Shaker Scholars...

Because of the slow internet at the Holiday Inn in Boxborough Ma (hard to understand as it sits right next to Cisco); I didn’t get to do any blog posting this week while at seminar.  Hubby and I have arrived home this evening and over the next few days, I’ll post a few photos and comments.  For now, here’s many of the attendees in front of the Harvard Shaker Meeting House, now a private home.  Thank you to the owner for a closer look at a spectacular historical building!

Today it is a sweet place waiting for money and restoration before time takes more of a toll.

Osborn House

One does not need to be religious and to believe in a certain God to feel spirituality.  It was moving to me to be inside this structure, almost exactly 230 years after Mother Ann and join in a short song of that religion.  Those of us who love history know what these moments can be.

Friends

We toured the premises, a local gravesite, Richard read from the Testimonials sections that were relevant, and a few even braved the basement.

(Not original, but lovely)

A lovely day as always.

P.S.  Rich and I went on to BashBish Falls where we hiked a 300 foot vertical drop via steel cable to the falls (we did take the slightly less difficult path back up).

300 feet down...

We are attending the 2010 Shaker Seminar being hosted this year at Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, MA. It is the village’s 50th year as a museum, and extra attention is being paid to this important moment in their history.

The lectures are on the whole very interesting; and as usual the people who attend are fascinating, generous, and incredibly knowledgeable about all things Shaker.

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Sunday morning brought two final presentations for this year’s seminar:  Rob Emlen presented “Picturing a Shaker Village:  How the public imagined the Shaker Landscape in 1835″ and Steve Paterwic “Canterbury Takes the Lead” — both fascinating and interesting.  These workshops were held in the upstairs dining room of The Shaker Table, where we also stayed for quite a good lunch (to tell you the truth I thought the brunch food was far superior to what they had served us for two dinners on Friday and Saturday).

Hubby and I stayed another couple of hours to look about the village more and go on the Dwelling tour which we had not managed to squeeze in as yet.  We really had to hold a tongue a few times when the tour guide- truely doing her volunteer best — got a few things twisted.  On the whole though, she knew her basic stuff.  The biggest thing we wished was that she knew a few dates.  I think because the Shakers have a long history at Canterbury, it’s important to name dates or you will, as tourist and visitor, assume they “always” did it that way.   It was a short tour and only wish we could have enjoyed it for a longer time.

We then took small roads home as we did not want to get on the local highway with everyone going home on Sunday night — only once the GPS suggested a road and it led to a closed bridge!  So we had to reverse direction; but then we got to see a pretty little one lane covered bridge, so worth the detour.

Home late and tired, with mud in the basement from a serious rain storm (yet another) while we were gone.

After spending the morning at a local Head Start program, I carved out an extra few minutes (not as easy as it sounds as it’s a 1 1/2 hour drive each way from my place to the Pitsfield area) to stop by one of my favorite places:  Hancock Shaker Village.   It was a sunny low 70s early autumn day. Magnificent!

I know all of the rooms and buildings really well; so when I have only a few – that day I only had 40 minutes – I spend my time walking slowly about taking in the weather and the beauty of the village.

There was a lot of activity going on.  Apparently there’s a weekend crafts festival happening in the next few days and there were a lot of tents set up which actually didn’t take away from the beauty actually at all.  There were a couple of men up on top of the round barn scrapping the old paint. The village was quite busy with tourists – I noticed a bus in the parking lot and heard a lot of folks speaking German I think.  There was also a wood workshop happening.

I very much enjoy it when it’s busy – makes it easier to imagine when the village was alive with Shakers.   Even with the sound of electric sanders, the tourists reading maps and talking and the sound of handsaws, there’s something about the village that is just calming.

My adjustment back to teaching and administrivia has been challenging.  To walk about breathing in delicious air, especially in amongst the gardens and the small orchard near the main road, imagining those long ago living here just calms my heart and soul. Good preparation for using my brain at a seminar on critical thinking for 3 hours after my walk a lot easier to do!

Today’s lectures started with two that were really a pair as they were presented by the authors of a great new book about a particular Shaker collector couple:

Book: Gather up the Fragments: The Andrews Shaker Collection by Mario S. De Pillis and Christian Goodwillie

The lecture by Professor De Pillis shared with us the aspects of how this collection and this couple became a turning point of the culture of Shakers being recognized as important to historians and collectors. The second half given by Mr. Goodwillie focused on the relationship between the Shaker community of Hancock and the Andrews. It’s too complicated to explain here, but I’ll quote from page 52 a passage by Professor De Pillis “As an old friend of the Andrews and as a fellow board member at Hancock Shaker Village, Inc., I accepted the invitation to write this essay as a moral duty: to cut through the gossip and amateurism of the so-called World of Shaker and provide a sympathetic but objective account of the Andrews and their collection.”

