Richard W. Couper Press

American Communal Societies Quarterly (ACSQ)

This quarterly periodical includes scholarly articles and reprints of important historical documents. Randall L. Ericson serves as editor of ACSQ.

A one year subscription is $35.00
A two year subscription is $65.00

To subscribe, contact Mark Tillson (mtillson@hamilton.edu, 315-859-4705) or send a check made out to "Trustees of Hamilton College" for the desired subscription to:

Hamilton College Library
Attn: Mark Tillson
198 College Hill Rd.
Clinton, NY 13323

Volume 7, no. 1 - January 2013 Buy now

Front cover illustration: Labels from Shaker medicinal herb products, New Lebanon, New York.

Table of contents

• Oneida Community Gender Relations -- In Context and Over Time, by Anthony Wonderley
• The Passing Hour: An Unrecorded Shaker Periodical
• Magnetism Among the Shakers, by C. M. Sedgwick
• A Comparison of the Shaker Medicinal Herb Industries in Mount Lebanon and Groveland, New York, by Paige Cross

Volume 6, no. 4 - October 2012 Buy now
Front cover illustration: A. J. White label die proofs.

Table of contents

• The Miller Collection Comes to Hamilton College Library, by M. Stephen Miller
• An Interview with Steve Miller, conducted by Christian Goodwillie
• Selections from the Miller Collection, by M. Stephen Miller

Volume 6, no. 3 - July 2012 Buy now
Front cover illustration: Purnell, Mary. The Comforter: The Mother's Book, Benton Harbor, Mich.: Israelite House of David, [1908]-1912.

Table of contents

• The Richmond Family and the Shakers, by Stephen J. Paterwic
• Communal Vegetarianism: the Sacred Diet of Mary's City of David, by Julieanna Frost
• Johann Christoph Müller: Harmonist Pioneer, Composer, and Apostate, by Emily Lapisardi
   

Volume 6, no. 2 - April 2012 Buy now
Front cover illustration: Handbills announcing the new postal address for Mount Lebanon.

Table of contents

• Daniel Pierce Thompson and "The Shaker Lovers": Portraying the Shakers in Fiction and on the Stage, by Brian L. Bixby and Jill Mudgettt
• "The mighty hand of overruling providence": The Shaker Claim to America, by Jane F. Crosthwaite
• A Treasury of Shaker Ephemera Rediscovered at the Western Reserve Historical Society, by Christian Goodwillie

Volume 6, no. 1 - January 2012 Buy now
Front cover illustration: Harvard, Massachusetts, Shaker village, ca. 1860.

Table of contents

• Brother Ricardo Belden Revisited, by Magda Gabor-Hotchkiss
• The Shakers in Eighteenth-Century Newspapers.
• Part Three: "Calvin" versus "A Lover of Truth," Abusing Caleb Rathbun, the Death of Joseph Meacham and the Tale of His Sister, by Christian Goodwillie
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Conservation of the Earliest Known Shaker Architectural Image: The Ambrotype of the South Family, Harvard, Massachusetts

Volume 5, no. 4 - October 2012 Buy now
Front cover illustration: Shaker Buying Ground, Harvard, Mass. The picture shows the Harvard Shaker cemetery with both stone and metal markers.

Table of contents

• The Harvard Shaker Cemetery, by Roben Campbell
• The Tribulations of the White Water Shakers: The Child Molestation Trial of 1840, by Thomas Sakmyster
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Volume 5, no. 3 - July 2011 Buy now
Front cover illustration: Garden seeds, raised at New Lebanon, New York, printed by Packard & Van Benthusen, between 1816 and 1824.

Table of contents

• From the Editor
• Peter Ayers, Defender of the Faith, by Galen Beale
• Making the Bible Argument: John H. Noyes' Mission Statement for the Oneida Community, by Anthony Wonderley
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - New Publications from Richard W. Couper Press

Volume 5, no. 2 - April 2011 Buy now
Front cover illustration: Detail from the engraved title page of Martyrer-Spiegel der Tauffs-gesinnten, druckts und verlegts der Brüderschaft in Euphrata (The Martyr's Mirror).

Table of contents

• From the Editor
• How the Harmonists Suffered Disharmony: Schism in Communal Utopias, by Donald E. Pitzer
• The Story of Brother Ricardo’s Song, by Darryl Charles Thompson
• Pilgrims and Martyrs: The Engraved Title Page of Ephrata’s Martyrs Mirror, by Jeff Bach
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Reopening the Rare Book Room
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Volume 5, no. 1 - January 2011 Buy now
Front cover illustration: Amana Society. Indigo Blue. Prints. [Product label]. 1890s.

Table of contents

• From the Editor
• “Freedom of the Press is Guaranteed Only to those Who Own the Presses,” by Henry M. Yaple
• Two Early Photographs of Amana, by Peter Hoenle
• The Shakers in Eighteenth-Century Newspapers.
  Part Two: Voyages of the Shaker Ship and Other Adventures, both Legal and Social, by Christian Goodwillie
• Richard W. Couper Press order form

Volume 4, no. 4 - October 2010 Buy now
Front cover illustration: Detail from "The Celebrated Black Shaker Song." Wood engraving on paper, 1855. Collection of the John Hay Library, Brown University.

Table of contents

• From the Editor
• Black Shaker Minstrels and the Comic Performance of Shaker Worship, by Robert P. Emlen
• Medical Practice in the Harvard Shaker Church Family 1834-1843, by Merry B. Post
• Shaker Seminar 2010
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Volume 4, no. 3 - July 2010 Buy now
Front cover illustration: "General View of our Journey and of Several States" map from the Youngs/Kendall collection, collection of the Library of Congress.

