O Sisters Ain't You Happy? - (Women and Gender in Religion) by Suzanne R Thurman

Book Synopsis

Compelling, in-depth analysis of Shaker villages that sheds light on how communal attitudes helped to liberate Shaker women.

Drawing on archival material from Shaker members, observers, and apostates, noted historian Suzanne R. Thurman offers a scholarly yet eminently readable study of life in two of the oldest, most prominent American Shaker villages: the Harvard and Shirley communities of Massachusetts.

Even as she delves into the complex fabric of Shaker social life, Thurman challenges traditional perceptions of gender roles within the community. Shaker spiritual and social ethics, she points out, strongly favored women. Celibacy and an androgynous theology, for instance, allowed androgynous social roles to evolve. Another key factor was the lively arena of nineteenth-century reformers and intellectuals in nearby Boston. With admirable detail, Thurman documents the relationship that grew between these forward thinkers and the Believers. Their influence, she argues, enlightened Shaker consciousness and empowered their women of Harvard and Shirley with opportunities denied them in the world at large.

The author also explores links, particularly economic, between Shakers and the greater American society. Treating Harvard and Shirley Believers as an idiosyncratic part of the nation rather than a fringe group, Thurman sheds new light on their constant struggle to be in the world but not of it.

Review Quotes

This well-researched study offers a detailed, focused history of two Shaker villages in Massachusetts while at the same time challenging and qualifying theories that have governed the discipline of Shaker history as a whole. . . . Using the Harvard and Shirley communities located just seven miles apart and in the proximity of Boston Thurman demonstrates that Shakers were affected by the currents of reform in 19th-century America, especially concerning gender roles. . . . A valuable community study that illuminates broad themes in Shaker history and complements the more general studies by Stein, Priscilla Brewer and other scholars.-- "Publishers Weekly"

About the Author

Suzanne R. Thurman teaches history at the University of Alabama, Huntsville. She has been published in many historical journals and is author of To Heal and to Serve: American Women Doctors on Medical Missions, 1869 to the Present.