Spirituality has been a part of the professional code of practice for physicians and other healthcare professionals in the UK since the inception of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1947. At that time, legislation was passed to ensure that the religious and faith needs of patients were met in the healthcare system (Speck, 2005). This was reinforced by The Patient's Charter (Department of Health, 1991) and in a subsequent health service guidance letter, The Provision of Spiritual Care to Staff, Patients and Relatives (Department of Health, 1992). This guidance was replaced in 2003 to reflect new organisational relationships and to provide better support for the multi-faith needs of patients (Department of Health, 2003a).

One could, however, be forgiven for not having a clear picture of how spiritual care is provided within today's NHS. The issues around delivering such care are indeed complex. Orchard (2001: p. 17) notes that ‘the NHS is an organism that demands of its services an ability to think through its considerable complexities and to respect its need for a degree of discipline in the way care is developed and delivered’. However, this does not appear to be the case with services for spiritual care and Orchard calls for those services to be ‘effective, equitable and better able to respond to those who call on them’. There is a lack of published material on the provision of formal spiritual care services within the health sector. It certainly appears to be a hotchpotch of policies and influences. It would seem that in the reforms that saw mental health trusts splitting off from acute and community trusts, many pastoral care departments were left behind. With no specific service level agreements or funding streams, this area of care was, and still is, often ignored.

What is spiritual care?

It is not only chaplains who provide spiritual care to patients. In chapter 2, ‘Assessing spiritual needs’, the authors call for collaboration between professionals in this area of patient care. The notion of what spiritual care actually entails requires consideration. Murray et al (2004), in a study of patients with life-threatening illnesses, defined spiritual needs as ‘the needs and expectations which humans have to find meaning, purpose and value in their life.

Spirituality has been a part of the professional code of practice for physicians and other healthcare professionals in the UK since the inception of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1947. At that time, legislation was passed to ensure that the religious and faith needs of patients were met in the healthcare system (Speck, 2005). This was reinforced by The Patient's Charter (Department of Health, 1991) and in a subsequent health service guidance letter, The Provision of Spiritual Care to Staff, Patients and Relatives (Department of Health, 1992). This guidance was replaced in 2003 to reflect new organisational relationships and to provide better support for the multi-faith needs of patients (Department of Health, 2003a). One could, however, be forgiven for not having a clear picture of how spiritual care is provided within today's NHS. The issues around delivering such care are indeed complex. Orchard (2001: p. 17) notes that ‘the NHS is an organism that demands of its services an ability to think through its considerable complexities and to respect its need for a degree of discipline in the way care is developed and delivered’. However, this does not appear to be the case with services for spiritual care and Orchard calls for those services to be ‘effective, equitable and better able to respond to those who call on them’. There is a lack of published material on the provision of formal spiritual care services within the health sector. It certainly appears to be a hotchpotch of policies and influences. It would seem that in the reforms that saw mental health trusts splitting off from acute and community trusts, many pastoral care departments were left behind. With no specific service level agreements or funding streams, this area of care was, and still is, often ignored.

What is spiritual care?

It is not only chaplains who provide spiritual care to patients. In chapter 2, ‘Assessing spiritual needs’, the authors call for collaboration between professionals in this area of patient care. The notion of what spiritual care actually entails requires consideration. Murray et al (2004), in a study of patients with life-threatening illnesses, defined spiritual needs as ‘the needs and expectations which humans have to find meaning, purpose and value in their life.

This section features the movement of Shaker exhibitions between the eastern seaboard of the United States and the west coast. The movement took place in both directions as seen in a show formulated at Paine Webber in New York which eventually ended at the Seattle Art Museum, while an exhibition entitled ‘Kindred Spirits’, organised at Mingei International Museum of World Folk Art at San Diego, California, moved to both Florida and Massachusetts. Significantly another exhibition entitled ‘Shaker: The Art of Craftsmanship’ dominated the Shaker exhibition calendar for a number of years because it travelled extensively throughout the United States and also appeared in two contrasting venues in the United Kingdom at Bath and London.

In 1995 the Berkshire Shaker seminar – a group interested in the Shakers – visited Manchester, England in order to study the origins of the movement. The contemporary developments in England are very much a focus of this section, as the period which it covers has produced considerable coverage of Shaker in terms of both journals and books. This provides a rich source of information for analysis. This was specifically addressing European audiences and much of the television material made assumptions that the audience would know who and what the Shakers were.

