The Shaker Community

Each of the Families and villages within the Shaker community consisted of approximately a hundred members, who were governed by elders and eldresses. The Shakers were highly organized people, and they set up a system of people inside their “tribes” so that each person has their own position and label. They were stroke with heavy responsibilities to care for the spiritual needs and became bastions for young Believers, maintaining the order and union of Shakers. The Shakers all believed and hoped that “through the prosperity and orderliness of their villages they would create a better society” (Nicoletta 33).
The philosophy that the authority structure of the Shaker used for self-government system was not tyranny or oppression, as people in
Often furniture, including chests of drawers and cabinets, was built directly into the walls so that they would have no flat surfaces to collect dust. “They fitted their drawers with extraordinary care, dovetailing them precisely. Their knobs are as carefully turned as a pineapple post” (Crocker 12-13). The Shakers honored God through their work and the more effort they dedicate through their products, the more they are close to God. Sister R. Mildred Barker told the visitors: “I would like to be remembered as one who had pledged myself to the service of God and had fulfilled that pledge as perfectly as I can—not as a piece of furniture” (Becksvroort 2). The Shakers aimed for simplicity in everything they designed: “Chairs, tables, candle stands, and other furniture were designed to express the simplicity of Shaker life, as well as to ease dusting, and beds were fitted with rollers to facilitate cleaning under them. As mentioned, the Shakers loved to organize everything within their reach very carefully. “A place for everything, and everything in its place,” (Nicoletta 28) became a popular saying. These things gamut from large to small objects, from “desks, chests, and tables had drawers for specific articles,” (Becksvroort 5) to tiny “needles and thread or packages of seeds” (Becksvroort 5). Certainly, the most obvious and outstanding feature of classic Shaker design is its simplicity and its lack of ornamentation. From the very beginning of their production, “frugality and austerity were central themes in Shaker design” (Anderson 231). They do not care much how extraordinary the outside look without considering their product will function as they always said: “the interiors and exteriors expressed ascetic restraint rather than extravagance”. Shakers also followed the Millennial Laws when doing their tasks, laws that contained “the rules recognized the