Shakers
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Shakers. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a religious society of the United States . They are known officially as the United Society of True Believers in Christ's Second Coming. The sect was founded by Ann Lee, a native of Manchester, England, the wife of a blacksmith. She emigrated to America in 1774 to escape persecution. She had become a convert to the Society of Friends. She disturbed the staid English by announcing herself as the prophet to whom Christ had appeared. She taught that at his second coming, he would take the form of a woman. She settled at Water Vliet, near Albany, New York , where she founded the first Shaker community. At her death in 1784 there were three communities. There are now fifteen societies extending from Massachusetts to Kentucky,--in all about 1,000 members. Theologically, the Shakers are universalists. They do not believe in the resurrection of the body. According to the principles and practices of Shakers, property is held in common. There is no marriage or giving in marriage. Married people who join the system are separated. The men and women occupy entirely different parts of the house. The men till the soil or work in the shops; the women do the housework and make the clothing. The communities are said to be models of neatness, both indoors and out. Tobacco and meat, including fish, are forbidden. Alcoholic liquors are served only as remedies. Like the Quakers, from whom Ann Lee no doubt derived her original ideas, communities yield obedience to the laws of the country in which they live, but the men refuse to render military service. During the Civil War considerable discussion arose from the refusal of Shakers to serve, even when drafted; but President Lincoln took their part and ordered their release from imprisonment. They are an industrious, frugal, long-lived people. As the communities consist entirely of adults, they are dependent on the outside world for membership. The sect is declining rapidly in numbers. The common name of Shakers given to the sect by the world was derived from the ecstatic movements, leaping and shouting for joy, formerly a part of their services. See Communism ; Socialism
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a name given to an American sect of celibates of both sexes, founded by Ann Lee, an English emigrant, about 1776, from their using a kind of dance in their religious exercises, but who call themselves the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing. The chief settlement is at Mount Lebanon, N. Y. There are now less than 1,000 members. Their founder was called the Elect Lady, and Mother of all the Elect, and claimed to be the woman mentioned in Rev. xii. The Shakers profess to have passed through death and the resurrection into a state of grace 1 -the resurrection order, in which the love which leads to marriage is not allowed, and are known as brothers and sisters. They abstain from wine and pork, live on the land and shun towns. They cultivate the virtues of sobriety, prudence, and meekness, take no oaths, deprecate law, avoid contention, and repudiate war. They affect to hold communion with the dead, and believe in angels and spirits, not as a theological dogma, but as a practical fact. Their Church is based on these grand ideas: The kingdom of heaven has come, Christ has actually appeared on earth; the personal rule of God has been restored; the old law is abolished; the command to multiply has ceased; Adam's sin has been atoned; the intercourse of heaven and earth has been restored; the curse is taken away from labor; the earth, and all that is on it, will be redeemed; angels and spirits have become, as of old, the familiars and ministers of men. The name was also applied to an English Millenarian sect founded by Mrs. Mary Anne Girling, who gave out that she was a new incarnation of the Deity, and could never die. Her followers established a community on the borders of the New Forest; but Mrs. Girling died on Sept. 18, 1886, and her followers dispersed.