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Shaken, Not Stirred. Season 2, Episode 22.
43 Plays3 years ago
The highly anticipated intro episode to the Shaker period of American furniture.
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Transcript
Partnership Announcement
00:00:21
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Speaker
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Introduction to Shaker Period
00:01:06
Speaker
All right, welcome back people. We're here episode 22 now.
00:01:10
Speaker
Yeah, season two, episode 22. And episode one of the Shaker period, one that, uh, seemed to have gotten the most interest, you know, people have expressed the most interest in the Shaker period. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm sure there's a lot of, um, misperception, misconception, which is the right word?
00:01:41
Speaker
Yeah, about the Shakers and the design styles and stuff, how it sort of has become this generic kind of style. Some ill-perceived ideas. The Shakers were some interesting folks. They remind me a little bit of like, who have we spoken about?
00:01:59
Speaker
I don't know if misperception is a word.
Immigration Stories and Cultural Identity
00:02:05
Speaker
Pennsylvania Dutch. The Pennsylvania Dutch, yes. The Puritans.
00:02:07
Speaker
Misconceptions.
00:02:11
Speaker
And like a lot of early immigrants to the US, they were escaping religious persecution and just basically trying to seek new opportunities a better life. Good luck doing that now. It's funny, you know, again, we, I mean, we always dip back into history
00:02:41
Speaker
It, it's, it's weird to think I'm a first generation American, like my family. Not me. That's right. I mean, we traced your family back to the Mayflower, didn't we? Uh, there are rumors about Mayflower blood, but, um, I mean, at least the 1640s. Yeah. So nine, nine generations.
00:03:04
Speaker
Yeah, my family didn't get here until, you know, in the 19, I think the 1920s.
00:03:16
Speaker
So it's weird to think of all these different changes, and that's exactly why my family got here. There was no economic opportunity where they came from in Sicily. Shit, they're lucky they got out in the 20s. That's right, because it was hitting the fan. In the 30s it was hitting the fan. Big time. It's still hitting the fan. Oh, yeah.
00:03:47
Speaker
And they came here and there. It's funny, you ever see any of those PBS specials, the documentaries about the immigrants from that time period? They're great. They're like, I'm not Italian, I'm American. And they're like total broken English. And they're out there sweeping. We all have grandmas that like swept the streets. It's so crazy.
Shaker Beliefs and Community Life
00:04:16
Speaker
Like, when I was a teacher, we had some kids that wouldn't even stand for, like, the Pledge of Allegiance or anything. They'd say, oh, this is not my country.
00:04:25
Speaker
I'm like, okay, I mean, I'm not gonna force you, but it's like, that's quite a different attitude from where I grew up. But the Shakers, let's start with the Shakers. They were ordinary people who chose to give up their families, their property, and worldly ties in order to know by daily experience the peaceable nature of Christ's kingdom.
00:04:54
Speaker
So they're a type of Christian.
00:05:02
Speaker
But they were, I mean, there's certainly things that sort of by today's standard border on like cult like behavior, like giving away all your stuff and things like that. Real fundamentalist ideas. I'm chuckling because I remembered why they died off. Yeah.
00:05:24
Speaker
Well, there's still like two of them, aren't there? Yeah, there's two. In return, they were welcomed into holy families where men and women lived as brother and sister, where all property was held in common, and where each participated in the rigorous daily task of transforming the earth into heaven.
00:05:45
Speaker
I mean, they have a lot of great idealistic views. Well, they all start out that way. Yeah, don't they? Shakerism was founded by an illiterate English factory worker named Ann Lee. Guided by divine visions and signs, she and eight pilgrims came to America in 1774 to spread her gospel in the New World.
Expansion and Influence of Shaker Communities
00:06:09
Speaker
uh... so we're backtracking a little bit in time now from the empire period just a bit you know a lot of these things overlap uh... what no clear cuts like we go from empire raker with a you know a due date i'm always surprised at how these things start somebody some illiterate factory worker name and lee proclaims visions
00:06:39
Speaker
All right, she's got eight people to follow, or at least... She was in the Helen Fumes at the factory, I think. How does it get bigger than that? I mean, I'm fascinated by the progression of events. Listen, you've met plenty of people. We know how stupid people are. It ain't hard to get a posse of people to follow you around. I know, but... So at their height, in 1840,
00:07:06
Speaker
And 70 years later, basically, there are more than 6,000 believers. They lived in 19 communal villages from New England to Ohio and Kentucky. So that's the far west, Ohio and Kentucky.
