Book description
The Shaker faith is estimated to have had a total of fewer than 20,000
members across its 250-year history, yet more than 100,000 people visit
the various Shaker villages and museums scattered across the eastern
United States every year. We are still fascinated with the world of the
Shakers, and authentic examples of Shaker architecture, furniture, and
crafts are prized wherever they remain. In The Shaker Village, author
and photographer Raymond Bial brings readers the history of the Shaker
religion and an examination of the Shaker way of life, which was based
on cooperation and self-sufficiency. Each Shaker village was built with
the goal of creating a heaven on earth for its inhabitants. The Shaker
people were among the first in America to apply science and new learning
directly to traditional farming and homekeeping. They invented or
improved significantly upon designs of many farm and household items,
including some still used today: the flat broom, the slotted spoon, the
circular saw, and the idea of selling gardening seeds in packets.
Although each Shaker community was self-supporting, the Shakers' success
at applying their core values-simplicity, utility, and
tranquility-carried Shaker villages to a point of abundance: they were
able to export their beautiful furniture, delicious foods, and superior
wares to the outside world, where they have been appreciated ever since.
The Shaker Village is generously illustrated with Bial's evocative
photographs of buildings and artifacts from the Shaker Village of
Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, one of the largest and best-preserved Shaker
sites. The Shaker movement reached its peak in the mid-nineteenth
century. Membership began to drop with the onset of the Civil War, and
as the new promise of industrialization began to take hold in America,
Shaker numbers steadily dwindled. Although the Shaker religion has all
but departed, The Shaker Village captures a revelatory glimpse of a
legacy that still resounds with modern Americans. Raymond Bial has
published more than eighty books of photographs, including Amish Home
and Mist over the Mountains: Appalachia and Its People. He lives in
Urbana, Illinois, with his wife and children.
