by VorJack
Let me put on my public historian hat for a moment.
Recently I visited one of the elaborate Shaker historic sites in the region. Most of these seem to have a “living history” component, where they try to maintain something of the rural character of the Shakers. You can milk a cow, pet the sheep and watch someone weave a basket the way the Shakers did.
You could learn a lot about how the Shakers lived. About the Shakers, not so much. I don’t believe I heard a word about their distinctive beliefs, or how they fit into the bizarre melding of religious ideas that was early America or where they fell in the history of religious thought. These were the ideas that created the community, but they faded into the background.
Honestly, so much attention is paid to the Shaker’s material creations that you could walk away thinking they were some renegade wing of the Arts & Crafts movement.
I’ve had the same problems at other such sites dedicated to the Moravians and other separatist groups. Hell, I grew up in Winston-Salem, NC, where they rebuilt the Moravian village Old Salem just outside of the downtown area. They tore down the first Krispy Kreme Doughnuts to do it, too. But what I remember is the bakery, or watching the men in period costume hitch horses to a wagon, or the working pump in the town center.
I know that most historic sites traffic in nostalgia. Many of the first sites were funded by capitalists like Ford or Rockefeller, trying to preserve some of the rural charm that their industrial empires helped to destroy. There’s an unpleasantly political edge to that nostalgia, an attempt to create an idealized past that would help shape the right kind of Americans in the future.
But I suspect that the real reason is just that it’s easier to dress volunteers up in costumes and have them churn butter. Or if not easier exactly, then at least less potentially controversial. Less likely to make people uncomfortable or chase away parents who don’t want their children asking unpleasant questions.
But it’s those questions that were important to the people that we’re remembering. We can talk about what the Shaker’s did, but it seems ridiculous to ignore why they did it. Particularly since those motivations tell us something about the history of Christianity, which is still the majority religion of this country.
The Moravians called themselves -still call themselves – the “First Protestants.” You ought to walk out of Old Salem knowing what that means. American’s have such an appallingly narrow understanding of their own religious history, and I think that’s part of why we have problems with Fundamentalism. Maybe by showing people all the twists and turns their religion took before it reached today will give them some humility.
All the “living history” elements can be fun and fascinating, and I think they help us understand the world that our ancestors lived in. But I think it’s by studying our ancestor’s ideas about religion, politics and the world that can help us understand the world we live in now.
Nothing in the museum about the persecution of the Shakers? I can see that celibacy might be a ticklish concept to address in a family friendly museum, but I hope that some attempt was made, since it was one of their most significant beliefs.
I hope to take my daughter to the Bethel Woods Museum, a.k.a. the Woodstock museum. (No, she’s not named Windowpane.) I’d say that the hippie movement, amorphous as it was, could be considered a major religious trend.
I’m sorry, that was way too long. Could you reduce it to a sound bite?
/sarcasm
Seriously, we Americans are not encouraged by our educational system to look deeply into things, or to think past the surface details. And we are outright trained by modern audiovisual media to prefer the quick and the superficial. It is a shame, but is it really any wonder that our historical sites go no deeper than than “First Protestant” labels and butter churns?
Glossing over the history of christianity is important if you want to maintain the fundie belief that jesus was a white guy who spoke english with a southern accent rather then a middle eastern who spoke a semitic language and looked a lot more like osama bin-laden then pat robertson. It’s the same attitude that make someone like rep. ike skelton appose the discussion of don’t ask don’t tell so parents won’t be faced with the need to discuss the issue of homosexuality with their kids.
They should reenact a Shaker dance and worship service. I’d definitely want them to explain the virtues and disadvantages of celibacy as well. Some eyes might get opened.
Imagine taking a summer family vacation doing nothing but visiting a string of historical museums about various religions, each one telling it like it really was way back then by using realistic reenactments in living color. The Catholic museum could be quite interesting, especially the part about the Inquisition!
Many white Americans have a similar superficial fascination with American Indian tribes. They make cool stuff and do strange dances, and wear hides and feathers. Although there is a religious component to it also, it seems more generically spiritual in a trivial way to outsiders. Not much goes into teaching what makes each tribe a different tribe from another, nor the history of why you have to go to somewhat remote areas to see them, or why they may not be happy to see you when you go there, unless you are there to gamble.
I’m sure there are a lot of examples where groups of people just seem superficially interesting and not a big push to educate on what makes them significant in historical context.
The funny thing is that you can go and see the same thing happening with groups that are still going strong today. As Kodie pointed out Native Americans is one group that are basically sold in the same method as your shakers but aren’t dead as a culture! They’re only seen in their past light and not as a dynamic and living community that has grown and changed in the last 100 years. I’m sure that it helps to diminish questions about the treatment and QoL of native populations today.
I grew up in Lancaster (Lank-a-stir) PA home of the Pennsylvania Dutch or Amish. Tons of people come into the county to see all the museums about how the Amish lived and to treat them as dead subjects. The religious nature of the community is almost never discussed in these tours and the people themselves are held up as almost a side show style attraction. Honestly, most of the time the tourists are actually dealing with Mennonites and not even the actual Amish.
