How long did the shakers last

They were people who abandoned their families and social lives to live together in a communal, equal setting marked by simplicity and celibacy. Officially known as the United Society of Believers, they called themselves Shakers—but now, reports David Sharp for the Associated Press , the death of one in their ranks means there are only two Shakers left in the world. When Sister Frances Carr died at age 89 earlier this week , she reduced the number of Shakers in the last active community of its kind to two.

The Shaker village at Sabbathday Lake in New Gloucester, Maine, has been in operation since , when it was founded by a group of Shaker missionaries. The United Society of Believers sect had already existed since It was created by a group of English Quakers and exiled Camisard Protestants who had unsuccessfully fought for their religious freedoms in France before fleeing to England.

Shakerism is a system which has a distinct genius, a strong organization, a perfect life of its own, through which it would appear to be helping to shape and guide, in no small measure, the spiritual career of the United States. For more than two hundred years Shakerism ran alongside American history, sometimes heralding things to come, usually reflecting trends, events, and ideals from a slightly different angle.

The Shakers arrived in America on the eve of the Revolution, having left England in pursuit of freedom. They were gathered into order as a practicing religion in , just as the new United States found its form with the drafting of the Constitution. The Shakers were suddenly appreciated as successful communitarians when Americans became interested in communities, as successful utopians when America hosted a hundred utopian experiments, as spiritualists when American parlors filled with mediums and with voices from other worlds.

They invented hundreds of laborsaving devices from the clothespin to the circular saw, which they shared without patents some of these machines launched brilliant industrial careers for the men who borrowed them , nor were they frightened of useful inventions.

The New Hampshire Shakers owned one of the first cars in the state and rigged up electricity in the own village while the state capital building was still burning gas. They were admired and derided, imitated for their successes and ridiculed for their eccentricities.

And they are enduringly appreciated for their contribution to American crafts and architecture. Today, just a few Shakers still live in a single village in Maine. To all appearances these are the last Shakers. But the living Shakers faithfully assert that their religion will never die.

Ann Lee , the founder and later leader of the American Shakers, and her parents were members of this society. Ann Lee was born the daughter of a blacksmith in Manchester in She worked in a cotton factory, and in she married blacksmith Abraham Standerin.

They had four children, all of whom died in childhood. Ann joined the Shakers in , and 12 years later had "a special manifestation of Divine light. In she received a revelation directing her to establish a Shaker Church in America. Ann Lee, her husband, and seven members set sail for America on May 10, By late she and some followers were located northwest of Albany, New York, by which point she and her husband had separated.

She gathered followers in New York until her death in Shaker Beliefs. The Shakers practiced communal living, where all property was shared.

For those that were adopted, they were given a choice to either stay within the community or leave when they turned Like the Quakers, the Shakers were pacifists who had advanced notions of gender and racial equality. The Shakers believed in opportunities for intellectual and artistic development within the Society. Simplicity in dress, speech, and manner were encouraged, as was living in rural colonies away from the corrupting influences of the cities.

Like other Utopian societies founded in the18th and19th centuries, the Shakers believed it was possible to form a more perfect society upon earth.