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This Chosen Pleasant Hill: Shakers of the Kentucky Bluegrass
The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, commonly called “Shakers,” created a thriving community in the Kentucky Bluegrass beginning soon after 1805. Located near the high palisades over the Kentucky River in Mercer County, Pleasant Hill prospered for over a century, an example of religious devotion made manifest in a setting of architectural and agricultural beauty. Shaker life at Pleasant Hill had many facets, both spiritual and temporal. This meticulously researched and richly illustrated volume presents a fresh exploration of many aspects of life at Pleasant Hill, ranging from the site’s natural setting and its historical and spiritual underpinnings, to the community’s complex ethnic, racial, and gender dynamics, and its plentiful domestic economy. *********************************** Carol Medlicott is a historical geographer in the Department of History at Northern Kentucky University. Her work considers various aspects of the western Shaker experience and of early Shaker expansion, including settlement patterns, leadership, cultural interaction, cartography, and music. Her major books addressing the Shaker west are Issachar A Shaker's Journey (University Press of New England, 2013) and Richard McNemar and the Music of the Shaker West (co-authored with Christian Goodwillie, Kent State University Press, 2013). Christian Goodwillie is director and curator of special collections and archives in the Burke Library at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He has served as the president of the Communal Studies Association and was honored with their Distinguished Scholar Award in 2021. Goodwillie has authored, co-authored, or edited, twelve books on the Shakers and Freemasonry, as well as publishing numerous articles.
- GenresHistory
291 pages, Perfect Paperback
Published January 1, 2022
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October 25, 2023
The Inspiring Stories of a Utopian Community We Still Visit
My wife and I have just returned from a family reunion at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, south of Lexington, Kentucky, a marvelous historical nonprofit that our family has visited for more than 40 years. Our surprise in this visit was the appearance of Carol Medlicott's and Christian Goodwillie's 2022 book about Pleasant Hill. The 3,000-plus-acre multi-faceted facility now displays copies of their book in at least some of the guest rooms—plus we bought our own copy in the village gift shop to take home for our Shaker library.
My wife and I fell in love with Pleasant Hill in the late 1970s, when the village was just developing its historical exhibits in many of the dozens of existing Shaker buildings as well as its overnight guest lodging and its main dining room, featuring traditional Kentucky cuisine. For most of the intervening decades, we visited Pleasant Hill twice a year, including a family visit for our children to explore the miles of trails along the Kentucky River palisades and connected streams and then a family reunion each autumn that drew family members from across the United States.
Our travels paused in recent years partly due to health issues with some key family members and then COVID took its toll. Sometimes in the past, our autumn reunions at Pleasant Hill drew nearly 40 family members. This time, we had 14, but loved the return to Pleasant Hill just as fondly as in past visits.
So what exactly is in this book?
If you're intrigued by my description of this beloved site, then you will enjoy a visit even more if you purchase a copy of this book. I am giving this book 5 stars for its broad array of articles about Pleasant Hill. This new volume has now become, in our view, The Book to purchase about this site. (There have been others in the past, including a lovely coffee table book of photographs that we own.)
This book opens to a 2-page, full-color map of the village, making it perfect as a companion to your visit. Then, chapters cover everything from "What is a Shaker?" to "Vocal Music at Pleasant Hill" (if you know anything about Shakers, it's almost certainly the song Simple Gifts), plus special chapters on "Black Shakers at Pleasant Hill" and "Textile Production at Pleasant Hill" and "Brooms and the Broom Industry."
Unlike some American utopian communities that sprang up in rural areas, the Shakers were eager to develop new technologies and are credited with introducing flat brooms (thanks to a clever style of flattening and stitching brooms), seeds in paper packets (Shaker seeds once were the gold standard of garden seeds) and other innovations.
If you do decide to visit Pleasant Hill, someday, I would urge you to plan very early. Overnight rooms tend to fill up fast throughout the year. My wife and I also would urge you to plan for at least a two-night stay so that you can enjoy the full range of meals in the main dining room and have a chance to take part in the many daily programs—or the hikes through the gorgeous Kentucky hills.
If you do have a copy of this book, then you'll understand all that surrounds you in this enormous historical site.
Is this the best book to read about the Shakers in general?
No.
This book does have general information about Shakers, but is specific to Pleasant Hill much like an art museum or historical museum companion book to a big exhibition would focus on the artifacts on display.
However, this review also is an opportunity for me to share some of our all-time favorite books on the Shaker movement—books that have been on our library shelves for re-reading and sharing with friends over many years.
First and foremost, we recommend The Shaker Experience in America, which really set the bar for further historical writing about the Shakers when it appeared in 1992 by the late Stephen J. Stein. As a journalist who occasionally was able to write about the Shakers for national newspapers, I had the pleasure of interviewing Stein a couple of times. He is best known for his teaching at Indiana University and he served as a president of the American Society of Church History. We also recommend, for a shorter and more personal account, the Letters from a Young Shaker that Stein published in 1985—a book that also focuses specifically on Pleasant Hill.
Those of us who have been closely involved in following the developments at Shaker historical sites since the 1970s also have books by June Sprigg on our shelves. A noted historian and curator of Shaker artifacts, Sprigg produced a series of books that, in our first decade or two of visiting Shaker sites, were regarded as essential reading. We own her classic By Shaker Hands and we also especially enjoy her Shaker: Life, Work and Art. These are books intended to immerse readers in Shaker design as it related to their spirituality and communal culture.
