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.”

Samplers

Here are images of samplers from the time period, to give a sense of the stitching pattern. Samplers were generally used by girls and young women to practice their needlework, but the style of needlework would have continued into their adult life.
These images were found at: www.emlis.com/femaleworth.htm
www.needlewench.com/becky/sands/index.html
www.antiquesampler.net/gallery.html


1838

1824

1835

1838

1842

1832

Items from the Design Meeting

Here is a summary of the information I provided for the production meeting, Friday, 14 March.

Quilt blocks were appliquèd not pieced. (Rose of Sharon is a good example of an appliquè block.)
Knitting was done both by hand and machine. They often knit “footings” – the heel and toe portion of socks – for sale in the community. Crochet was seen as decorative, not functional, and therefore was not used.
For a picnic water carrier, there are many options. Glass, stoneware crocks, pottery, or tin would all be period-correct.
Each family dwelling house (holding 40-100 people) had its own laundry room. Certain women did the laundry for the entire house. Individual people’s clothing was marked with their name cross-stitched, usually into the collar. Linens were marked with the room title cross-stitched into a corner. They used agitators and washboards in a basin. They also ironed and did spot cleaning in the laundry room.
Irons were heated on a special stove with 10 slats for irons. A woman would take one iron out, use it until it was cold, replace it and pick up the next one. There was no way to keep an iron warm off the stove.
Dust pans were tin. They were straight across the top rather than fluted like modern ones.
Shaker women wore apron-front dresses with an extra panel in the front of the skirt to serve as an apron. They wore actual aprons only in the kitchen and the laundry room.
The 1994 edition of American Costuming Society’s Dress journal has a good article about Shaker clothing.
See post below for information about lap desks.

This is all from Susan Hughes, education director at Shaker Village, Pleasant Hill, Kentucky.

Lap Desk

The question: what would they use to write on?

The answer: a lap desk or writing slope. (The difference being, the lap desk is smaller.) Lap desks and writing slopes were very popular throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Many lap desks were quite fancy, but there were also simpler versions, and they could have been made by a woodworker in the community. A lap desk is essentially a hinged box, often with a sloping top. Paper, pens/pencils, etc. go inside the box. When you need to write something, you pull out the necessary equipment, sit down, put the box on your lap, and away you go.

The image on top is Thomas Jefferson's writing desk, made circa 1770. The other is a writing box (or lap desk) from around 1810.

For more images of lap desks, go to http://www.hygra.com/e/rwb.htm.