Shaker Inventions

The Shakers’ communal style of living meant that they could never depend on “someone else” to get a given job done. They all had to work together to meet the community’s needs. Therefore, Shakers came up with many inventions to make everyday jobs a little easier. Shakers are most famous for inventing the clothespin and the flat broom. Other, less glorified, inventions include the metal pen, packaged garden seeds, a threshing machine, a pea sheller, an apple parer and corer, and a revolving oven. Shakers also made significant improvements upon the wood stove and the washing machine. In one Shaker village, a steam engine provided energy to wash, dry, and iron the laundry.

Shaker Influence on Art

The Shaker model of simplicity and worship has inspired many artists throughout the years. Several architects and furniture designers have drawn on Shaker designs for their art. Shakerism inspired other, less obvious, art forms as well. Composer Aaron Copland used the Shaker song “Simple Gifts” as the basis for his composition Appalachian Spring. This song also found its way into contemporary Christian worship through the song “Lord of the Dance.” Doris Humphrey, a pioneer of American modern dance and co-founder of Julliard School of the Arts, choreographed a dance based on the passion of Shaker worship. In more recent years, Tero Saarinen choreographed a dance entitled Borrowed Light based on Shaker ideas. As It Is In Heaven is only one of the major artistic pieces based on Shaker life.

Quilts, part 2

Here are more images of period quilts.

Quilts

Here are images of period quilts.

Solid-color quilts were common: one solid piece of fabric quilted to another with stuffing in between. The fabric could be white or colored, cotton or wool. This quilt and its detail are from http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/quilts/13.htm.




Another common style was the medallion quilt. This quilt consisted of a large center piece, which could be either a large piece of fabric (often with a printed design), an appliqued block (designs stitched onto a solid piece of fabric), or rarely, a pieced block (pieces of different fabric sewn together to make a pattern). The center piece was surrounded by multiple varying borders which continued the center piece's theme. More information on these quilts is available at http://www.womenfolk.com/quilting_history/medallion.htm, which is where these pictures are from.

Dust Pan

These images of dust pans are taken from ebay. None of them are quite right, but they give you a pretty good general idea.


This is an Amish dust pan from the early 1900s -- too late, but very much the right idea & it's so simple I can't imagine it changed much from 1830.

This is WAY too ornate -- and it's silver -- but the outline is the right idea.

Technically, this is a crumb tray, so it's significantly smaller than an actual dust pan, but if you just picture it at dust-pan size you'd have another good image of what we could go for.

Trunks

Here are pictures of trunks that are close to what we're going for. They're from http://oldtrunks.com/history/historypages/round_top_trunks.htm.

Shaking

Here is information about the shaking of Shakers, taken from Clara Endicott Sears' Gleanings from Old Shaker Journals. (Houghton Mifflin, 1916).

“They beat the air with their arms, and writhed with horrible contortions, until a faintness came over them which developed into a trance-like condition, and falling to the ground they lay there as if dead. When consciousness returned, they were seized with violent tremblings and twitchings . . . As the bodily agitation diminished, they began to prophesy.” (Shaking Quakers)
“Some had their eyes fixed steadily upwards, continually reaching out and drawing in their arms . . . Near the centre of the room stood two young women, one of them very handsome, who whirled round and round for the space of fifteen minutes, nearly as fast as the rim of a spinning wheel in quick motion . . . several of the young people, both men and women, began to shake and tremble in a most terrible manner. The first I perceived was their heads moving slowly from one shoulder to the other – the longer they moved, the quicker and more violently they shook. The motion proceeded from the hed to the hands, arms, and whole body, with such power as if limb would rend from limb.”