00:07:24
Speaker
back then. Tales of their peaceful and prosperous lives impressed the world's utopians. I mean, that was a thing, you know, people like, you know, Thoreau and Walden and all that stuff. But shaker aspirations were divine, not social or material.
00:07:48
Speaker
as millennialists, they were unified in the belief that Christ had come again. I don't really understand what a millennialist is. So they're of the belief that Christ had already come, first in the person of Mother Anne and subsequently in all whom the Christ consciousness
00:08:12
Speaker
It was therefore the duty of each believer to live purely in the kingdom come and to strive for perfection in everything he or she did. Yeah, that's some... The plot thickens.
00:08:28
Speaker
All of that led to some of the good that came out and some of the things we value as woodworkers because work was the currency of their service.
00:08:45
Speaker
They put that above all. Hard work, honest work, good work. If you're going to do something, do it right the first time. Do it to the best of your abilities. And all that stuff that maybe sounds a little bit extreme. There are a lot of things that they believed in that we believe in as well.
00:09:11
Speaker
If the world was to be redeemed and restored to God, the Shakers would accomplish it by the dedicated labor of their hands.
Shaker Craftsmanship and Design Philosophy
00:09:21
Speaker
So maybe their purpose was different than ours, but we have similar ideals. Yeah, it's like almost like a Buddhist kind of setup where you're working towards this like nirvana kind of thing through hard work.
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. They believe that God dwelt in the details of their work and in the quality of their craftsmanship. All their devotion which no longer went to family or home.
00:09:56
Speaker
was put into what they made. Screw those damn kids. So they have all this extra time and energy. Their villages were meticulously constructed and maintained. Their workshops were world-renowned for reliable goods, and their gardens provided amply for their own needs, with plenty to spare for the poor. So again, it's like anything. You gotta take the good with the bad.
00:10:26
Speaker
Shakerism is a system which has a distinct genius, a strong organization, a perfect life of its own.
00:10:36
Speaker
through which it would appear to be helping to shape and guide in no small measure the spiritual career of the United States. That's a quote from Hepworth Dixon. And I should have noted who he was because at this point in time, I don't remember.
00:10:58
Speaker
I can look it up real quick. Yeah, so he says that Shakerism has a distinct genius, a strong organization, and a perfect life of its own. And it's going to help and guide, in no small measure, the spiritual career of the US. He's a historian. He is a historian. From the 1800s. Yeah. So Quakers had admirers. Shakers. Yeah, Shakers. Pat the Quakers. Shaking Quakers.
00:11:28
Speaker
Here we go, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, commonly known as the Shakers. That's a much more catchy name. It's sort of like, who am I thinking of? The Latter-day Saints and the Mormons. So the Shakers conducted the largest and most successful communal experiment in American history.
00:11:58
Speaker
Wow. Well, today there's only one active Shaker community, and at the time I was reading this with three members, there's only two left. They got someone to join. At Sabbath Day Lake in Maine, at its height during the mid 19th century, this Protestant sect had more than 6,000 members and spread across 18 and 19 communities. Wow.
00:12:21
Speaker
the largest and most influential community was established at New Lebanon, New York in 1787 and remain active until 1947. So Shakers have been around for a while and they were, they were kind of current for, you know, well into the 20th century. Yeah, I wonder if there was any in New Jersey, probably. Yeah, yeah, I bet. I know there were Quakers.
00:12:48
Speaker
So they first came to America from England in 1774 and they were led by Ann Lee. We told you that. Jesus. Better known to the Shakers as God.
00:13:06
Speaker
So I guess they were Quakers in England. This small, radical group of English Quakers believed that the Millennium, a thousand years of peace with Christ before the end of the world, was at hand. There's your answer to the Millennialists. Yeah, yeah. So they thought it was going to be the thousand years of peace before the end of the world.
00:13:30
Speaker
They only knew. Well, we know now that they were wrong. That's right. And they were known as the shaking Quakers or Shakers because
Furniture Design: Simplicity vs. Ornate Styles
00:13:39
Speaker
of their penchant for ecstatic movement and dancing during worship. A physical response to their sense of being infused with the Spirit of God.
00:13:50
Speaker
Well, these religious dissidents surrendered themselves to God and emulated Christ's pure and humble life on earth. The Shakers were super religious. I mean, that's the best way to put it. Their whole thing was in the service of God and how that manifested itself in woodwork and a whole style is kind of odd almost. Yeah. They should have called themselves the Shukin.
