building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

(1736‐1784), the founder of the sect, in order to escape prejudice and
discrimination. This was a group of individuals, who believed in a kind of mysticism
based on a public confession of sins, on celibacy, equal rights and responsibilities for
men and women and on the sacredness of the craft and agricultural work 67 . In
addition to their religious precepts, they also practiced mutual help, a kind of
primitive communism, a direct reflection of the hostilities and suspicions they
encountered.
An analysis of the Shaker communities, together with the similar attempts made in
lay utopian experiments, highlights the fact that the latter often had a short life. On
the contrary, the Shakers expanded their properties and just before the start of the
Civil War numbered approximately 6,000 individuals, organized in numerous selfsufficient
communities. The first settlement, “the first to be formally ‘gathered into
a society order” 68 , is commonly believed to be New Leabanon 69 (c. 1787) [Figure
36], New York, or Mount Lebanon as it was renamed after 1861, and was created
thanks to a donation of some land by a group of believers.
The settlements of Watervliet (c. 1787) and Hancock (c. 1790) located respectively
in the States of New York and Massachusetts, territories that boast the largest
presence of Shaker communities, followed in its footsteps. Later, numerous villages
were also set up in New Hampshire, Maine, Kentucky and Ohio.
Some of these villages were given charming, spiritual names, such as “Lovely
Vineyard” (Shirley, Massachusetts) or “Pleasant Garden” (Harvard, Massachusetts),
which not only suggested ideals of pastoral peace and underlined the importance of
the relationship between man and nature, but also indicated the distinctive
features of the places.
This particular aspect also fascinated the transcendentalist philosophers of the time
to such an extent that Amos Bronson Alcott, the father of Louisa May Alcott, and
67 DESROCHE, Henri, Les shakers americains: d’un néo‐christianisme à un pré‐socialisme? Paris,
Minuit, 1955 [The American Shakers: from neo‐Christianity to pre‐Socialism?], (Italian translation Gli
Shakers americani: da un neocristianesimo a un presocialismo, Milan, Edizioni di Comunità, 1960)
68 SCHIFFER, Herbert, Shaker architecture, Exton, Penns., Schiffer Publishing, 1979, p. 7
69 For the history of shaker architecture: ROCHELEAU, Paul, SPRIGG, June, Shaker built: the form and
function of Shaker architecture; edited and designed by David Larkin, London, Thames and Hudson,
1994; LASSITER, William Lawrence, Shaker architecture: description with photographs and drawings
of shaker buildings at Mount Lebanon, New York, Watervliet, New York, West Pittsfield,
Massachusetts, New York, Bonanza Books, 1966
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