Divine Simplicity

From humble origins as a religious community group came an approach to design that echoes from the nineteenth century to the present day. The Shakers, unaware of the impact they would have on the future of interior and furniture design, produced works characterised by clean lines, refined craftsmanship and elegant proportions. The work of the Shakers was inseparable from their faith and was a physical expression of their adherence and devotion to God, the act of crafting and creating with restrained meticulousness being a form of their praise.

The Shakers were formally known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing but gained their colloquial name due to the way members would shake and move their bodies during worship. After experiencing persecution in England, the leader of the Shaker movement, Mother Ann Lee, moved to New York with eight loyal followers in 1774. As it was for many religious groups on the fringe of society at the time, the United States was seen as an opportunity for religious freedom away from the traditional structures of European cultures. Unfortunately, this was not initially the case for the Shakers. Persecution followed them to their new land, and the small group of Shakers who migrated rapidly found themselves impoverished, with no new members to their faith. It took years to build their community, and it was not until the 1780s that they began to steadily attract members. June Sprigg, a Shaker historian and curator based in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, has suggested that this key change was likely linked to the fact that Shakerism offered a unique calm and respite for those weary from war in the later years of the American Revolution.

Mother Anne did not live to see the future success of the Shaker communities–she passed away in 1784, ten years after moving to the United States. The first steps into the communal living and utopian ideals that became so inherently linked with the Shakers began in the early 1790s. Mother Ann’s successors faced the challenge of establishing rules of order to ensure their approach to communal living was a success. Initially, the Shakers lived in cramped quarters and had to ration food as they all lived and worked on a single farm. Even in these early days, focus was placed on the community rather than the individual, and members worked together to provide what was needed for survival. This approach to daily life and spirituality bled into their design approach, to the point where Shaker spiritual beliefs and design became one in the same.

The Shakers’ agrarian approach to life led to a number of innovations in machinery and domestic objects, such as brooms and baskets, to support their work. Baskets were produced by almost all Shaker communities in a variety of shapes and sizes and were used for agricultural purposes as well as personal use.

The NGV has recently acquired a large Shaker gathering basket of the late nineteenth century. The large scale and tight weave of this basket suggests that it was made to collect harvested fruit, possibly apples. The sturdy double handles meant that the basket, once heavy with picked fruit, could be carried by two people. Ash was the wood of choice for Shaker basketry as it was easy to split, manipulate and weave.

The Shaker community founded in 1787 at New Lebanon, New York, became the primary community and exemplar of the Shakers’ way of life. Each community comprised a number of ‘families’, from two to eight depending on the number of members. Each family could number a few dozen to a few hundred members and were akin to neighborhoods. Families were located within walking distance of each other but lived distinctly as their own unit. Each family had its own dwelling house, workshops and barns, but within each community the primary family was where the meeting house for worship was located.1¹June Sprigg, Shaker Design, Whitney Museum of
American Art, New York, 1986, p. 17.

Unlike other religious communities seeking a utopian way of life, the Shakers were celibate. Their communities were therefore set up to keep the sexes separated. While men and women shared one dwelling house, there were separate wings for each sex and children who joined the communities with their parents or as wards were housed in separate buildings and cared for by elders of the same sex. The communal and celibate nature of the Shakers meant that membership was not for the faint of heart. Many families operated in a tiered system which enabled people to trial life within a Shaker community and move up through levels of commitment as their faith developed.

The Shakers’ consistent approach to design came from their pursuit of a uniformity of experience. Simplicity and cleanliness informed their making as a result of Mother Ann, who taught that the outer world reflected the inner world. She preached a life that eschewed unnecessary material goods and luxuries, inadvertently creating a unique design approach that would later be celebrated outside of their utopian world.

Shaker works are a celebration of proportion and form – colours were in a limited palette and works were devoid of ornament. A key feature of Shaker dwellings was the inclusion of peg rails around the walls of rooms (the NGV has recently acquired two examples from c. 1870). These rails were placed around the interior walls of Shaker communal spaces and bedrooms to enable furniture, clothes and objects to be hung from them. This reflected an early edict from Mother Ann that prioritised cleanliness and hygiene in order to reflect a pure spirit. She is quoted as saying, ‘There is no dirt in heaven … good spirits will not live where there is dirt’.²ibid This ideology permeated many Shaker designs, including their chairs, which were lightweight so they could be hung on peg rails to enable easier cleaning of the floors. This design approach to cleanliness also meant that the Shakers became well known for their finely crafted brushes and brooms. Examples of these can be found in the NGV Collection, including seven handheld brushes of the late nineteenth century that were likely used for cleaning tasks both inside dwellings as well as cleaning machinery. The NGV Collection also includes a traditional straw broom, dust mop and rug beater, all used in the service of keeping Shaker dwellings clean.

Shaker design has been appreciated for its simplicity of form, craftsmanship and beauty for over two hundred years. While advances in the modern world and the Shakers’ commitment to celibacy led to a rapid decline in their communities during the early twentieth century, their legacy of design, craftsmanship and spirituality lives on in each piece crafted by their patient hands.

Imogen Mallia-Valjan is NGV Assistant Curator, International Decorative Arts and Design.

The NGV warmly thanks the Marjorie Josephs-Wilks Bequest for the support of these acquisitions.

This essay was first published in Issue 57 | NGV Magazine Mar–Apr 2026.

Notes