00:14:20
Speaker
The Shukin, yeah. Well, Shaker communities were largely self-sufficient. In an attempt to separate themselves from the outside world and create a heaven on earth, members grew their own food, constructed their own buildings, manufactured their own tools and household furnishings. So they're building everything they need. And I guess,
00:14:51
Speaker
separating themselves from the outside world. They're not influenced by trends, styles. Take those two things and I guess it's inevitable that a style's going to develop. There has to be one consistent thing there. When you create a vacuum, it's gonna be filled with something.
00:15:18
Speaker
Right. So they need furniture. They're not buying it. They're building it. They don't care what the outside world's doing. And everything is so purpose driven in their life. It's interesting. Yeah.
00:15:34
Speaker
So believers abided by a strict set of rules governing their behavior, dress, and domestic environment. These rules were codified in the millennial laws of 1821, which was revised and greatly expanded in 1845. Wait, it gets weirder.
00:15:58
Speaker
But although they lived under these rigid ordinances, rules, statutes, they were socially quite progressive. They believed in racial and sexual equality, which is basically unheard of in 1820 America. Pacifism, which they shared with the Quakers. Common property.
00:16:25
Speaker
communal living. And here we go. This is why they died. Celibacy was also part of the Shaker Orthodoxy. And as a result, believers had to recruit people from the outside world to prevent their communities from dying out. Now, wouldn't you think
00:16:46
Speaker
Wouldn't you write in like a stipulation where if you're married, you know, it's funny how that happens because they're Protestants. So they got, I mean, are they using the Bible? I don't know. I guess they would. Doesn't it say in there somewhere, I'm no Bible expert, but doesn't it sort of promote procreation there?
00:17:10
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, everybody up until that point was doing it. Be fruitful and multiply. Doesn't that come from the Bible? I mean, it sounds like it. So this was a real left turn. I mean, there's that whole string in, what is it, Genesis, where he had a son in his name, and it's like 5,000 names, just laying out like 1,000 names of people.
00:17:38
Speaker
So we're going to have this community and we want to encourage its principles and grow it. I don't get it. Yeah. I mean, they must have been real believers because they thought, you know, that they could just proselytize and get recruits. Well, and, you know, well, there's not much time left, so we don't have to procreate. Maybe that's it.
00:18:06
Speaker
I never thought of it that way. But they had some great guiding principles outside that sort of thing that anybody could attach them to, attach themselves to honesty, utility, simplicity. And it found its expression in the various crafts that they did, furniture boxes,
Shaker Legacy and Modern Influence
00:18:33
Speaker
textiles,
00:18:36
Speaker
It's all renowned for the minimalist design, and this is a great word, unstinting quality. Unstinting. I'm going to have to learn how to use that word more of my normal. Don't be so obsequious.
00:18:55
Speaker
If somebody calls you obsequious, it's not a compliment. Even if you don't know what it means, if somebody says that to you, it's not a compliment. But unstinting, that's a good one. Rejecting excessive ornament because it ostensibly encouraged the sin of pride. I see. Isn't that kind of like,
00:19:26
Speaker
Okay, the ornament is prideful, but doing a good job is not prideful. I know. It's kind of like contradictory. You know, it's crazy. Now I've been to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and you walk in there and it's like everywhere you look, it's amazing craftsmanship and the most ornate. Gilded and gold.
00:19:55
Speaker
Unbelievable. It's totally the antithesis of this. Well, you know the Roman Catholics in their hypocrisies. That's me. I'm a proud Roman Catholic hypocrite. So you're right. Like everything, especially in religion and these Protestants, religions that keep popping up, it's all about interpretation.
00:20:24
Speaker
So Shaker Furniture Makers focused on overall form and proportions, and they developed creative solutions such as asymmetrical drawer arrangements and multi-purpose forms to add visual interest without resorting to pure decoration. Are those links there, those numbers? They look like reference numbers, like, oh, I guess they are.
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah, there, man, there's the shaker table, I guess. Sewing table, yeah. Yeah. It's classic, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, so we pulled up a link of what they call a sewing table. It kind of looks like a small chest of drawers. Yeah. You know, it's four full width drawers with two drawers on top split down the middle. Big overhangs.
00:21:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the top is big. See, we missed a couple up here. The classic shaker box. These are from the Met. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing that a small group like this, there's the sampler for their needlework. Yeah, that's cool.
