A Shaker family album

by David R. Starbuck

This collection of more than 100 images captures the essence of Shaker life in poses both pious and playful, and records how individual identity was nurtured, rather than extinguished by the community. Carefully chosen from thousands of archival photos and from a drawerful of snapshots saved by Eldress Bertha Lindsay, one of the last Shakers to live at Canterbury and herself a consummate photographer, these pictures - most of them never intended for publication - give new life to the Shaker lifestyle. These farmers, artisans, and celibate guardians of orphan children lived in what David R. Starbuck calls an unusually humane environment and maintained a faith that was "remarkably resilient and long lasting."