| When the Shakers arrived in revolutionary America, colonists regarded them with suspicion and hostility. A century later, Americans viewed Shakers as models of agricultural excellence, morality, and healthy living. Although Shaker material culture has long been a subject of fascination for cultural historians, much of the scholarship has focused on Shaker furniture, crafts, and architecture. This dissertation examines the primacy of food in the establishment and growth of Shakerism. Drawing on relatively untapped Shaker sources, including newsletters and advertising collateral, as well as cookbooks, daily journals, and visitor accounts, it demonstrates how food provided the economic basis for their communities and established the Shaker reputation for excellence. Moreover, it underscores the importance of food in developing Americans' regard and respect for the Shakers, despite the sect's unusual lifestyle and unorthodox beliefs.;The first chapter, "Gathering the Flocks," highlights the Shakers' effective use of food in attracting newcomers to their sites and the economic importance of their food-based industries. In the next chapter, "Feeding the Flocks," I demonstrate how Shaker hospitality provided a means by which visitors could sample Shaker life and fulfill Shaker hopes of attracting converts to their communities. In the third chapter, "Sermon from the Mount," I analyze Shaker nutritional advice as their contribution to nineteenth-century reform movements and as a vehicle for establishing Shaker authority. The final chapter, "Healing the Flocks," examines how Shakers and their marketing agents capitalized upon their reputation and expertise in their most successful business venture, Shaker patent medicines. As this area of Shaker history has been rarely explored, my work provides detailed analysis of Shaker promotional efforts and raises important questions regarding Shaker truth in advertising.;Granting they are few in number today, Shakers owe their over two-hundred year history to the material success of their food-based industries. Although it took almost a century, Shakers worked their way into the hearts of many Americans, initially, and most effectively, through their stomachs. |