00:21:45
Speaker
has stuff that's really so widely renowned and respected. And it's cool.
00:21:57
Speaker
going for flash, they said, well, let's make the core of this thing look pleasing. They didn't just go in for straight utilitarian design like, well, this box needs to just hold our spices, so what's the difference? Everything had a little bit of panache to it.
00:22:23
Speaker
And we love the things, the drawer sizing and all that stuff. That's great. Most shaker pieces were originally painted or stained, both to protect the wood and to make it more attractive. Colors were strictly, oh, colors were strictly regulated by the millennial laws with blues, greens, reds and yellows, the most popular and monochromatic treatments preferred.
00:22:54
Speaker
I mean, that's a pretty like, that's like a lot of the colors. Yeah. I mean, what are the three primary colors? Uh, blue, yellow, red and yellow. Right. So you can make them all. Yeah. Well, I guess you're not allowed to mix only blue and yellow. You can only mix blue and yellow to get green, no purple, no blue and red, no yellow and red to get orange.
00:23:21
Speaker
Because it says here, many pieces that now have clear finishes were repainted or refinished by subsequent owners. That's curious. Look at that little bed. Wow. Yeah, painted. That looks comfy. Yeah. Well, yeah, there you go. That really looks, reminds me of like a Quaker piece, doesn't it?
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, that looks very colonial. Yep, those bracket feet. This must be early stuff because, there we go, we're starting to get into the shaker aesthetic there in their cupboard. That chest said 1835, I think. 1835 to 1875. So yeah, no, not that early.
00:24:18
Speaker
You got to figure that, uh, a hundred years after the inception of, uh, well, if they've had it for so long, they have a black and white photo of it too. That the cabinet makers who joined applied their trade with what they knew as well. Um, so there's no way that the community could be devoid of all outside influence, especially if they have to keep recruiting.
00:24:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's the thing. Like to become a shaker, you have to be an outsider first. It's a prerequisite because you're not being born into it unless maybe there's some little hanky-panky on the side going on and then you're getting shunned. Oh, yeah, yeah. I can't remember if the shakers are shunners. I'm confused with my shakers and my Quakers. I think the Quakers were definitely shunners. Yes. Yeah, the Quakers, that's what
00:25:11
Speaker
distinguished them from the Puritans, if I remember. You know, one of their big things, they were shunners. Oh, look at this, I'm ahead of myself. The first generation of Shaker furniture makers were converts who'd previously worked in the outside world before joining the Shakers.
00:25:31
Speaker
already familiar with the prevailing neoclassical fashion or rectilinear and attenuated forms and restrained ornamentation, they took these impulses even further, eliminating veneers, inlays, and carving. All right. I mean, we definitely see federal legs on that table.
00:25:59
Speaker
Long, thin tapers. Sort of looks like a mishmash of design elements there though, right? Yeah, again with the large overhang. Yeah, the top is so much bigger. Oh, the candle stand looks like classic.
00:26:22
Speaker
getting a little too curvaceous here yeah yeah has curved legs they were big turners though yeah but yeah their tops so far have been relatively big as far as the overhangs compared to what we're used to and have seen
00:26:46
Speaker
So what are the Shaker tenants? They held that their manufacturer's goods should be honest in construction and appearance. Therefore, deceitful practices such as veneering and applied ornamentation were incompatible with Shaker beliefs. Hm, man. Harsh. And what would they think about veneered plywood? Ooh. And particle board and all of today's manufacturing. Oh, you'd use MDF for going straight to hell. Oh, yeah.
00:27:16
Speaker
I know a couple of cabinet shop owners that are going straight to hell. MDF or otherwise. That doesn't even include all the Shaker tenants they're breaking. Yeah, my God. Well, we know he's not getting laid, so that's not one of them. He might be a Shaker. Involuntarily. I got the cell report down. He's an in-cell. He's an in-cell.
00:27:51
Speaker
We just veered off course. What else is new? So the Shakers are an interesting group. They come over to America. They're not intending to be furniture makers. They're not intending to be
00:28:12
Speaker
drivers of fashion or style or anything near that. But somehow they do. Yeah. While other furniture makers use imported woods such as mahogany and rosewood, shakers use local American woods. Pine, maple, cherry,
00:28:34
Speaker
In place of imported brass drawer pulls, they use the simple maple, well it's usually maple or pine, turned knob. That's that mushroom round knob. Yep. Yeah, I mean that's what you see, these chests, the six drawer chest, that one's got a small top on it. Yeah.
