Darrow School - Shaker Post Yearbook (New Lebanon, NY)

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The Peg Board 1936 Out of the tanning business such occupations were developed as the making of saddles, harness, and shoes. Sister Emma has given us these interesting notes concerning the leather industry at the Church Family: It was carried on until about 1890, as long as there was any profit in it. By that time many of the brethren were dead and it became necessary to hire outside men to do the work. Frederick Sizer was one of the leaders in this industry. Many young men started work in the tannery and later branched out into other occupations. All the leather goods for the Church Family were made here, even the shoes. The Shaker shoes were all of leather, except for the cloth tops of the sisters' shoes. All articles of leather in excess of what the Shakers needed for themselves were sold to the outside world, and leather from cowhide down to the finest calfskin was sold to outside merchants. Cloth was also made, but apparently not on a very large scale. In 1787 it was wholly the work of hand looms, and these continued to be used for many years.14 In 1793 Benjamin Bruce invented a machine for setting card teeth,15 and in 18oo another machine, which was accepted as a great advance, was invented for shearing the cloth. The first spinning jenny was purchased in 1812, after which date the large spinning wheels were for the most part put aside. By 1834 cloth had been made so cheap by the establishment of cotton factories in this country that the Shakers began to purchase it outside,16 but the Shaker looms continued in steady use until slightly beyond the middle of the century. After that time, though the production of cloth was lessened at Mount Lebanon, the Shakers did not give up their weaving entirely. They made material for chairs, mats, toweling, serge trousers, linen frocking, worsted gowns, cotton handkerchiefs, carpets, spreads etc. '7 The Shakers engaged, besides in the making of hats, bonnets, cloaks, gloves, and baskets. Of the hat industry the Manyesto has this to say: Experienced hatters were among those who accepted the faith of the Believers, and the manufacture of fur and wool hats began with the beginning of the Community. These were made not only for New Lebanon, but for the Believers in other States and for persons not of the Society. After a few years the business was all given in charge of the Society at Hancock, and for twenty years no hats were made in New Lebanon. This branch of industry has never been attended with that success which one might wish, and diminished gradually from year to year till it finally closedfg Dr. Andrews notes that as late as 1830 a few hats were still being made at Mount Lebanon, and that after the Civil War the Mount Lebanon Society again made hats of fur and wool. Sister Emma tells us that the lower Hoor of the schoolhouse was used as a hatter's shop. The manufacture of straw, and palm-leaf bonnets was an important industry at Mount Lebanon. Sisters Emma and Sadie Neale inform us that these bonnets were made not only for the Shaker sisters, but also for sale to the general public. As many as a hundred dozen were sometimes sold in one winter. They were made in five sizes, and small ones for dolls. The palm leaf was brought from the South. The sisters wove them on small looms, and then they worked a braided trim around them. The Kentucky Shakers made them of silk and grew their own silk worms to produce the silk. 14. The Manifesto, XX CMay 18901, 98. 15. The Manifesto. XX fApril 18905, 74. 16. The Manifesto, XX CSeptember 18903, 194. 17. The Community Industries of the Shakers, p. 187. 18. XX CMay 18903, 97. 19. The Community Industries of the Shakers, 175. 40

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1936 Theimgindarid Ti 1 i 3' THE TANNERY Reproduced from Harper's Magazine, XV Uuly 18575, 175 of dandelion and butternut. Of the former, during that year, they put up two thousand five hundred pounds, of the latter, three thousand pounds.1' One of the most important industries at Mount Lebanon was that of tanning leather. In the first year of the community's organized existence, says Dr. Andrews, a small building was utilized for finishing leather. Here Root, the tanner, ground his hemlock bark by horse power on a simple circular stone. This primitive method was employed until after the turn of the cent- ury. 12 The development of the tanning business is described thus in the Mangfesio: . . . .After the introduction of a cast-iron bark mill, which was driven by water power, the business was greatly facilitated. In 1807 more additions were made to the buildings, and machines added for rolling the leather. In 1813 a machine was added for splitting leather. The business had so much increased by the year 1834 that still larger buildings were needed and more ample provisions made to meet the growing demand. By this change the vats were placed in the basement of the building and numbered not less than thirty-two. Every thing on the premises was made to correspond with the amount of the business, as well as the quality of the work demanded. The hides at this date were softened in a common fulling mill, but in 1840 a wheel or cylinder was used and considered a great improvement. As the sales increased, the old process of tanning leather in cold vats was by far too slow to suit the sellers and buyers of this: fast age, and a steam boiler was in- troduced in 1850 for heating the vats and leaches, in order to force the hides more ex- peditiously through the process of making leather.1' 11. Harper? Magazine, XV Uuly 18573, 173. ff. 12. The Community Indsutv-in of Nu Shaken, p. 121. 18. The Manifesto, XX QMsy 18903, 97. 39

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1936 The Peg Board 'CQ-J. pq, SISTERS CUTTING OUT CLOAKS Left lo right: Sister Ann Maria Greaves, Sister Emma J. Neale, Sixler Alire Cary Wade, Eldress Augusla Shine, and lildress Harrie! Bullard. A considerable business in cloaks was also developed at the Church Family. Sister Emma founded this business. The first year, as she tells us, four cloaks were soldg the second year, thirteeng the third year, thirty-sixg and later on, as many as three hundred and seventy-five in one year. Many were sold in Maine and in the Adirondacks. A modiste tried to copy the Shaker cloaks, but she could not get the hoods right, as only the Shakers knew the secret of their construc- tion. A great department store in New York also tried and likewise failed. Among the most celebrated of the Shaker products were their coon-skin gloves. From Sisters Fmma and Sadie of the Church Family we learn that these gloves were sold at one time to Budd of New York. Furs were also prepared for the Greely Relief Fxpedition. Basket making began early in the history of the Mount Lebanon community. The Manyerlo states that they were made for sale in 1813 and that the business increased rapidlyfu Dr. Andrews carries the date at which this occupation was followed even farther back, quoting a list which indicates the sale of four baskets in I8OQ.21 Sister Fmma owns a Shaker basket which is more than one hundred years old. She says that the Shakers made both palm-leaf baskets and straw baskets, that they kept two or three looms busy at this work all the time, and that they sometimes sold as many as four thousand baskets in a single year. These Shaker baskets were of widely varied design and were manufactured in many different sizes. Equally famous are the Shaker boxes. They were made in numerous shapes and sizes, but the most interesting of them perhaps are the oval ones. The llflarzferlo comments thus on the oval boxes: The Manufacture ofoval boxes began as early as 1800. Although not a very extensive branch of business, it has been a source of small income from year to year. At first the 20. The Manifesto, XX KSeptember 18905, 194. 21. The Ccrmmunitu Industries uf the Shakers, p. 166. 41