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Shaker Style

Shakers have become famous for the simplicity and beauty of their architecture and craftsmanship. Shakers believed that they served God by approaching every task with care. This care resulted in a distinctive Shaker style of architecture, furniture and decorative arts characterized by traditional Shaker values of simplicity, utility and fine craftsmanship. The Shaker sense of order and neatness is reflected in the clean lines and lack of ornamentation of their designs. Shakers were pioneers of the principles of form and function advocated later by architects and designers such as John Ruskin and Louis Sullivan.

In the late 19th century, the Shakers began mass-producing their ladder-back chair at Mount Lebanon. This chair was based on a common New England form, but refined by the Shakers to create a lighter, more comfortable version with simple finials. The Mount Lebanon ladder-back chair received a medal at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition for combining "strength, sprightliness, and modest beauty." This chair became so popular that the Shakers acquired a US Patent for their design to ensure continued profits from their production--affixing small, gold decals as trademarks to these chairs. They also obtained a patent for a wooden ball-and-socket chair-tilter--the precursor for that found in all types of chairs today. The Shaker's invention of the circular saw in 1810 transformed the production of furniture throughout the world, and their simple, function design influenced not only American furniture makers, but Japanese and European designs as well. Today, these antiques are revered and widely sought after, as well as copied by modern furniture manufacturers.

Shaker furniture and handcrafts were also influenced by the concepts of order, utility and durability. As with their architecture, the discarding of any unnecessary ornament resulted in distinctive furniture of simple forms and proportion, often colored with a thin Venetian red or yellow ochre wash. Craftsman did choose some of their most beautiful woods for their furniture such as maple, birch, chestnut, butternut and honey pine. Early Shaker furniture was based on rural English examples. By 1820, the second generation of Shakers unencumbered by other "worldly" influences, was creating pieces considered classic Shaker style--essential forms with clean lines, free of unnecessary detailing. After the Civil War, as Shaker communities were declining, popular Victorian tastes did seep into the designs of some Shaker craftsman as well. It is the classic style that most closely reflects Shaker ideals and dates to the society's most prosperous and creative years. Shakers made all of their own furnishings including chairs, cupboards, tables, beds, desks, bookcases, washstands, trunks, benches, clocks, stools, foot warmers, sewing boxes, brushes, brooms--a nearly endless variety of items crafted with simple elegance.

Shaker buildings were void of fanciful architectural details as Millennial Law restricted the use of decorative "beadings, moulding and cornices." Elements such as door and window frames, lintels and chimneys, stairways and hardware were all executed with clean lines in the most basic forms. The design solutions for individual Shaker buildings were often devised in response to the demands of communal living. Buildings that were used by both men and women, such as meetinghouses and dwellings, incorporated separate entrances and stairways as their beliefs dictated the separation of the sexes. The interior space of Shaker meetinghouses had to include large, uninterrupted floor space to allow for their religious dances--requiring a huge truss to support the roof. At Mount Lebanon, an ingenious arched roof, or "rainbow roof," was designed for their meetinghouse. Dwellings included communal rooms on the ground floor but carefully segregated bedrooms on the floors above. These large dwellings also necessitated the introduction of interior windows to bring natural light into dark interior rooms. Wood peg rails were a feature of many rooms, built on all four walls for hanging garments, chairs, hats or baskets. One visually dominant building in every family complex was the barn--huge buildings that reflected the importance of agriculture to the Shaker economy. Barns were often built into hillsides, allowing ground-floor access on multiple levels, with hay and grain stored on upper levels and cattle below. Many of the other daily activities took place in large wooden buildings similar in size and form to the dwellings.