00:29:00
Speaker
I wonder if that's maple or pine. It's definitely that golden. Oh, wait, we've got an interactive zoom over here. That's definitely pine. Overlay, drawers with, you know, looks like a lamb's tongue maybe. OG sort of outside. We've got a mitered molding around the top.
00:29:32
Speaker
Little unorthodox. I'll say. Pine doesn't move very much. No. And real simple bass. Yeah. Just a little trim molding around it. It just runs straight to the floor. You know, what's interesting, too, is these are the pieces that survive. Mm-hmm. When we're looking back 150 years or more, our examples are going to be of the pieces that somehow survived. Yeah.
00:30:04
Speaker
to support their community. Shakers sold surplus food and goods to outsiders. All right, so we're starting to see how their style kind of infiltrates. By the 1860s, chair-making had become a staple industry of the new Lebanon community in New York.
00:30:25
Speaker
Uh, I think, uh, yeah, it's the ladder back. Yeah. Yeah. With their turn posts slat or ladder backs and woven seats. Shaker chairs were simplified versions of a centuries old design that remained popular in part because the component parts were comparatively quick and easy to produce. Yeah. Like almost like a Jacobian design. Yeah. Obviously this is a rocker, but yeah.
00:30:55
Speaker
those straight, like the legs and the back, you know, supports the style as if it was a frame or paddle door, or one piece, it's straight up. They put a curve in the back slat to add a little bit of comfort.
00:31:21
Speaker
uh, woven seat, straight arms, straight front legs, you know, small bit of turning on, on the, on the bracing between the legs. Some little, you know, finials and stuff, nothing crazy. All very understated.
00:31:39
Speaker
When marketing their furniture, the Shakers trumpeted their attention to detail and quality in an era when mass-produced furniture was synonymous with shoddy construction. So in our last episode, we were talking about Meeks, this factory, the Industrial Revolution in America.
00:32:04
Speaker
And the Shakers are sort of the precursor to the arts and crafts movement in that respect. Their shtick is, we make this stuff here by hand, look at how much we put into it. This rocker's gonna last you a hundred years.
00:32:26
Speaker
Yeah, which, I don't know, again, it sounds like it sort of goes against the idea of selflessness. Whereas the arts and crafts movement was very much about the self. The Shakers, at least in what they say, it was supposed to not be about the self. But I guess, you know, it's hard to... Yeah, well, you know, with any religious movement, we're gonna find plenty of contradiction, aren't we? Yeah. I mean, that...
00:32:55
Speaker
They're trying to sort of create and live in this utopian society, but deal with the outside world. There's always gonna have to be concessions there.
00:33:13
Speaker
So this is pretty cool. The Shakers were constantly experimenting with labor-saving devices, and much of their furniture was made with the aid of circular saws, mortising machines, and steam-powered lathes. Using these power tools, Shaker furniture makers reinterpreted traditional forms with an emphasis on utility and simplicity.
00:33:39
Speaker
So in these ways, they are very progressive. Yeah. They must have been selling a lot of furniture to be able to afford the machinery, you know? Yeah, yeah. That's another difference between the Quakers, who they sort of shunned the use of machinery and stuff like that. Yeah. At least some of them did.
00:34:03
Speaker
Uh-oh, here comes the trestle table mention. This is one of our very, very first podcast mentions, the trestle table. The Shakers modified the standard trestle table by moving the medial stretcher up from just above the floor to directly underneath the top. All right, I can picture that.
00:34:25
Speaker
So the long stretcher between the two trestles, it was typically down near the floor. Yep. The shakers moved it up just underneath the top. On a functional level, this creates more leg room, avoids damage to the stretcher, while aesthetically, the open base made the table appear lighter and less cumbersome. And there it is. There you go. That's very shaker. Yeah, what do you think?
00:34:56
Speaker
Um, it's okay. I kind of like it more towards where you could see it. Yeah. It's where it, I guess it gets in the way, but if you have a narrow table, right? That's the thing. These tables were much narrower than we think of with our modern tables. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm probably going to catch some flack for saying this and I'm probably in the minority, but I'm not a big fan of the shaker furniture. Um,
00:35:26
Speaker
I'm just not. Yeah. There's certain things that I really like, but like, you see how they had those breadboard ends on there? Yeah. They're too tiny for me. Yeah. I kind of like that about the top. Yeah. Aesthetically. Functionality wise, I can't say, you know, I mean, hey, it looks awfully flat, but, um, yeah, I don't know. Like those, those chests of drawers and stuff, I just can't get into it.
