Download or read book Letters from a Young Shaker written by William S. Byrd and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-10-21 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early nineteenth century, a young man belonging to the prominent Byrd family of Virginia, the grandson of William Byrd III, took up residence in the Shaker community at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. Over the next two years, 1826–1828, he wrote a series of letters to his father, a federal judge in Ohio, describing his experiences and his impressions of the United Society of Believers, as the Shakers were formally called. Eventually, William S. Byrd became a convert to the society and an advocate of its beliefs and practices. His letters—cut short by his father's death—offer today's reader an intimate view of communal life among the Shakers at a time of considerable turmoil in their village. In the correspondence of William S. Byrd, the Shaker experience is expressed in human terms and becomes a living faith. The letters also record the trials associated with conversion to a religion that was socially unacceptable to many Americans of the time. Some of their more poignant passages describe young Byrd's attempt to reconcile the tensions created by his membership in two families—the one of blood and the one of faith. Letters from a Young Shaker provides an unusually instructive commentary on life in a Shaker community, on the questions agitating the community, and on the appeal of Shakerism to Americans in the early nineteenth century. In addition to the letters, the book contains other documents bearing on William Byrd's relationship with the settlement at Pleasant Hill and an introduction placing him in the social and religious context of the period. This book will appeal to historian of American society and to anyone interested in the Shaker way of life.
Download or read book Letters from a Young Shaker William S Byrd at Pleasant Hill written by Stephen J. Stein and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Shaker Experience in America written by Stephen J. Stein and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Draws on oral and written testimony to trace the history and evolution of the Shakers, set within the broader context of American life
Download or read book Utopia Drive written by Erik Reece and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Erik Reece, life, at last, was good: he was newly married, gainfully employed, living in a creekside cabin in his beloved Kentucky woods. It sounded, as he describes it, "like a country song with a happy ending." And yet he was still haunted by a sense that the world--or, more specifically, his country--could be better. He couldn't ignore his conviction that, in fact, the good ol' USA was in the midst of great social, environmental, and political crises--that for the first time in our history, we were being swept into a future that had no future. Where did we--here, in the land of Jeffersonian optimism and better tomorrows--go wrong? Rather than despair, Reece turned to those who had dared to imagine radically different futures for America. What followed was a giant road trip and research adventure through the sites of America's utopian communities, both historical and contemporary, known and unknown, successful and catastrophic. What he uncovered was not just a series of lost histories and broken visionaries but also a continuing and vital but hidden idealistic tradition in American intellectual history. Utopia Drive is an important and definitive reconstruction of that tradition. It is also, perhaps, a new framework to help us find a genuinely sustainable way forward. " ... an engaging exploration -- and example -- of the fruitful tunnel-visions of dreamers turned doers." - Publishers Weekly
Download or read book The A to Z of the Shakers written by Stephen J. Paterwic and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2009-09-28 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, commonly known as the Shakers, followed Mother Ann Lee to the United States in 1774 when life in England became difficult. In the United States, they established several colonies whose governing principals included celibacy and agrarian communal living. Even at its peak, however, Shakerism claimed only about 4,500 members. Today, except for one active community in Sabbathday, Maine, the great Shaker villages are diminished, but the Shakers left an enduring impact on the religion and culture of the United States. The A to Z of the Shakers relates the history of this fascinating group through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and over 200 cross-referenced dictionary entries on Shaker communities, industries, individual families, and important people. Every definition, biography, and point of history was submitted to the Shakers at Sabbathday Lake for their review before it was included for publication. As such, the voice of the contemporary Shakers is found in the dictionary, and they have given it their unequivocal endorsement.
Download or read book Historic Sites and Landmarks That Shaped America 2 volumes written by Mitchell Newton-Matza and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 858 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the significance of places that built our cultural past, this guide is a lens into historical sites spanning the entire history of the United States, from Acoma Pueblo to Ground Zero. Historic Sites and Landmarks That Shaped America: From Acoma Pueblo to Ground Zero encompasses more than 200 sites from the earliest settlements to the present, covering a wide variety of locations. It includes concise yet detailed entries on each landmark that explain its importance to the nation. With entries arranged alphabetically according to the name of the site and the state in which it resides, this work covers both obscure and famous landmarks to demonstrate how a nation can grow and change with the creation or discovery of important places. The volume explores the ways different cultures viewed, revered, or even vilified these sites. It also examines why people remember such places more than others. Accessible to both novice and expert readers, this well-researched guide will appeal to anyone from high school students to general adult readers.
Download or read book Stillness and Light written by Henry Plummer and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-11 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shaker buildings have long been admired for their simplicity of design and sturdy craftsmanship, with form always following function. Over the years, their distinctive physical characteristics have invited as much study as imitation. Their clean, unadorned lines have been said to reflect core Shaker beliefs such as honesty, integrity, purity, and perfection. In this book, Henry Plummer focuses on the use of natural light in Shaker architecture, noting that Shaker builders manipulated light not only for practical reasons of illumination but also to sculpt a deliberately spiritual, visual presence within their space. Stillness and Light celebrates this subtly beautiful aspect of Shaker innovation and construction, captured in more than 100 stunning photographs.
