Shaker Furniture

Shaker furniture, furniture designed for the religious colonies of Shakers founded in America in the last quarter of the 18th century, characterized by austerity of decoration and truth to materials. Deeply dedicated to ideals of communal living and asceticism, the Shakers designed and constructed furniture that reflected their belief that to make a thing well was in itself an act of prayer and their conviction that the appearance of a thing should follow upon its function. Each item was fashioned solely to serve its intended use, and all superfluous decorations, such as inlays and moldings, were eliminated.

Although their attitude toward design was based on religious beliefs, it anticipated in a remarkable way concepts of functionalism that became common about 100 years later. The austere Shaker chair, for example, was designed to be both sturdy and light in weight, so that it could be hung on pegs installed in the walls when a room was being cleaned or to provide a large unimpeded interior space for religious services. Working in an entirely American idiom free from the European influences that affected their more ambitious contemporaries, Shaker craftsmen produced domestic furniture, generally in pine or other inexpensive local wood, that was marked by originality of design no less than by severity of appearance. The Shaker movement declined during the second half of the 19th century, and many of the colonies were dissolved. In the early 20th century there was a marked revival of interest in Shaker furniture, outstanding examples of which are to be seen in the Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, Massachusetts, and in the Shaker Museum near Auburn, Kentucky.