- This event has passed.
Celebrating New Hampshire’s Shakers
February 3 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Celebrating New Hampshire’s Shakers
“No Foolish Play”
Saturday, February 3, 2024
2:00 pm
New Hampshire Historical Society
30 Park St, Concord, NH
In 1774 a band of eight religious refugees arrived in New York from Manchester, England. Their leader, Mother Ann Lee, preached a radical new religion, derisively called “Shakerism.” Over the next 20 years converts to this new faith stablished 19 Shaker communities in the East and Midwest, including two vibrant Shaker villages at Canterbury and Enfield, New Hampshire. Known for their simple yet elegant style of living, the Shakers also made racial and gender equality, stewardship of resources, honesty in business, celibacy, and pacifism hallmarks of their communal life.
“No Foolish Play”: Celebrating New Hampshire’s Shakers commemorates the anniversary of the Shakers’ arrival in America and explores the sect’s legacy with a talk by Shaker scholar and musician Mary Ann Haagen, with a performance of Shaker music by the Canterbury Singers under the direction of Kathryn Lundahl. Admission is free for New Hampshire Historical Society members; $7 for nonmembers. No registration required.
Want to know more about Mary Ann Haagen?
Mary Ann Haagen is a long-time independent Shaker scholar whose research focuses on the Enfield, New Hampshire Shaker Society. She has been active in the work of the Enfield Shaker Museum since 1987 and is the founding director of the Enfield Shaker Singers. In 2012, Mary Ann compiled and edited The Collected Writings of Henry Cummings. Currently, she is also a visiting scholar in the Music Department at Dartmouth College.