Want something specifically on the Shaker legacy of music? We continue to recommend an earlier book that Christian Goodwillie helped to produce: Shaker Songs—A Musical Celebration of Peace, Harmony and Simplicity. Quite a few used copies are available online and you may find it in your local library. We also own a copy of the Oxford University Press book, Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring by Annegret Fauser, because Copland's masterpiece really pushed Simple Gifts into the heart of American culture.
Finally, you can still find used copies of the companion book that Ken Burns and his wife published way back when they produced their second-ever major documentary, focusing on the Shakers in 1984. My wife and I attended the "Friends" gathering in Pleasant Hill the year the Burns' were barnstorming the country showing their documentary as it made its way toward a PBS broadcast. We still remember them giving a filmmakers' talk to the Friends. That documentary is available to stream and also to own on DVD and remains the best single documentary on the Shaker movement.
My wife and I have just returned from a family reunion at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, south of Lexington, Kentucky, a marvelous historical nonprofit that our family has visited for more than 40 years. Our surprise in this visit was the appearance of Carol Medlicott's and Christian Goodwillie's 2022 book about Pleasant Hill. The 3,000-plus-acre multi-faceted facility now displays copies of their book in at least some of the guest rooms—plus we bought our own copy in the village gift shop to take home for our Shaker library.
My wife and I fell in love with Pleasant Hill in the late 1970s, when the village was just developing its historical exhibits in many of the dozens of existing Shaker buildings as well as its overnight guest lodging and its main dining room, featuring traditional Kentucky cuisine. For most of the intervening decades, we visited Pleasant Hill twice a year, including a family visit for our children to explore the miles of trails along the Kentucky River palisades and connected streams and then a family reunion each autumn that drew family members from across the United States.
Our travels paused in recent years partly due to health issues with some key family members and then COVID took its toll. Sometimes in the past, our autumn reunions at Pleasant Hill drew nearly 40 family members. This time, we had 14, but loved the return to Pleasant Hill just as fondly as in past visits.
So what exactly is in this book?
If you're intrigued by my description of this beloved site, then you will enjoy a visit even more if you purchase a copy of this book. I am giving this book 5 stars for its broad array of articles about Pleasant Hill. This new volume has now become, in our view, The Book to purchase about this site. (There have been others in the past, including a lovely coffee table book of photographs that we own.)
This book opens to a 2-page, full-color map of the village, making it perfect as a companion to your visit. Then, chapters cover everything from "What is a Shaker?" to "Vocal Music at Pleasant Hill" (if you know anything about Shakers, it's almost certainly the song Simple Gifts), plus special chapters on "Black Shakers at Pleasant Hill" and "Textile Production at Pleasant Hill" and "Brooms and the Broom Industry."
Unlike some American utopian communities that sprang up in rural areas, the Shakers were eager to develop new technologies and are credited with introducing flat brooms (thanks to a clever style of flattening and stitching brooms), seeds in paper packets (Shaker seeds once were the gold standard of garden seeds) and other innovations.
If you do decide to visit Pleasant Hill, someday, I would urge you to plan very early. Overnight rooms tend to fill up fast throughout the year. My wife and I also would urge you to plan for at least a two-night stay so that you can enjoy the full range of meals in the main dining room and have a chance to take part in the many daily programs—or the hikes through the gorgeous Kentucky hills.
If you do have a copy of this book, then you'll understand all that surrounds you in this enormous historical site.
Is this the best book to read about the Shakers in general?
No.
This book does have general information about Shakers, but is specific to Pleasant Hill much like an art museum or historical museum companion book to a big exhibition would focus on the artifacts on display.
However, this review also is an opportunity for me to share some of our all-time favorite books on the Shaker movement—books that have been on our library shelves for re-reading and sharing with friends over many years.
First and foremost, we recommend The Shaker Experience in America, which really set the bar for further historical writing about the Shakers when it appeared in 1992 by the late Stephen J. Stein. As a journalist who occasionally was able to write about the Shakers for national newspapers, I had the pleasure of interviewing Stein a couple of times. He is best known for his teaching at Indiana University and he served as a president of the American Society of Church History. We also recommend, for a shorter and more personal account, the Letters from a Young Shaker that Stein published in 1985—a book that also focuses specifically on Pleasant Hill.
Those of us who have been closely involved in following the developments at Shaker historical sites since the 1970s also have books by June Sprigg on our shelves. A noted historian and curator of Shaker artifacts, Sprigg produced a series of books that, in our first decade or two of visiting Shaker sites, were regarded as essential reading. We own her classic By Shaker Hands and we also especially enjoy her Shaker: Life, Work and Art. These are books intended to immerse readers in Shaker design as it related to their spirituality and communal culture.
Want something specifically on the Shaker legacy of music? We continue to recommend an earlier book that Christian Goodwillie helped to produce: Shaker Songs—A Musical Celebration of Peace, Harmony and Simplicity. Quite a few used copies are available online and you may find it in your local library. We also own a copy of the Oxford University Press book, Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring by Annegret Fauser, because Copland's masterpiece really pushed Simple Gifts into the heart of American culture.
Finally, you can still find used copies of the companion book that Ken Burns and his wife published way back when they produced their second-ever major documentary, focusing on the Shakers in 1984. My wife and I attended the "Friends" gathering in Pleasant Hill the year the Burns' were barnstorming the country showing their documentary as it made its way toward a PBS broadcast. We still remember them giving a filmmakers' talk to the Friends. That documentary is available to stream and also to own on DVD and remains the best single documentary on the Shaker movement.
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