Atnerican COll1lll.unal Societies Quarterly A Publication of Hanillton College Library Vol. 8, no. 1 Janurary 2014 ,senjl'lmin ,(3 ee l'll. Richard W. Couper Press Anlerican Conununal Societies Quarterly Hamilton Vohune 8, no. 1 - January 2014 Table of Contents American Conununal Societies Quarterly is published four times a year Oanuary, April, July, October) by the Richard W Couper Press, the publishing arm of the Hamilton College Library special collections. From the Editor 2 Editor: Randall L. Ericson Zion's Whistleblowers: Reflections on Shaker Apostate [email protected] and Anti-Shaker Writings 3 Associate editor: Christian Goodwillie & [email protected] Writings if Shaker Apostates and Anti-Shakers, 1782-1850: An Expanded Table of Contents with Annotations and Notes 26 Subscriptions are $35 annually; single issues $10. by Carol Medlicott Send orders to: American Communal Societies Quarterly A Postscript to Writings if Shaker Apostates and Anti-Shakers, Hamilton College Library 1782-1850: New Light on Benjamin West, William 198 College Hill Road Clinton, NY 13323 Scales, Benjamin Green, and Zebulon Huntington by Christian Goodwillie 46 Checks should be made payable to: Trustees of Hamilton College. Copyright 2014 Trustees of Hamilton College The editor welcomes the submission of articles for publication. Electronic submission (Microsoft Word format) is preferred. Front cover illustration: Benjamin Green, Shaker apostate from Enfield, New Hampshire. This image probably dates to c.1860. This version was International Standard Serials Number: 1939-473X sourced from the article by Frank West Rollins, "The Old North End: Concord," Granite Month?J 22, no. 6 (June 1897): 337. 1 FroIll the Editor - This issue is devoted to a review of and an addendum to Writings if Shaker Zion's Whisdeblowers: Reflections on Shaker Apostates and Anti-Shakers, 1782-1850, edited by Christian Goodwillie, and Apostate and Anti-Shaker Writings published by Pickering & Chatto in 2013. This three-volume work is a comprehensive collection of apostate By Carol MedlicoU and anti-Shaker writings. It is not often that a publisher of the stature of Pickering & Chatto would seek to publish such a work on its own initiative. A review of: Writings rif Shaker Apostates and Anti-Shakers, 1782-1850, It is a major development in the publication of Shaker-related works. edited by Christian Goodwillie. London: Pickering & Chatto, April Moreover, Pickering and Chatto has commissioned Glendyne Wergland and Goodwillie to compile a collection of more than sixty narratives by 2013.3 volume set. 1088 pp. 23.4 x 15.6 cm. faithful Believers, titled Shaker Autobiographies, Biographies and Testimonies, 1806-1907. This three-volume set is due out in May of this year. In this issue of ACSQ, Carol Medlicott offers a review of Writings if Introduction Shaker Apostates and Anti-Shakers, 1782-1850, in addition to constructing an annotated expanded table of contents for the three volumes. Medlicott is During the summer of 2013, Americans were both captivated and a well-known Shaker scholar with particular interest in western Shakers, scandalized by the revelations of Edward Snowden, a former CIA Shaker music, and geography. She is an associate professor in the employee and intelligence insider, who abruptly left his post with aNational department of history and geography at Northern Kentucky University. Security Agency contractor and sought asylum overseas while at the same She has authored a recent biography of Issachar Bates (Issachar Bates: A time handing over a mass of classified documents about US intelligence Shaker's ]ourruy, University Press of New England, 2013), coauthored a gathering practices. The American press continues to reel over Snowden's book with Christian Goodwillie on Richard McNemar (Richard McNemar revelations, which have generated considerable criticism of the Obama and the Music if the Shaker West: Branches if One Living Tree, Kent State administration and its intelligence-gathering procedures. In particular, what University Press, 2012), and published numerous articles on the Shakers in appears to be a policy of broad-based telephone surveillance of American Common-Place, ACSQ, Timeline, and White Water Village Voice. citizens and foreign allies alike has come under considerable scrutiny. Some Inevitably, once Writings ifShaker Apostates andAnti-Shakerswas completed have hailed Snowden as a hero and an American patriot, while others have Goodwillie discovered additional information. He has, therefore, put criticized his motives and called into question his competency. Snowden together a postscript to his three-volume work, and gives this description: has insisted that his aim was to reveal to an unsuspecting American public "This brief piece will