reading (Shaker Architecture)
Oct. 21st, 2006 05:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eorI finished reading Herbert Schiffer's "Shaker Architecture" earlier this week. Well, honestly there wasn't much reading too it. Most of the text is in the introduction and then little bits describing the history of each settlement. But aside from the reading I went through studying the pictures and drawings three times in all.
I am awed and amazed by the ingenuity and industry shown in these small communities. They began in 1775 and spread over the next 100 years to span from Maine to Ohio and Kentucky. At the peak they counted some 6,000 members, an amazing feat considering that they required celibacy therefore couldn't increase their number through the standard Catholic method.
The average community consisted of 300 members spread over 3 or 4 "families" and owned 3000 acres. The community size varied, but this ratio of 10 acres per member seems to hold through them all. I'm not sure if they actually farmed that much land or used much of it as a buffer against outside intrusion since they were sometimes persecuted for their beliefs and lifestyle. Each community had it's own industries that it specialized in, depending on the land they had and probably the abilities of the founding members.
This book is a great survey of the buildings and methods. It gives only a brief glance at the culture and almost no detail of the belief system of the Shakers, but its coverage of its subject matter is a delight.
43. Herbert Schiffer "Shaker Architecture"
I am awed and amazed by the ingenuity and industry shown in these small communities. They began in 1775 and spread over the next 100 years to span from Maine to Ohio and Kentucky. At the peak they counted some 6,000 members, an amazing feat considering that they required celibacy therefore couldn't increase their number through the standard Catholic method.
The average community consisted of 300 members spread over 3 or 4 "families" and owned 3000 acres. The community size varied, but this ratio of 10 acres per member seems to hold through them all. I'm not sure if they actually farmed that much land or used much of it as a buffer against outside intrusion since they were sometimes persecuted for their beliefs and lifestyle. Each community had it's own industries that it specialized in, depending on the land they had and probably the abilities of the founding members.
This book is a great survey of the buildings and methods. It gives only a brief glance at the culture and almost no detail of the belief system of the Shakers, but its coverage of its subject matter is a delight.
43. Herbert Schiffer "Shaker Architecture"