00:35:56
Speaker
The flat overlay faces and stuff, it just doesn't do it for me. No. And it's a little too light for me a lot of times. Yeah, yeah.
Utilitarian Design and Built-in Furniture
00:36:09
Speaker
So they took the standard trestle table, modified it, I guess purely for functional reasons. Yeah.
00:36:26
Speaker
And similarly, they developed these distinctive chairs with a low single slat back. That's interesting, which could slide under the dining table or hang on a wall peg when not in use. I mean, that's a big thing with the shakers. Yeah, we know all about the shaker peg. Again, really, really strange. This is not something I could see having in my house as part of my decor.
00:36:53
Speaker
Um, it's more of like a novelty looking thing to me. Yeah. Um, but that, this, the, the form is instantly recognizable. And you could see the crossover with like the Pennsylvania Dutch type stuff. Yes. Um, it's, it's almost like vernacular furniture. It's that simple. Yeah. So utilitarian that it's, um,
00:37:22
Speaker
It's just stupid simple. Yeah, you think there were any converts from Quakers to Shakers? It's possible. I mean, somebody would have to, they wanted to use tools, but they had to give up sex. Now, there's a trade-off. You got to love making furniture.
00:37:51
Speaker
Yeah. But you don't get, you don't get to make anything too interesting. No. So yeah, as this is another thing, everybody probably knows to maximize space. Shaker case furniture was either built into the room itself or freestanding designed to fit in specific areas. Look at that. See that this I like. Yeah. The cupboard. Yeah.
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's got the frame and paddle doors. Yeah. It's a little bit more interesting. It's got nice proportions. Yeah. I guess, like I said, a lot of it's going to depend on the examples that survived and that I was able to dig up. Yeah. Yeah. I love the, the,
00:38:53
Speaker
The, what would you call that? The tone and the, what's the P word? I hate when I can't think of anything. The patina of these pieces.
00:39:14
Speaker
to think that maple or pine could get to that color. It's pretty cool. I mean, that richness. The Met has a lot of furniture. It does. I mean, it might be worth a trip. Yeah. We could have a hot dog at Grace Papaya. What is this, Central Park? Yeah.
00:39:42
Speaker
Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art. Yeah, where is it, man? Is it up on, I'm thinking of the National Museum of Natural History. Fifth Avenue. Fifth Avenue. 77th. What's the cross street there? 60, what does that say? Oh, you're asking the wrong person. East 80th. Oh, it is up there. But it's on the other side of the park from,
00:40:12
Speaker
in the Museum of Natural History. Yeah, that must be right there. Yeah. That's where we used to go for field trips. Yeah, I went there for one. I've never been to the Met though. I don't think I have either. I mean, if I have, it's been so long. It might be worth the trip to get out there. Yeah. Is it a same deal as the museum where you just do a donation? Yeah, or free Tuesdays. Buy tickets.
Decline and Preservation of Shaker Culture
00:40:42
Speaker
Met Fifth Avenue, we have one of the cloisters to it says. Oh yeah, the cloisters, remember I was talking about the cloisters. $25 for, why is it so small? Because it's on a 27 inch screen. $25 for adults, 17 for seniors, 12 for students, free for members, patrons, and children under 12. I'm almost getting in for a senior discount now. Yeah. Flash my ARP card.
00:41:11
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's the first Tuesday of every month. In New York, all the museums are free. Yeah, well, you don't want to go on that day. Everybody's going to be out. Yeah, I know. We'd rather pay the $25 and avoid people. Yeah. What day is it the most expensive? That's the day we're going to visit. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, that'd be a cool trip.
00:41:40
Speaker
Where were we? We were talking about membership. Membership in Shaker communities declined steadily after the Civil War. The believer's ascetic lifestyle and fervent spirituality proved no match for the pull of modern life. And by the early 20th century, many Shaker communities had closed for the want of new memories. Yeah, I mean, what do you expect? Yeah.
00:42:10
Speaker
Could you imagine, if you think about it, what's popular in the early 20th century, the roaring 20s? I mean, people are drinking and partying and it's a whole thing. Gin joints and nightclubs. Loose women? Yeah, I mean, women are out doing their thing for the first time, probably. Can finally vote.
00:42:38
Speaker
So, man, that's a tough sell.
