Collection Summary Selected Search Terms
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Collection Summary ID Number: CS 657 Title: Shakers Extent: 33 Folder(s), 1 Media Item, 4 Map Case Items Span Dates: 1803-2013 Language: English Geographic Location: Various Abstract: This collection consists of newsletters, newspapers, publications, articles, events and museum news from several Shaker communities and historic sites. It also contains the Roger Hall/Shaker Music collection which consists of booklets and recordings of Shaker Music and interviews from 2004 to 2011. Photographs of the communities can be found at: http://digitalarchives.usi.edu/digital/collection/CSIC/search/searchterm/shakers Selected Search Terms Subjects: Communal living; Collective settlements; Housing, Cooperative; Collective farms; Commune; Utopian socialism; Christian life; Christian ethics; Christian stewardship; Shakers; Shakers—Hymns; Sacred music Historical Notes: No other communal group in the United States has endured as long as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, popular known as Shakers, and few have been better known. The Shakers were founded in England; the early members journeyed to colonial America in 1774 under the leadership of Ann Lee and began to develop structured communal life soon thereafter in a first colony at Niskeyuna (later called Watervliet), New York. Shakers lived sober and celibate lives that followed strict rules, including stringent separation of the sexes. For many years they suffered derision and active opposition from detractors—who accused the leaders of exploiting their rank and file members and ridiculed the Shakers for believing that Ann Lee represented Christ in the Second Coming—but eventually positive images displaced the negative ones. The Shakers became known for their vibrant worship services that featured dance-like rituals known as “laboring,” as well as for their fine agricultural products, their simple but elegant architecture and exquisite furniture, and their placement of women in leadership roles. The movement expanded throughout the early nineteenth century, building about 20 villages scattered between Maine and Indiana, with a peak population of perhaps 5,000. Later in the century, however, the numbers began to decline, and the twentieth century saw sharp contraction in the movement. By the 1990s only the Sabbathday Lake village, in Maine, remained, and in 2015 it was tenuously hanging onto existence with three members. (Miller, Timothy. The encyclopedic guide to American intentional communities. 2nd ed. Clinton, New York: Richard W. Couper Press, 2015, p. 399.) The Shakers considered music to be an essential component of the religious experience. The Shakers composed thousands of songs, and also created many dances; both were an important part of the Shaker worship services. In Shaker society, a spiritual "gift" could also be a musical revelation, and they considered it to be important to record musical inspirations as they occurred. Scribes, many of whom had no formal musical training, used a form of music notation for this purpose: it used letters of the alphabet, often not positioned on a staff, along with a simple notation of conventional rhythmic values. This method has a curious, and coincidental, similarity to some ancient Greek music notation. Many of the lyrics to Shaker tunes consist of syllables and words from unknown tongues, the musical equivalent of glossolalia. It has been surmised that many of them were imitated from the sounds of Native American languages, as well as from the songs of African slaves, especially in the southernmost of the Shaker communities, but in fact the melodic material is derived from European scales and modes. Most early Shaker music is monodic, that is to say, composed of a single melodic line with no harmonization. The tunes and scales recall the folksongs of the British Isles, but since the music was written down and carefully preserved, it is "art" music of a special kind rather than folklore. Many melodies are of extraordinary grace and beauty, and the Shaker song repertoire, though still relatively little known, is an important part of the American cultural heritage and of world religious music in general. Several hymnbooks with more conventional four-part harmonization were published by the Shakers in the late nineteenth century. These works are less strikingly original than the earlier, monodic repertoire. The surviving Shakers sing songs drawn from both the earlier repertoire and the four part songbooks. They perform all of these unaccompanied, in single-line unison singing. The many recent, harmonized arrangements of older Shaker songs for choirs and instrumental groups mark a departure from traditional Shaker practice. The most famous Shaker song is "Simple Gifts", which