The evolution of the Shaker aesthetic in the United Kingdom has seen the development of a distinctive style featured in many British interiors, with varying degrees of authenticity. The style is perhaps epitomised by the ‘Shaker’ kitchen which has become a common feature in many manufacturers’ ranges at all price levels in the marketplace. The popularity of Shaker style increased throughout the 1990s within the home furnishings and decorative arts market with the appearance of Shaker pastiches. In addition to the concentration of the marketplace on Shaker design there were also some new museological representations based on fine art and conceptual interpretations, with the focus on the Shaker aesthetic alongside both contemporary artists’ interpretations and minimal artworks.

Introduction – High Art Influences from Museum Cultures

The Far East and its culture have a long history of influencing the West. Japan and the work of contemporary artisans and architects and the ancient traditions of the designer/maker encompassing calligraphy, furniture, ceramics, metalwork and basketry, have all been subject to analysis and reinterpretation by scholars and artists in the West.

The appreciation of Shaker design has developed throughout the twentieth century and its influence has become global being found in America, Europe, Australia and Japan. Exhibitions have been instrumental in the promotion of the Shaker aesthetic and institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art have had an important role in the selling of the style and this has been evidenced in their 1986 exhibition.

Early developments at Fruitlands by Clara Endicott Sears and the creation of museum villages such as Hancock and Pleasant Hill are now well documented. Again these have increased the profile of the Shakers and have featured in numerous articles, books and moving images. In addition, other museums have created period rooms in which the furniture and interior design of the Shakers have been preserved. A number of these have been featured in this book and the following are acknowledged: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Winterthur Museum, Chicago Art Institute, Boston Museum of Art and The American Museum in Britain. In addition, the collection of catalogues acquired for this book will be housed in the library of The American Museum in Britain which is located in Bath.

The idea for the title of this book is taken from a section in the Stephen Stein book, The Shaker Experience in America, entitled ‘Selling of the Shakers’, while the format and structure come holistically from Religion in Wood: A Book of Shaker Furniture, by Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews. This project has been a long time in the making and basically started in 1990 when a programme entitled I Don't Want to be Remembered as a Chair was shown on BBC television in the United Kingdom. This in part documented the commercialisation which had become evident in the 1990s of a style which became associated with both Minimalism and Modernism.

The book is divided into four sections dealing with various themes and emphasises both exhibitions and the people involved in the promotion of the Shakers and their design. The first is ‘Simple and Pure – The Early Promotion of Shaker Design in the United States of America’ (1900 to 1945).

This section focuses on those developments that took place in the north–eastern seaboard of the United States, instigated by a number of key people who helped promote the cause of Shakerism and, by doing so, created a resource which was later used in the production of numerous exhibitions, publications and artefact reproductions. During the period from 1910 to 1945, North America was rapidly developing both economically and socially. In parallel with these changes in the world outside the Shaker communities, internal structural changes were also taking place in the now declining Shaker society. The majority of promotional activities centred on the Shakers and their material culture took the form of exhibitions, together with their accompanying literature. The exhibitions during this period tended to focus specifically on the furniture and were generally small scale. Exceptions to this included the 1935 exhibition at the Whitney Museum, New York, which was high profile in nature and helped to enhance the fashionable quality of the items on display as well as aligning their style with Modernity. Markets for original Shaker artefacts were strengthening and a cohort of collectors was established. The momentum for all things Shaker was gathering pace in the United States of America, but the society of Shakers and its material culture remained largely unknown outside this tight–knit group of academics/curators and collectors. This section features both the exhibitions of the period (which made specific reference to the Shakers) and also details some of the interpretations which appeared in popular culture venues such as shops and the press. This goes some way to explain later developments in which the Shaker aesthetic infiltrates many and varied cultural phenomena.

Influences taken from Museum Culture

In the early part of the twentieth century, the United States of America was still largely an agrarian society, with dramatic contrasts between the urban industrialised pockets, largely in the east and the north, and the rural communities. The development of the railroads in the previous century was probably the most significant factor in the rapidly expanding economy of the United States, although as The Times Atlas of World History notes, other factors helped: ‘… abundant natural resources, a literate population, a managerial and organisational revolution, political stability, large–scale foreign capital investment and a pervasive entrepreneurial ethic.’

This section features continued developments that took place in the north–eastern seaboard and also focuses on western communities such as those at Pleasant Hill. The text develops on themes which became evident in Section One and Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews continued to exert their influence by Shaker promotion, publication and exhibition. During the postwar period Americans became both more culturally aware and multicultural. Counter cultures became fashionable and the Shakers were applauded for their ‘alternative’ lifestyle. Museums were starting to be formed from extant Shaker villages and the period room became the ideal by which Shaker artefacts were permanently displayed for public consumption. This section also begins to evidence the spread of Shaker design from the United States of America to Europe – and particularly the United Kingdom. The American Museum in Britain at Bath formed their period room and Shaker exhibit, while Manchester City Art Galleries became the focus of British attention when it held a Shaker exhibition in 1975.