In addition to the two essays, there is another by M. Stephen Miller, as well as dozens of pages of photographs of beautiful artifacts, furniture, tools and more that the Andrews collected, thus “saving a culture.”

The afternoon sessions were as follows:

Put a Cap on It: Chastity and the Shaker Cap by Glendyne Wergland, and

Zion’s Travelers: Traveling to the Shaker West by Carol Medlicott.

I do a dis-service to any of these researchers by attempting to summarize their work. If you are interested in more, let me know or contact Hancock Shaker Village. It is my understanding that there may be some proceedings published afterwards; or perhaps they can provide a way for you to contact the presenters.

I’ve been interested for a long time in the children brought up by the Shakers, and I continue to scribble notes and give it a bit of thought about how to go about focusing my interest. This summer I read a history of education (sorry I don’t have that reference with me at the moment) and I’m very interested in the mid-1800s in terms of how schooling was changing and thus changing the lives of how children were educated. Maybe one day I’ll have enough information and research under my belt to actually write an article! For now, I’ll keep reflecting and keeping notes about how to think about it!

And, of course, at seminar:

we eat:

we sing:

we talk:

and greatly enjoy one another’s company!

After a continental breakfast in the dorms (I always wish there was protein at American continental breakfasts), we headed off to the library at Hamilton College (a short walk up the hill). There we enjoyed a presentation of the Shaker holdings by Randy Ericson. We saw some really incredible books: one we were told is still used today by those living in community at Sabbathday Lake.

A fairly short bus ride to the Oneida Community Mansion House was next where we had a brief overview of the place by the Director there before enjoying a bit over an hour to self-tour the facility. I had heard of this community but knew nothing about it. The hour to explore on our own was not at all enough, so I expect we’ll plan a trip back one day.

This is a photo of the Mansion from a flower garden .

After a nice lunch at the restaurant that leases space there, we had two lectures;

Twin Visions: Shkers and the Oneida Community by Giles Wayland Smith

What’s Love Got to Do with It?: The Oneida Community 1838-1881 by Peter Hoehnle

After a bus ride back, and about 45 minutes to recuperate, have a snack, we were off to another great dinner and a sort of second half of the library presentation. The Hamilton Library has put a lot of its rare collections in digital format.

There is always time between lectures and at meals plenty of time to talk and enjoy other participants’ company. The Seminar has been held every year since since 1975, and there are some participants who have attended all of them! There are also folks who are new or semi-new, and come from all over the United States. I think sometimes there are people from other countries, but I don’t think there are this year. The participants have a wide variety of interests in the Shakers: there are academic folks doing research on various aspects of the communities and/or the Shakers themselves, collectors of various types of objects, history buffs, planned community enthusiasts, and this trip we met a writer working on a novel. There are about 50 participants it seems this year.

Our interest is varied. We don’t have a special area that fascinates us (of course, loving old books, we would love to own a few, but the prices are way beyond our interests – and actually we would never be able to keep objects that we feel belong in museums anyways). I think it mostly harkens back to 1973 when we took our honeymoon trip across the US (either 7000 miles in 8 weeks, or 8 thousand in 7 – we can never remember which) when we visited many planned communities – called communes then! — hopeing that we would find one to live in and raise our children in. I was also raised in Watervliet, NY the place the Shakers settled in the New World, and was aware of it at some point in my childhood. It is really an interesting way to spend time together as a couple and indulge our fascination with history as well.

It was a dreary rainy drive to Hamilton college. The usual start to any conference: check-in, see old acquaintances, find your room, and such. There was a nice dinner and the first lecture of the seminar.

First lecture: The New Virtual White Water Shaker Village: Shaping a Collaborative Network for Shaker History on the Web presented by Jose M. Kozan and Iara Beduschi Kozan

A picture of us waiting for the speaker to set up and begin.

Below a photo of the presenter being introduced by Christian Goodwillie, curator at Hancock Shaker Village.

We didn’t attend last year as it was held at the Shaker communities in Kentucky and it’s just too hot for me there! We attended our first Seminar in Kentucky in 2001 and although it was lovely and educational, the heat was more than awful and I hated it. So we chose not to endure the southern heat last year. So it’s especially nice to be in attendance this year. It’s different so far as it’s located on a college campus and not close to an actual Shaker site; but the lectures look to be very interesting.

Stay tuned! If you’d like a good place to start checking out Shaker resources, go to www.Shakertown.net