00:42:42
Speaker
Uh-oh. In the 1930s, Faith and Edward Deming Andrews recognized that the Shaker movement was disappearing from the historical record. Oh, this is good. So the Shakers probably weren't documenting their own lives. So Faith and Edward Andrews, they recognized this and they began to document the remaining communities.
00:43:12
Speaker
Largely through their efforts, Shaker culture and design became the subject of scholarly inquiry and museum exhibitions. Shaker furniture made for the outside world or rescued from newly closed communities became highly coveted by collectors. Almost like you said, like vernacular furniture, like folk art in a way, right?
00:43:39
Speaker
So what else do the Shakers believe? They wanted to apply harmony and order to every aspect of their daily life, as they put it. And I had to look this up a couple of times to try and get this. Maybe you can understand it better than I did. This is what the Shakers said, and I came across this quote often. Do your work as though you had a thousand years to live and as if you were to die tomorrow.
00:44:09
Speaker
And it says, implying a work ethic devoted to simplicity, functionality, and longevity. So I mean, are they saying, like, as if you were to die tomorrow, like, leave it all out on the field?
00:44:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's kind of the way I got it. Like, you know, do your work as though you had a thousand years. Keep, keep working hard and doing better. And then, and as if you were to die tomorrow. Well, you better do your best work today because you might die tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see a picture of the shaker retiring room. So.
00:44:51
Speaker
This is pretty much a tableau of shaker furniture. Looks like a little writing desk. Yeah. One of the typical shaker side chairs hanging from a peg. Yep. Looks like that candle holder is also hanging from a peg.
00:45:10
Speaker
Yeah. See, I'm more of a fan of the shaker aesthetic in terms of like the, um, the millwork, you know, the, um, the moldings. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. The apronless window looks really cool. Yeah. It's really clean.
00:45:37
Speaker
Like this? Yeah, that doesn't do anything for me, that little writing table. Yeah. Neither does that other table, to tell you the truth. No. This is the coolest thing in the room, I think. Yeah. It's a little low back chair, like it looks like almost a circular round seat. Yeah, with this round crest rail. Spindles back, but they're low. It's a low back. Yeah. You know, kind of hit you in the middle of your back there.
00:46:05
Speaker
Look at this, we got cafe curtains. I know. Retiring room 20. Okay, this is a different view. It was probably two. Yeah, same room, you could see the bed. Yes, I don't like that bed. No, me either. What would you call that headboard style? Shaker. Yeah.
00:46:35
Speaker
I like the rocker, though. I could see having a couple of those rockers. Yeah, on the porch. Yeah, outside. That's a nice wood. That's a nice figure, yeah. Yeah. Like fiddleback. Right. Man, it must be almost lunchtime. I heard that from over here. Yeah, did you? Yeah. Yeah, that was my stomach.
00:47:02
Speaker
Yeah, we're tuned in to 12 o'clock lunchtime around here. Yes, I am. Jeff doesn't partake. No, this candlestick table, I kind of like that. Yeah. I like the shape of this right here. Yeah, I wouldn't call that necessarily shake. We've seen that design in other... Definitely federal. Yeah. Right?
00:47:29
Speaker
That bed is kind of ugly. These club feet it's got. Yeah. And the proportions are so, it's like, yeah, they slept alone for sure. Look at the size of that bed. Yeah, there's no hanky panky going on in that thing. Definitely not. Looks like a child's bed. So what is shaker furniture? Enough about the shaker's lifestyle, who they are. But it's kind of important, if we're talking about design,
00:47:58
Speaker
start at the beginning.
Comparison with Mission Furniture
00:48:00
Speaker
It's like we want to create this well-rounded vision of what we're talking about. Some of this might be redundant, but we might clear some things up. Shaker style furniture, it's simple and clean, functional, practical, minimalist, and at times elegant.
00:48:22
Speaker
Um, we didn't see too many examples of that elegance in the pictures, but candlestick table, I'd say is the most elegant. Uh, it's born in the Northeast of America and it is an American furniture style. Um, some call it sophisticated, a sophisticated utilitarian design. I don't know about that. I mean, in my own opinion, what do you think Jeff?
00:48:50
Speaker
Sophisticated is not one of the words that comes to mind. Yeah, me either. So, an American furniture style, utilitarian, characterized by straight, tapered legs, mushroom-shaped wooden knobs. I got a quote here from Antoine de Saint. Oh, these foreign names. Exoperi. Yeah.
00:49:16
Speaker
I don't know. I was going to say the sophisticated, like, I feel like it's just been romanticized by people who may describe themselves as sophisticated. I think that's an excellent point. Like guilty by association.