Aaron Copland used as a theme for variations in Appalachian Spring. The tune was composed by Elder Joseph Brackett and originated in the Shaker community at Alfred, Maine in 1848. Many contemporary Christian denominations incorporate this tune into hymnals, under various names, including "Lord of the Dance," adapted in 1963 by English poet and songwriter Sydney Carter. Some scholars, such as Daniel W. Patterson and Roger L. Hall, have compiled books of these songs, and groups have been formed to sing the songs and perform the dances. There are recordings available of Shaker songs, both documentation of singing by the Shakers themselves, as well as songs recorded by other groups (see external links). Two widely distributed commercial recordings by The Boston Camerata, "Simple Gifts" (1995) and "The Golden Harvest" (2000), were recorded at the Shaker community of Sabbathday Lake, Maine, with active cooperation from the surviving Shakers, whose singing can be heard at several points on both recordings. http://www.shakerstudies.info/topics/shaker-music Specific Colonies/Museums: • Hancock Shaker Village (Folder 1-2) o Photographs of Hancock Shaker Village can be found at: http://library2.usi.edu:8080/cdm/search/collection/CSIC/searchterm/hancock%20village/fie ld/all/mode/all/conn/and/order/title/ad/asc o Website: http://hancockshakervillage.org/ • Canterbury Shaker Village (Folder 3) o Photographs of Canterbury Shaker Village can be found at: http://library2.usi.edu:8080/cdm/search/collection/CSIC/searchterm/canterbury/field/all/m ode/all/conn/and/order/title/ad/asc o Website: http://www.shakers.org/discover-learn/the-shakers/ • Enfield, CT Shaker Village (Folder 27) o Photographs of Enfield, CT Shaker Village can be found at: http://library2.usi.edu:8080/cdm/search/collection/CSIC/searchterm/enfield%20CT/field/all /mode/exact/conn/and/order/nosort/page/1 o Website: http://www.enfieldhistoricalsociety.org/EHSShaker.html • Enfield, NH Shaker Village (Folder 28) • Museum at Old Chatham, NY (Folder 4) o Website: http://www.shakerml.org/ • South Union Village (Folder 8-9) o Photographs of South Union Village can be found at: http://library2.usi.edu:8080/cdm/search/collection/CSIC/searchterm/north%20union/order/ nosort o Website: http://www.shakerhistoricalsociety.org/learn/the-shakers/ • Shakertown at Pleasant Hill (Folder 5-7; 25-26) CS 657 – Shakers Page 2 o Photographs of Shakertown at Pleasant Hill can be found at: http://library2.usi.edu:8080/cdm/search/collection/CSIC/searchterm/pleasant%20hill/field/ all/mode/all/conn/and/order/title/ad/asc o Website: http://shakervillageky.org/ • Sabbathday Lake (Folder 10) o Photographs of Sabbathday Lake can be found at: http://library2.usi.edu:8080/cdm/search/collection/CSIC/searchterm/sabbathday/field/all/m ode/all/conn/and/order/title/ad/asc o Website: http://maineshakers.com/ • Mount Lebanon (Folder 10) o Photographs of Mount Lebanon can be found at: http://library2.usi.edu:8080/cdm/search/collection/CSIC/searchterm/mt.%20lebanon%20a nd%20columbia/field/all/mode/all/conn/and/order/title/ad/asc o Website: http://www.shakerml.org/ • Shirley Village, Shirley, MA (Folder 29) • Groveland Village, Groveland, NY (Folder 29) o Photograph of Groveland Village can be found at: http://library2.usi.edu:8080/cdm/search/collection/CSIC/searchterm/groveland/field/all/mo de/all/conn/and/order/title/ad/asc • Watervliet Shakers (Folder 29) o Photographs of Watervliet Shakers can be found at: http://library2.usi.edu:8080/cdm/search/collection/CSIC/searchterm/watervliet/field/all/mo de/all/conn/and/order/title/ad/asc • North Union Village (Folder 9) o Photographs of North Union Village can be found at: http://library2.usi.edu:8080/cdm/search/collection/CSIC/searchterm/north%20union/field/a ll/mode/exact/conn/and/order/nosort • Union Village (Folder 9) o Photographs of Union Village can be found at: http://library2.usi.edu:8080/cdm/search/searchterm/Union%20Village/mode/exact • West Union (Folder 30) o Photographs of West Union can be found at: http://library2.usi.edu:8080/cdm/search/collection/CSIC/searchterm/west%20union/field/al l/mode/exact/conn/and/order/nosort • Water Water Village (Folder 31) o Photographs of Water Water Village can be found at: http://library2.usi.edu:8080/cdm/search/collection/CSIC/searchterm/white%20water/mode /all/order/nosort/page/1 • White Oak Village (Folder 31) o Photographs of White Oak Village can be found at: http://library2.usi.edu:8080/cdm/search/collection/CSIC/searchterm/white%20oak/field/all/ mode/all/conn/and/order/title/ad/asc • Roger Hall/Shaker Music (Folder 18) o Website: ▪ http://www.rogerleehall.com/ ▪ http://www.rogerleehall.com/musicpreservationist.htm ▪ http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/shakermusic.htm • Narcoossee, Florida (Folder 32) CS 657 – Shakers Page 3 Administrative