Monday, November 20, 2006
The Shakers’ divine design to be subject of Center for Communal Studies lecture
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The Center for Communal Studies Fall Lecture will be presented by Susan Jackson Keig, a Chicago-based graphic designer who has created projects for the Center for Communal Studies and for Shakertown at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. Keig will present “A Lifestyle by Design: The Shakers of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky” at 7 p.m. Thursday, November 30, in Kleymeyer Hall in the Liberal Arts Center. Keig grew up near Pleasant Hill and has assisted with restoration development at the site for the past four decades. In an interpretive poster included for the Shaker exhibit she created at USI, she writes, “For those who belong to this religious and celibate sect, one of the major tenets of Shaker belief is that its members live literally in heaven on earth. This means creating a world that is orderly, clean, and free of distraction. Every building they erect, every object they make – down to its shape, color, and function – is designed to be heavenly. Keig’s exhibit of Shaker artifacts and photographs is on display in the case near the north entrance of the Liberal Arts Center. Original and reproduction artifacts in the exhibit include a Shaker seed box, broom, spice box, chair, stool, peg board, and medicine bottles, among other items. The exhibit will be on display throughout fall 2006. The Shakers, 18th century religious dissenters against the Anglican Church in England, came to America under the leadership of Ann Lee, an illiterate factory worker from Manchester. Lee was imprisoned for demonstrating against the church, and she and her husband and several followers immigrated in 1774, first settling in New York and New England. The Shakers are officially known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing. Dr. Donald Pitzer, director of the Center for Communal Studies, said, “They were called Shakers because in their worship they shook and danced and stomped. They would dance with their palms down to shake off the evil, and then shake with their palms up to receive the blessing.” Along with the Harmony Society of George Rapp, the Shakers became one of the major religious communal groups in America, building 18 settlements with thousands of members between 1774 and the present. Several Shakers still practice the faith at Sabbathday Lake, Maine. The tenets of the order are celibacy, pacifism, equality of the sexes and races, communal sharing of goods, and separation from the world (greed, lust, and competition). Lee died in 1784, before the Shakers adopted communal living. After 1800, they began moving west and established two communities in Kentucky, one at Pleasant Hill and another near Bowling Green called South Union – and one called West Union, north of Vincennes, Indiana, in Sullivan County. For more information, contact the Center for Communal Studies at 812/464-1727. |
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