The “United Society of Believers in Christ Seconds Appearing” trace their beginnings to Manchester, England in 1747.  This group is best known as the “Shakers” because of the trembling, whirling, and shaking that they engaged in during religious services.  They believed that Christ’s second coming was realized in their leader Ann Lee, who was also referred to as Mother Ann by the followers of the Shaker religion.  The “United Society of Believers in Christ Second Appearing” was misunderstood and often prosecuted in their native country of England and in 1774, their leader Mother Ann Lee led eight Shakers to America seeking the freedom to live, work and worship according to their religious beliefs.  The Shakers arrived in New York Harbor on the ship Mariah in 1774 and soon purchased land in Watervliet New York setting up their first utopian society.  This society embraced their main religious tenet of celibacy, communal life, and confession of sin.  They also believed in racial and gender equality, simplicity, and pacifism.  The Shakers looked to create a working “Heaven on Earth” in their utopian society that was set apart from the “Outside World”.  The Shakers soon established new communities in New York, New England, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana between the years 1783 and 1836.  The “United Society of Believers in Christ Second Appearing” grew in influence and numbers in the 19th century.  They challenged the norms of social and religious structures and economic order by developing an alternative lifestyle based on their religious beliefs.  The Shakers population by the mid-19th century reached its peak with over 6000 followers.  They also made important contributions to American culture in their innovation and intriguing social and religious practices.  Their utopian society is by far one of the longest-lived and considered by many to be the most successful of the hundreds of community groups that were in America before the Revolutionary War.The Shakers were a prestigious religious group that branched off the Quaker religion and believed in hard work with separation from “The World”.  There societies goal was to be free of politics and wealth.  They lived a life that was simple and free from vanity, but also believed in the quality of races and genders.  This made the Shakers a very close-knit community that embraced equal rights for everyone within their utopian society. To achieve this ideal utopia new converts had to give up all their relative material possessions, wealth, and land to the community.  Families would be separated and rearranged into new family units. And last but not least, the new converts had to confess all of their sins from their entire life to a witness of God.  The Shakers believed that Christians should live in the present and not hope for something better in the future.  The Shakers achieved this by living a simple lifestyle that embraced shared responsibility among the members of the community and embraced a lack of individual material possessions.  They separated genders and practice celibacy but also gave leadership roles within the religious section of their society to women.  This is because they believed that God was a pure spirit without body or gender and that God is beyond human perception.  They also believe that God was both mother and father and that the masculine side of God was shown through Jesus Christ and the feminine side was through Ann Lee their leader. “Mother Ann Lee, the Bride of Christ is not Christ, nor did she claim to be. She is simply the helpmate, Second Eve and first of many Believers wholly imbued by His Spirit and wholly consumed by His love.” (Hadd and Carpenter). Yet the Shakers utopian society still emphasized gender-based norms within the daily chores and jobs of their community.  Women often took care all household work such as sewing, cooking, and weaving.  While men, on the contrary, were given duties of harvesting crops, tending to the animals, building tools and furniture in the workshops and selling and trading the materials that the community created with the outside world.The Shaker men were extremely talented in building furniture with simple yet sturdy designs, that were built to last a lifetime of daily use.  This was because Shakers believed that making something with their hands, that was well-crafted was in itself “an act of prayer”.  Their simple furniture designs were functional and lacked embroidered details or carvings that were common during the 19th century.  The woods they would use in making their furniture were inexpensive and light in color. Usually, pine was a stable of their craftsmanship and favored wood species.  The women of the community also contributed to the Shaker's reputation with fine sewing and weaving.  They created quality scars, sweaters, handkerchiefs, and wool cloaks that would be sold to the outside world.  The Shaker's attention to detail was emphasized by a common phrase within their utopia, “Do your work as though you had 1000 years to live, and as if you were to die tomorrow.”  This saying demonstrates the communities ambition to create a utopian society that emulates heaven on earth through their collective work.The Shaker communities were also known for their simple yet creative inventions.  Brother Theodore Bates of Watervliet created the first flat broom after realizing that the common round broom was inefficient and slow in sweeping up dust and debris.  This invention was so successful that it actually led to a trade embargo by Great Britain to stop American broom manufacturers from sending flat brooms to the United Kingdom.  Shakers also gained respect for many more inventions, but they never patented a single one of them.  The Shakers are also credited with inventing package seeds for gardening and herbal medicines that were of remarkable quality. Shakers lived very modestly, they valued simplicity and looked-for harmony in all things.  They were also hard-working people that followed an extreme form of Christianity.  These values led to the increase in Shaker followers before the Civil War because of their increased communal wealth and stability that appealed to new followers.  But the same policies that seemed to bring the Shaker's prosperity are also the same reasons for the demise of this utopian community.The population of Shaker communities slowly started to decline in the 1860s.  One reason for this decline was the Shakers inability to meet the demands of the new and improved technology of the industrial revolution.  The changing economy of mass-production drove the pricing down on handmade goods.  This resulted in less communal prosperity because of new economics after the Civil War and made it hard to recruit new followers.  The Shakers strict rules on celibacy were because of their extreme belief that Adams originals sin in Genesis, was understood to be sex and the act of sexual relationships between a man and a woman was considered an act of impurity. “In addition, Shakers maintained that sexual intercourse, even when sanctified by marriage, was the main root of evil.  Mother Ann's heavenly inspired instructions on how to avoid this primal sin were to abolish traditional marriage and deny “any sexual congress.” (Campbell 25).  This dystopian aspect of the Shaker communal society made it extremely hard in recruiting new followers.  The members of the Shaker community were forbidden to procreate after joining the utopian society. So, they had to rely on adoptions, orphans, and indenture to recruit children into their society.  Another reason for the demise of the Shakers utopian society was the rise of the Second Great Awakening.  The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant revival that took place during the 19th century in the United States.  This caused increased membership with rival religious groups of the Baptists and Methodists conjugations.  New Christian denominations also grew during this time to include: The Churches of Christ, The Christian Church, The Seventh-day Adventist Church, and The Evangelical Christian Church. “The most striking and consistent characteristic of the second Great Awakening was the youthfulness of its participants. Again and again, ministers noted that religious concern and conversion occurred first and most frequently among youths” (Cott 16).  The Second Great Awakening made it extremely hard for the Shakers to recruit new youthful followers and this was also compounded by the Shakers strict religious policies of celibacy.By the 1900s a changing economy with new and improved technology, that also saw the rise of opposing religious views led to the demise of the Shakers.  Though this great utopian society has fallen, its impacts are not forgotten and can be seen in the legacy of their simple inventions and furniture.  Works CitedCampbell, D'Ann. "Women's Life in Utopia: The Shaker Experiment in Sexual Equality Reappraised — 1810 to." The New England Quarterly 51.1 (1978): 23-38. Online Article.Cott, Nancy F. "Young Women in the Second Great Awakening in New England." Feminist Studies (1975): 15-29. Online Article.Hadd, Arnold and June Carpenter. Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village: Principles and Beliefs. 7 December 2017. Online. <http://maineshakers.com/beliefs/>...., Park Service. The Shaker Historical Trail: The Shakers. 5 December 2017. Online Essay. <https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/shaker/....—. The Shaker Historical Trail: Utopias. 5 December 2017. Online Essay. <https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/shaker/....—. The Shaker Historical Trial: Shaker Style. 6 December 2017. Online Essay. <https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/shaker/....
The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God. Dir. PBS. Perf. Ken Burns. December 23, 2002. Digital Video.