The temporary exhibitions featured in American museums became more varied and thematic, specialising in specific furniture forms such as the chair or concentrating on a particular community. Important exhibitions of the period include that of ‘Shaker Arts and Crafts’ at Philadelphia Museum of Art (1962) and the ‘Shaker’ exhibition at the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (1974). Markets for Shaker artefacts continued to expand and develop, with greater collector interest and higher prices for all object types from furniture to textiles. This section also highlights various sales and auctions; exhibitions; period rooms; museum villages and popular culture interpretations aimed at an international market and context.

Influences taken from Museum Culture

In the United States of America there has been an increasing trend for the establishment of museum villages that have developed around historic sites and these have claimed to create an authentic and ‘living experience’. Examples include Plimoth Plantation, Plymouth, Massachusetts; Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, Massachusetts; Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut; Conner Prairie, Noblesville, Indiana; Pioneer Arizona Living History Museum, Black Canyon Stage, Arizona and Colonial Williamsburg. This trend has also been evidenced in the United Kingdom with the establishment of sites such as Saltaire, Quarry Bank and Styal and the Ironbridge Gorge Museum complex.

It is ironic and somewhat paradoxical that as we enter a new millennium, a religious group – the Shakers – whose origins are founded in the eighteenth century, should continue to have such an influence upon contemporary society. It would seem that the twentieth and indeed now the twentyfirst century, whilst celebrating the stylistic achievements of the movement, has turned its back on the underlying religious and spiritual ethos. Indeed this paradox forms one of the central axes of this book – that is the idea that participants in the twentieth century have used the Shaker aesthetic for their own commercial ends.

The husband–and–wife team of Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews did much to promote the Shaker ideal in the middle part of the twentieth century, particularly via their previously mentioned book Religion in Wood. The book also served, in some part, as a paradigm for this present book. In the introduction it states:

The history and background to the Shaker movement have been well documented in enough sources elsewhere for us to dispense with little more than a cursory glance at their origins. The Shakers – a breakaway sect of the Quakers, with a strict moral and spiritual code, whose communities in North America constitute its oldest communal society – have fascinated commentators almost since their inception in England in the 1750s. For example, Nathaniel Hawthorne, an American Consul in Liverpool (1853–57) visited the Shakers and wrote two stories about them:

The Canterbury Pilgrims and The Shaker Bridal, where the latter, in particular, displays more than a few of the negative responses of rigidity, fanaticism and emotional impoverishment, characteristic of other contemporary writers on the group.

This section looks at exhibitions from the mid–1970s to the mid–1990s, all of which were temporary and held within the United States. The influence of Edward Deming and Faith Andrews was beginning to wane as new interpretations were coming to the fore. Mainly these drew on the work of June Sprigg, the curator and writer. In addition, a considerable amount of theoretical work from numerous academic studies in material culture was beginning to exert an influence upon interpretations of Shaker material throughout this period.

The last quarter of the twentieth century saw an explosion in mass communication and worldwide travel on a scale previously undreamt of. This allowed not only greater movement of ideas across continents but also encouraged the increase in specialisation and a move towards what became known as interdisciplinary studies. We can see how, for example, an exhibition at the Whitney Museum on Shaker design would attract a far greater degree of European press coverage than would have been the case 20 years before. Exhibitions were being organised with highly specialised aspects of the Shaker aesthetic being examined, such as the chair.

We also detail in this section the onset of the commercialisation of Shaker reproductions both in the United States and the United Kingdom, with the opening of the Shaker Shop in London influencing the infiltration of the aesthetic into British homes. As with the previous section details on sales and auctions appear alongside popular culture interpretations of the Shaker aesthetic and these in turn are placed within a global context.

Influences taken from Museum Culture

The book Design History and the History of Design states: ‘As we have seen in the case of the Shakers, a visual style can be integral to a way of life. In the past, divisions between ranks and classes tended to be much more sharply defined and cross–class mobility far more restricted than today.’ The period 1976–94 saw an unprecedented increase in social mobility linked with a general rise in prosperity in the West. This led to greater international mobility with an increase in travel amongst social groups for whom it had previously been out of reach, and the spread of information via print and electronic media which opened up the world to large groups of people in Europe and the United States.