00:49:29
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I think that's an excellent point. Well, Antoine, and we'll skip Antoine's last name because I'm a Claude here. I can't pronounce it. Perfection is achieved not when there's nothing more to add, but when there's nothing more to take away. Sometimes. Yeah. But, I mean, that's the Shakers. Yeah. Shakers all over. Shaker versus mission style.
00:50:00
Speaker
They've kind of become one and the same in, you know, our generic furniture terms. I mean, there's definite differences in where they start and everything. Shake and emission furniture are often associated because both styles have been adopted by traditional furniture craftsmen like us.
00:50:24
Speaker
The Amish are often cited as the source of both design philosophies, although that's not true in either case. Yeah, we know that. We do now. The Amish are the people we forgot.
Cultural Legacy and Episode Conclusion
00:50:38
Speaker
We were talking about Quakers. We forgot the Amish. Shaker-style furniture originated from the Shaking Quakers in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
00:50:49
Speaker
It wasn't for another few decades that Mission-style furniture began to emerge, although both styles originated in New England. I didn't know that. See, I thought Mission was an offshoot of the arts and crafts period. Yeah, Mission was, I always thought it was influenced by the Western Missions. I thought it was, the story that I read was that there was a company selling
00:51:14
Speaker
Basically they were selling stickly ripoffs and they thought it looked like the furniture that was in the Western Missions and they called it Mission Furniture but that must be complete BS. That's the thing, you know, we might learn a little bit more as we go along. While both Shaker and Mission style furniture share some basic characteristics, here are a few differences worth noting. Shaker tapers.
00:51:40
Speaker
graduated drawers, plain wood, wooden poles, mission, parallel slats, exposed joinery, darker stains, and leather. I don't know if those are definitive. I can recall though that
00:52:05
Speaker
looking at three or four sources, they seem to be citing the same stuff. I don't know if that was just laziness on their part, and that's why I couldn't find anything different. Let's see. This is what Wikipedia says. Mission Furniture is a style of furniture that originated in the late 19th century, so late 1800s, traced its origins to a chair made by A.J. Forbes around 1894 for San Francisco's Swedenborgian church.
00:52:33
Speaker
Oh yes, Sweden board you in charge. That's still around in San Francisco. Wow. The term mission furniture was first popularized by Joseph P. McHugh of New York, a furniture manufacturer and retailer who copied these chairs and offered a line of stylistically related furnishings by 1898. The word mission references the Spanish missions throughout colonial California. Though the design of most mission-style furniture owed little to the original furnishings of these missions,
00:53:00
Speaker
The style became increasingly popular following the 1901 Pan American exposition of Buffalo. The style was popular, popularly associated with the American arts and crafts movement. There you go. And the first reference picture, Gustav Stickley, drop front desk circa 1903, Brooklyn museum. Nice. So it was, it was somebody ripped off a design that was in a mission and they called it mission furniture.
00:53:29
Speaker
Uh, popularized by a New Yorker. Yeah. Well, yeah. And, and the influential people in companies, Gustav Stickley, L and JG Stickley, Stickley brothers, Charles Lindbert, Grand Rapids bookcase and chair company, which I think, I think they were, weren't they associated with Stickley somehow? Yeah. Um, the shop of the crafters and Ford Johnson.
00:53:56
Speaker
That's great. I mean, like Mission is, I don't see any, I shouldn't say I don't see any, it's a far cry from Shaker. Oh yeah, yeah. But it's funny, like the Shaker door, people talk about like, oh, I'm getting a Shaker style kitchen. A lot of people also call that Mission style. Yeah. Like that. The flat panel. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I mean,
00:54:27
Speaker
Oh, that's it. That's all we got. Yeah, that's it for the intro to the Shakin' Quakers, the Shukin. So I hope you've enjoyed that episode and that little historical narrative on the Shakers. Yeah, I'm going to call this episode Shakin' Not Stirred. Shakin' Not Stirred. I like that. Yeah. That's it. Now, if I can remember that when I put it up next week. I'm hungry. Next week for us.
00:54:55
Speaker
this week for you. Yeah. If you're listening to this, it's already up. Yeah. And that next week is going to be notable shakers and their contributions. Yeah. Well, well folks, we'll leave you with that. Um, thanks for tuning in. Yeah. We'll see you next week. Episode season two, episode 23.
00:55:31
Speaker
Ain't no shame, but there's been a chain