Download or read book Blood from the Sky written by Adam Jortner and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2017-02-03 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the decades following the Revolution, the supernatural exploded across the American landscape—fabulous reports of healings, exorcisms, magic, and angels crossed the nation. Under First Amendment protections, new sects based on such miracles proliferated. At the same time, Enlightenment philosophers and American founders explicitly denied the possibility of supernatural events, dismissing them as deliberate falsehoods—and, therefore, efforts to suborn the state. Many feared that belief in the supernatural itself was a danger to democracy. In this way, miracles became a political problem and prompted violent responses in the religious communities of Prophetstown, Turtle Creek, and Nauvoo. In Blood from the Sky, Adam Jortner argues that the astonishing breadth and extent of American miracles and supernaturalism following independence derived from Enlightenment ideas about proof and sensory evidence, offering a chance at certain belief in an uncertain religious climate. Jortner breaks new ground in explaining the rise of radical religion in antebellum America, revisiting questions of disenchantment, modernity, and religious belief in a history of astounding events that—as early Americans would have said—needed to be seen to be believed.
Download or read book Mother s First Born Daughters written by Jean M. Humez and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1993-04-22 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "... an excellent collection of writings covering the period 1774-1854... mostly in print for the first time.... Humez provides excellent and clear introductions, emphasizing the ambiguous role of women."Â -- Library Journal "This very fine book is a valuable contribution to Shaker studies, religious studies, and women's studies." -- Journal of American History "The editor provides insightful commentary, but the power is in the straightforward and powerful words of the women who founded and participated in this most religious American group."Â -- The Bloomsbury Review "Humez's work is a model of revisionist scholarship, critically objective and editorially balanced, and provides a solid introduction to the early history of the Shakers." -- Utopian Studies "Israel, you have begun to bear for other souls, and you must never give out, till the last soul is gathered in. When you get home, tell your father and stepmother that your mother is risen from the dead." -- from the book A fascinating introduction to the world of the early Shakers, this anthology documents the contributions to Shaker religion made by women during its first seventy years. It gives a more accurate vision of Shakerism and highlights the ways in which gender can play an important role in the creation of a new religious institution.
Download or read book America s Communal Utopias written by Donald E. Pitzer and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010-01-20 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Shakers to the Branch Davidians, America's communal utopians have captured the popular imagination. Seventeen original essays here demonstrate the relevance of such groups to the mainstream of American social, religious, and economic life. The contributors examine the beliefs and practices of the most prominent utopian communities founded before 1965, including the long-overlooked Catholic monastic communities and Jewish agricultural colonies. Also featured are the Ephrata Baptists, Moravians, Shakers, Harmonists, Hutterites, Inspirationists of Amana, Mormons, Owenites, Fourierists, Icarians, Janssonists, Theosophists, Cyrus Teed's Koreshans, and Father Divine's Peace Mission. Based on a new conceptual framework known as developmental communalism, the book examines these utopian movements throughout the course of their development--before, during, and after their communal period. Each chapter includes a brief chronology, giving basic information about the group discussed. An appendix presents the most complete list of American utopian communities ever published. The contributors are Jonathan G. Andelson, Karl J. R. Arndt, Pearl W. Bartelt, Priscilla J. Brewer, Donald F. Durnbaugh, Lawrence Foster, Carl J. Guarneri, Robert V. Hine, Gertrude E. Huntington, James E. Landing, Dean L. May, Lawrence J. McCrank, J. Gordon Melton, Donald E. Pitzer, Robert P. Sutton, Jon Wagner, and Robert S. Weisbrot.
Download or read book From the Outside Looking In written by Reid L. Neilson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2016 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains fifteen essays from leading historians and religious studies scholars, each originally presented as the annual Tanner lecture at the conference of the Mormon History Association. Approaching Mormon history from a variety of angles, such as gender, identity creation, American imperialism, and globalization, these scholars, all experts in their fields but new to the study of Mormon history itself, ask intriguing questions about Mormonism's past and future and analyze familiar sources in unexpected ways.
Download or read book The Southern Historian written by and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of the Shakers written by Stephen J. Paterwic and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-06-15 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Shakerism teaches God’s immanence through the common life shared in Christ’s mystical body.” Like many religious seekers throughout the ages, they honor the revelation of God but cannot be bound up in an unchanging set of dogmas or creeds. Freeing themselves from domination by the state religion, Mother Ann Lee and her first followers in mid-18th-century England labored to encounter the godhead directly. They were blessed by spiritual gifts that showed them a way to live the heavenly life on Earth. The result of their efforts was the fashioning of a celibate communal life called the Christlife, wherein a person, after confessing all sin, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, can travel the path of regeneration into ever- increasing holiness. Pacifism, equality of the sexes, and withdrawal from the world are some of the ways the faith was put into practice. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Shakers contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on Shaker communities, industries, individual families, and important people. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Shakers.
Download or read book Folklore Forum written by and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Manuscripta written by and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues for Feb. 1957-July 1959 include a Checklist of the Vatican manuscript codices available for consultation at the Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library at St. Louis University Library.
Download or read book The Filson Club History Quarterly written by and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 690 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes list of members.
Download or read book Appalachian Notes written by and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
