Abstract
My research focuses on how visual images are interpreted as historical evidence, and in 2022 and 2023 I presented papers at the Enfield Shaker Museum Spring Forum on the ways in which the Shakers were pictured in nineteenth-century photographs. In “The Picturesque Shakers,” I explored how the Shakers became willing participants with early commercial photographers in creating picturesque tableaus of Shaker life. In “Hands to Work,” I addressed the transformation in imagery in the 1870s and 1880s, from scenes made by sketchbook illustrators picturing Shakers “dancing before the Lord” to images made by commercial photographers of Shakers as craft workers. The following essay is adapted from those two papers.
Date
4-1-2024
Volume
18
Number
2
First Page
169
Last Page
212
Journal Title
American Communal Societies Quarterly
ISSN
1939-473X