share some of what has since come to light about the extent of what he believes are aggressive and unscrupulous technology­ Benjamin West, William Scales, and Benjamin Green (whose texts were in based surveillance practices. the collection), as well as the discovery of a previously unknown Shaker At exactly the same time that Britain's Guardian newspaper was making apostate work by Zebulon Huntington." Goodwillie is the director and public the extensive revelations of intelligence insider Edward Snowden, curator of special collections and archives at Hamilton College Library, another British press was releasing to the reading public the most extensive and associate editor of the Richard W Couper Press. He has published collection of Shaker apostate writings ever assembled. While considerably extensively on the Shakers. less explosive today, many of these Shaker apostate writings would have been every bit as provocative to readers at the time of their initial release in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. Like the Snowden revelations, 2 3 the anti-Shaker writings presume to afford the reader an inside look into a considerable effort to "debunk" the defector's revelations. But because of system that would otherwise remain murky to outsiders. his insider status, the defector holds singular power to effect real damage This essay will begin with some brief background on the Shakers and on the system he has left behind. Still, for all his potential power, the on the dynamics of insider-outsider information before turning to Writings defector's ultimate fate is usually uncertain. Whether from North Korea cf Shaker Apostates and Anti-Shakers, 1782-1850, the three-volume set newly or a contemporary religious group, an exit from any closed and secretive released by British publisher Pickering & Chatto and edited by Christian community often leads to a sadly troubled life in which the apostate is Goodwillie. I will present a descriptive summary of the volumes, then unable to adjust. turn to a discussion of key themes, motives of the writers, and the reasons It is an easy matter to find examples of withdrawn and secretive that such writings diminished in number and intensity, along with some intentional communities whose opaque practices become a little more specific highlights. In closing, I will consider the utility of such writings transparent as a result of the public revelations of disaffected former for the contemporary reader. Further, as an appendix to this essay, I have members. Often such information is mishandled and any scholarly compiled a table that provides a complete listing of the contents of the value is diminished. In contemporary America, for instance, revelations three volumes, specific categorical facts about each, and a very brief from former members across a range of intentional communities­ abstract of the themes addressed by each writer. from Hutterites and Amish to "fundamentalist" Mormons-have become popular fodder for "reality" television. But far from being mere entertainment, firsthand observations from former insiders of intentional Seeking the Insider's Perspective communities hold considerable value, even .though the scholarly use of such information demands critical consideration of the testifiers' motives The Edward Snowden controversy should be instructive for students and perspectives. Through their long history, the Shakers have had of communal and intentional groups. We are all too aware that most abundant experience with apostasy and persecution and have survived intentional groups, past and present, define boundaries to separate despite the circulation of slanderous accounts generated by former insiders themselves from the broader society and that penetrating those boundaries and aggrieved individuals. to learn the "truth" of what goes on within self-isolated groups can be Commonly known as the "Shakers," the United Society of Believers difficult. Likewise, for the majority of Americans, the U.S. intelligence in Christ's Second Appearing is the longest-running religious communal community is a mysterious walled-off entity, whose shadowy ranks are group in American history, with origins older than the nation itself From accessible only to those secretive specialists who hold the requisite security the Society's beginnings, the Shakers sought separation from the American clearances. For most of us, it is a world beyond our ken, and we can mainstream. That separation quickly became one of the Shakers' key only a achieve a glimpse on a few rare instances. Perhaps someone on distinguishing features and the basis of provocation. The majority of the inside might be "outed," generating tales of hidden intrigue, or some religious denominations in America were content to share