Moments, 2011). These such spiritual expressions were the main reason they are called Shakers. This renewal of religious awakening or “Mother Ann’s Work” created a surge of 200 converts. These numbers began to dwindle after the Civil war and eventually disbanded in 1918. The Shaker site has now become a historical landmark and provide educational tours nearly daily (Mass Moments, 2011).
