Shaker in and as Museums

We have spent some time discussing where to find the Shakers in popular as well as documentary cinema, but you can also currently "visit" the Shakers at a multitude of museums and museum exhibits, especially where we are in the Northeastern United States. First, as we have mentioned in past blogs, there are many original Shaker sites that have been converted into Museums. In New York and Massachusetts alone there are at least 4 such communities. Shaker Heritage Society, outside Albany, NY, is the former home the first Shaker community founded at Watervliet, NY It boasts a 770-acre Historic District that includes nine remaining Shaker buildings, herb garden, open fields, apple orchard, Ann Lee Pond nature preserve, and the Shaker cemetery where the founder of Shakerdom, Ann Lee is buried. Shaker Hancock Village in the Berkshires, MA, is a landmark destination of 750 acres, 20 historic Shaker buildings, and over 22,000 Shaker artifacts which has been described as the most comprehensively interpreted Shaker site in the world, and the oldest working farm in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. Shirley Shaker Village in Shirley Massachusetts, has 13 of the 26 original buildings from this community which was established in 1793. Harvard Shaker Village in Harvard, Massachusetts comprises 12 remaining Shaker Structures, a burial ground, and the Holy Hill of Zion, where outdoor worship once took place.

Outside New York/Massachusetts, but still in the Northeast, you can find Enfield Shaker Museum, in Enfield, New Hamphsire, Canterbury Shaker Village in Canterbury, New Hampshire, Alfred Shaker Museum in Alfred, Maine and the only active Shaker Community in the world today at Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in New Gloucester, Maine. This last site, established in 1783, is situated on 1,800 acres of farm and forest land with seventeen historic structures from the 1780s through the 1950s, the Village continues to be a place where the Shakers, live, work, and worship. Even further afield, there are White Water Shaker Village in Ohio and Shaker Village in Pleasant Hill, Kentucky.

The websites are a great source of information and images and I urge you to visit each of them.

In more recent and very exciting news, the Shaker Museum Mount Lebanon, which stewards the most comprehensive collection of Shaker material culture and archives is planning a new facility to house its collection planned for downtown Chatham, NY in 2023. We are so excited about this upcoming new addition to the Shaker Museum world and can't wait for the opening. If you can't wait as well, the museum is hosting a series of small pop up museum exhibits in Chatham near the location of the proposed museum. Allison and I visited the last exhibit and had a great time!