Pails

Pails in Comparison

A visit to Canterbury Shaker Village’s collection storage means we are going to learn something new. 

Such was the case (Case! Collections pun!) when we came across shelves of wooden containers.

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Green Bedstead

Vermin and Verdigris

With all that we know about the Shakers’ waking hours of work and worship, it’s time to ask how they slept. Did a day of physical labor and mental focus make for a restful night’s slumber? Did the more devout labor nightly about the state of their souls?

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These handwritten words on the Laundry’s attic walls follow the Palmer method of penmanship.

Handwriting on the Walls—and on the Furniture, too!

Remember the weekend of the Great Freeze in early February? Any great change in temperature and humidity results in possible problems with plumbing pipes—and for Canterbury Shaker Village’s unparalleled historic collections and structures. The Great Freeze required the Great Inspection of storage spaces, attics, basements, and cellars.

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Mary Whitcher

Shaker Pie is Rational: Some Thoughts on Pi Day 2023

Pie unites because it is so divisible. Unlike pi, pie was rational to Shakers who shared fairly at the dining table. How the Canterbury Shakers conceived of themselves was found not in distinctive foods but rather in their communal foodways: soups, meats, and vegetables were dished out from shared platters and bowls.

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Elder Blinn and His Bees

Introducing The Blinn Report

Shaker Elder Henry Clay Blinn (1824-1905) was neither a soldier nor a spy. Those are two roles the Shakers disavowed. But he was a tinker and a tailor. And a typesetter, printer, writer, editor, and publisher.

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