I love this entry. Actually, I love most of Vorjack’s entries — the entire librarian/ historical aspect is gold. Every time I see one of his entries up, I just grin in anticipatory delight.
I completely agree with the premise, too. I love history, theology and psychology. I adore reading books that trace the genesis and growth of a movement or social behavior. Often, after I read one of these books, I’ll be chattering excitedly about the content to a friend, only to be faced with complete indifference: It’s in the past, leave it there.
It’s so sad.
It is sad.
Even more sad is that there are not ten million Janets out there.
Things would get much better.
Sorry.
I meant Lanas.
Recently watched the PBS documentary on the Shakers the melding of the belief in perfectionism in their work with their ecstatic religious roots was fascinating. It sure would make for an interesting living history exhibit to cover the religious motives and practices more thoroughly.
My strongest memory of my visit to Colonial Williamsburg a few years back was talking to someone playing a religious widow and a preacher, I forget the name of the house. The preacher spoke about debate at the time regarding conflict between the colonists and mother England. He said in regard to a question about who he favored that he just was interested in whatever made for a peaceful environment where the gospel could be spread. Which I thought was interesting, it wasn’t a patriotic party line at any rate, though I can’t verify how accurate his answer was.
Which I thought was interesting, it wasn’t a patriotic party line at any rate, though I can’t verify how accurate his answer was.
If he’s like most of the “living history” actors I’ve dealt with, he probably had a good model that he was working from. They can be a bit … obsessive about accuracy sometimes. They do tend to over-romanticize the era, but they can usually be relied on to get the details right.
Also, Colonial Williamsburg has come a loooong way since Rockefeller established it, so I suspect that they put some thought into it.
This is an article worth expounding into a study.
Thinking about the Shakers hurts my heart. Their dances are lost to history! :(
I will say that he is right and wrong.
I live near a Shaker Village and have visited it as well as many other historical places around the country. And if you just look at the superficial surface of the site then you will not learn about the nature of the society. But I was always able to get deeper into it by just asking and looking thru the supplied printed material. In fact the Shakers also gave a complete seminar on their philosophy if you were willing to sit thru it. I have also seen this same thing at the sites of the various People (Native Americans), but it still required just a little effort to get below the surface.
I find all museums to be superficial unless you are willing to ask and dig.
A few years ago we took visiting relatives to a “Shaker village” not too far from here. We noticed, too, that they didn’t spend a lot of time on the Shakers’ religious beliefs. On the other hand, they didn’t spend a lot of time on any one aspect of their community. We got mini-lessons in Shaker craftsmanship, cooking, inventions, architecture (especially a round barn they constructed which, really, was very clever), and so on.
But that isn’t to say we didn’t get anything about their beliefs. For example, they took us through a couple of rooms full of what the Shakers called “gift pictures.” These were paintings or drawings featuring a stylized “Tree of Life” and having various other components, and some of these were pointed out in various samples. (To go over each feature of each picture might have taken weeks, so there was no way they could get too deeply into the matter.)
This is, perhaps, why they were only able to go over aspect of their communities only a little bit … there is a lot of detail involved, and time simply doesn’t permit culling through it all. The Shakers left a good deal of material behind, and you can only talk about it just so much, in the course of a 2-hour tour of the place.
I don’t buy anything the Shakers believed in, either … but I did get a little respect for them, after having visited there. I also respect those who’ve maintained their village for posterity; the religious aspects of the Shakers aside, there’s a good deal of information there about the technology and prevailing lifestyles of the times they lived in.
Great post as usual, VorJack. It was looking into the history of religion that eventually led me to reject it.
Ha, that one made me laugh Billz. Of course you reject ‘religion’, so would anyone else who took a non-biased, candid look at. Good for you. You do know that this ‘religion’ with all its dead rituals, rules, and hypocrites, etc is the very thing Jesus despised Himself right? That the religious types were the ones giving Christ the hardest time, that he was always at odds with them, right. I mean certainly you do know this right, the difference between Christ and the ‘Religionists’…right. I hope so, I really do man.
Religion is not at all what the Truth (Himself) came to bring, not even close. All the best Billz.
Haha! I wish they were; I’d prefer them that way.
I think this relates well to Daniel’s blog on the history of heaven.
But christians, *especially* cluster-fundies, have never made much show of a questing, seeking, challenging intelligence or intellectual curiosity. Or, often, even simple literacy. I think they adhere closer to “history is bunk” or “who needs all that book l’arnin’ when you can just foller your iggernant heart?”
Has anybody ever visited a Hutterite community?
I have. In Montana.
Too weird for words.
I heard someone say that the Amish as a group are some of the worst abusers of animals. Though I don’t know that from any observations, I searched for it online and found a not a few heated discussions about it. Accurate or no, it’s a hot topic.