the religious sect known as the Shakers. Formed in eighteenth-century Britain around a charismatic female prophet, Ann Lee, the Shakers eventually migrated to the United States, first settling in New York and then spreading up and down the East Coast and as far west as Indiana. Focused on purity, the Shakers became known for the clean design of their furniture, for the quality of their herbal medicine, and for the simplicity of their food and music. However, the Shaker religion is nearly extinct today, and for a simple reason: Mother Lee expected her adherents to remain celibate all their
...more
