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To: nickcarraway

Shakers had a low birth rate. Below replacement.

But they knew how to shake it. And made decent furniture in calmer moments.


4 posted on 01/06/2017 8:53:15 PM PST by lurk (TEat)
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To: lurk
Shakers had a low birth rate. Below replacement. That's because they believed in celibacy.

Most Shaker communities were adopted orphanages. At a certain age, the orphans were allowed to leave if they chose to leave. Some remained. Unlike the Amish or Mennonites, Quakers and Shakers weren't adverse to technology. William Penn was a wealthy Quaker who led the pioneering of what is now called Pennsylvania. The Rotary Saw was a Shaker invention. Like most denominations, Shakers lasted about 200-300 years. Shakers evolved from the Quakers, because they would congregate, dance, then "shake" out their sins. Quakers or Religious Society of Friends, were named from George Fox circa 1650 when Church of England magistrates charged them with blasphemy. Fox is reported to have warned the magistrates they should quake before the Word of God, while the magistrates warned Fox he would quake before their rule of the law. They were then identified as Quakers associated with their more leaning on mystical qualities of spiritualism, than Protestantism had become. Puritans in the colonies considered them heretics because the Quakers believed every human had an inner light which could commune with God, while the Calvinist tradition held to the total depravity of the natural man.

19 posted on 01/07/2017 7:29:18 AM PST by Cvengr ( Adversity in life & death is inevitable; Stress is optional through faith in Christ.)
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