Two Centuries of Visitors to Shaker Villages
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Open Access Dissertations 2-2010 Seeking Shakers: Two Centuries of Visitors to Shaker Villages Brian L. Bixby University of Massachusetts Amherst, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Bixby, Brian L., "Seeking Shakers: Two Centuries of Visitors to Shaker Villages" (2010). Open Access Dissertations. 157. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/157 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SEEKING SHAKERS: TWO CENTURIES OF VISITORS TO SHAKER VILLAGES A Dissertation Presented by BRIAN L. BIXBY Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 2010 Department of History © Copyright by Brian L. Bixby 2010 All Rights Reserved SEEKING SHAKERS: TWO CENTURIES OF VISITORS TO SHAKER VILLAGES A Dissertation Presented by BRIAN L. BIXBY Approved as to style and content by: ____________________________________ David Glassberg, Chair ____________________________________ Heather Cox Richardson, Member ____________________________________ Mario S. De Pillis, Member ____________________________________ H. Martin Wobst, Member __________________________________________ Audrey Altstadt, Department Chair Department of History DEDICATION My parents, Rudolph Varnum Bixby and Isabel Campbell Bixby, both fostered my love of history. I wish my father had lived to see the end of this work. This dissertation is dedicated to the both of them. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In my case, as for many others, the doctoral dissertation represents the sum of many, many years of education, conversation, and reading. My intellectual debts are numerous. I can only list a few of them here. First of all come the dissertation committee members, each of whom has provided a different and helpful perspective on my work, while patiently encouraging me through the long process of writing the dissertation. Thank you, Prof. David Glassberg for chairing my committee, Prof. Mario De Pillis for breaking his retirement to support this dissertation with his detailed knowedge of the Shaker world and history, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson for her suggestions on writing and the nineteenth century, and Prof. H. Martin Wobst for serving as the outside member and bringing an anthropological perspective to the subject. My official and unofficial advisors in the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, Louise A. Tilly and Janet L. Abu-Lughod, deserve recognition, too. I was guided by their helpfulness and academic rigor while developing my intellectual interest in tourism. The community of Shaker academics and enthusiasts has provided help and leads on many occasions. Only some of these are noted in the text. Among those who aren’t noted in the text, Prof. Jane Crosthwaite of Mount Holyoke College offered good advice when I started this work, and Christian Goodwillie made the resources of Hancock Shaker Village’s collections freely available to me. v My fellow graduate students at the University of Massachusetts deserve a great deal of credit, too. I have learned from their examples, taken advantage of their advice, and discussed my own work with them many times. Thanks to all of you. Eleanor J. Barnes has offered advice, criticism, and moral support from the start, as she well knows. Thank you, dear. vi ABSTRACT SEEKING SHAKERS: TWO CENTURIES OF VISITORS TO SHAKER VILLAGES FEBRUARY 2010 BRIAN L. BIXBY, A.B., HARVARD UNIVERSITY M.A., NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor David Glassberg The dissertation analyzes the history of tourism at Shaker communities from their foundation to the present. Tourism is presented as an interaction between the host Shakers and the visitors. The culture, expectations, and activities of both parties affect their relationship to each other. Historically, tourists and other visitors have gradually dominated the relationship, shifting from hostility based on religion to acceptance based on a romantic view of the Shakers. This relationship has spilled over into related cultural phenomena, notably fiction and antique collecting. Overall, the analysis extends contemporary tourism theory and integrates Shaker history with the broader course of American history. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................ v ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................vii LIST OF FIGURES..........................................................................................................xi INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 1. PILGRIMS TO PERFECTION (1780-1787)...................................................... 11 The origin of the Shakers.................................................................................... 13 Enter the “New Lights”....................................................................................... 17 The Shakers and New Lights meet...................................................................... 21 The Shakers spread the word .............................................................................. 27 Close of the Shakers’ founding era..................................................................... 32 2. CONSTRUCTING A WORK-A-DAY SANCTUARY (1787-1842)................ 34 Creating the Shaker village................................................................................. 37 Expanding into the Midwest ............................................................................... 49 3. SPECTATORS OF THE SACRED (1787-1842)............................................... 54 Village visitors.................................................................................................... 58 Dancing before the Lord, dancing before the World .......................................... 60 Theological conflicts........................................................................................... 63 Good businessmen, good neighbors.................................................................... 74 Tourists and travelogues ..................................................................................... 80 Fanatical sacrilege............................................................................................... 91 Those who did not publish.................................................................................. 97 The Shakers’ perspective .................................................................................... 98 The crisis of the Era of Manifestations ............................................................. 104 4. FLAWED ARCADIAS..................................................................................... 109 A welcome visitor............................................................................................. 115 viii Effects of Mother’s Work ................................................................................. 117 Reporters and romanticism ............................................................................... 126 Opponents of Shaker romance .......................................................................... 136 Utilitarian views of the Shakers........................................................................ 138 Visiting in fiction and fact ................................................................................ 142 5. COLLECTING AND SALVAGING “SHAKER,” 1889-1940 ........................ 152 The spirit diminished ........................................................................................ 153 Collecting “Shaker” .......................................................................................... 157 Visiting and remembering lost communities .................................................... 167 Creating the legend of the Shaker Golden Age................................................. 172 Edward Deming Andrews popularizes the Shakers.......................................... 175 6. MUSEUM SHAKERS, 1940-1985 .................................................................. 186 Making the Shakers into history ....................................................................... 187 Making Shaker museums.................................................................................. 194 Shaker issues and reactions............................................................................... 200 Shakers as museum pieces................................................................................ 205 7. SEEING GHOSTS, 1985-PRESENT ............................................................... 209 The last ones standing....................................................................................... 210 The inner circles: Friends and friends............................................................... 213 Enthusiasts: not quite friends...........................................................................