Shaker Furniture, Part I: Faith in Form

Consequently their furniture forms developed out of original ideas of purity, simplicity and utility. Not only are their housing, furniture and accessories finely constructed and satisfying in themselves, but they also reveal an intensely realized faith, an unusual body of principles, a unique spiritual experience, and a body of customs and laws which affected their workmanship.

Common ownership of property meant that most settlements built large dormitory-style housing, where both men and women slept, worked and worshipped. Uniformity of dress, speech, deportment and activity was based on the desire for a united defense against worldliness. This tendency towards uniformity in craftsmanship resulted in the evolution of certain standards of excellence, the promotion of talented provincial "joiners" to the position of fine craftsmen who set criteria for the rest.

This was an unspoiled culture, an "unhelped" people, with a native instinct for good workmanship, and a regard for form and design which was given direction and meaning by certain moral and inspirational values. Regularity, harmony, order were virtues modeled on their vision of Heaven. Among the various writings of Believers, these principles appear:

"Regularity is beautiful.
There is great beauty in harmony.
Order is the creation of beauty. It is heaven's first law, and the protection of souls.
Love of Beauty has a wider field of action in association with Moral Force.
Beauty rests on utility.
All beauty that has not a foundation in use, soon grows distasteful, and needs continual replacement with something new.
That which has in itself the highest use possesses the greatest beauty."

How similar to the creed of William Morris, half a century later, who asserted the rule to "have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." Unlike other religious movements, whose greatest achievements are preserved in their art, architecture or music, the Shakers leave behind only their furniture and household utilitarian accessories as a monument to their faith and the expression of the Shaker soul.

Source: Shaker Furniture: The Craftsmanship of an American Communal Sect, by Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews

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