Table of contents

• From the Editor
• "We Live at a Great Distance from the Church": Cartographic Strategies of the Shakers, 1805-1835, by Carol Medlicott
• The Shakers in Eighteenth-Century Newspapers.
  Part One: "From a Spirit of Detraction and Slander" by Christian Goodwillie
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"

Volume 4, no. 2  - April 2010 Buy now
Front cover illustration: House of David Jellies and Jams [Product label], 1950s.

Table of contents

• From the Editor
• The History of the Shaker Gathering Order, by Stephen J. Paterwic
• The Mob at Enfield, Introduction by Elizabeth De Wolfe, and A Statement Concerning the Mob at Enfield
• The Shakers of Canterbury: Their Agriculture and Their Machinery, by Elizabeth Gleason Bervy
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions
  - News from Richard W. Couper Press

Volume 4, no. 1 - January 2010 Buy now
Front cover illustration: The Ballance Family, ca. 1852, oil on canvas, by James Wilkins in Peoria, Illinois. Table of contents

• From the Editor
• Strangers Along the Trail: Peoria's Shaker Apostates Enter the World, by Patricia L. Goitein
• Benn Pitman's "Visit to the Shaker Settlement--Whitewater Village, O.", Introduction by David D. Newell
• "Cummings and Goings": The Impact of Shakerism on the Family of Edward T. Cummings, by Mary Ann Haagen
• Remembering Gus Kermes, by Sandra A. Soule
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Visiting the Shakers, 1850-1859 Goes to Press
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

 Volume 3, no. 4 - October 2009  Buy now
Front cover illustration: A caricature by an artist named Korman drawn between 1910 and 1921. Illustrated are Hancock Shakers Alexander and Ritcho Pettiff, Gladys Smith, and Trustee Frances Hall.

Table of contents

• From the Editor
• Shaker Seminar 2009: Enfield and Canterbury, N.H., by Christian Goodwillie 
• Daughter of the Shakers: The Story of Eleanor Brooks Fairs, by Johanne Grewell
• Birth, Life, and Death of Olive Branch, 1896-1924, by Rev. Vernon Squire
• Remembering Gus Kermes, by Sandra A. Soule
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Volume 3, no. 3 - July 2009 Buy now
Front cover illustration: Ambrotype image of an unidentified Shaker sister, 1850. Among the earliest known images of a Shaker..., by a photographer named Campbell.

Table of contents

• From the Editor
• Conflict and Tribulation on the Frontier: The West Union Shakers and Their Retreat, by Carol Medlicott
• William Adee Whitehead's Visit to the Shakers, Introduction by Elizabeth and Scott De Wolfe [Reprint of Text]
• Letter from Richard McNemar, Introduction by Christian Goodwillie [Reprint of Text]
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - A New Publication for the Couper Press
  - Review of Robert White Jr.: "Spreading the Light of the Gospel." By Stephen J. Paterwic
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Volume 3, no. 2 - April 2009 Buy now
Front cover illustration: A composite image taken from the front and back covers of Cellular Cosmogony (Chicago: Guiding Star Publishing House, 1899).

Table of contents

• From the Editor
• Watervliet Shakers through the Eyes of Oneida Perfectionists, 1863-1875 by Anthony Wonderley
• Heaven in a Hollow Earth: The Shaker-Koreshan Connection by Christian Goodwillie
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions 

Volume 3, no. 1 - January 2009  Buy now
Front cover illustration: A Sketch of the Experience of Solomon Chamberlin..., 1829

Table of contents

• From the Editor
• Celebrating and Sacralizing Violence: Testimonies Concerning Ann Lee and the Early Shakers, by Stephen J. Stein
• "Rather Than Ever Milk Again": Shaker Sisters' Refusal to Milk at Mount Lebanon and Watervliet - 1873-1877, by Lauren A. Stiles
• The Abuse of Spirit Messages during the Shaker Era of Manifestations: "A hard time of it in this hurrycane of gifts, to know what is revelation and what is not," by Glendyne Wergland
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Volume 2, no. 4 - October 2008  Buy now
Front cover illustration: Shaker Sarsaparilla [Advertising Broadside].

Table of contents

• From the Editor
• Shaker Seminar 2008, by Christian Goodwillie
• Putting Sodus Shaker Village on the Map, by Walter Brumm
• New Lebanon's Gifts to the Western New York Shakers, by Stephen J. Paterwic
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Volume 2, no. 3 - July 2008  Buy now
Front cover illustration: Group of Shakers. [Group of seventeen Sisters and Brothers from the Mount Lebanon North Family of Shakers in front of the 1818 North Family dwelling house]. [Stereoview: detail]

Table of contents

• From the Editor
• "Late Recruits for Britain": Anti-Shaker Propaganda During the American Revolution
  Introduction by David D. Newell
  Reprint of the 1782 Dialogue
• Harmonisches Gesangbuch 1827: The Hymnal of a Religious Community in Early Nineteenth-Century America, by Hedwig T. Durnbaugh
• From the Russells to the Pilots: The Beginning and End of North Union, by Cathie Winans
• Two Publications of Interest
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Volume 2, no. 2 - April 2008 Buy now

Table of contents

• From the Editor
• The Shaker Peace Conference of 1905: Witness and Hope at the North Family of Mount Lebanon, by Stephen Paterwic
• Eros and its Discontents: The Israelite House of David and Their Almost Eden,  by Shannon McRae
• News and Notes, by Walter A. Brumm
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Volume 2, no. 1 - January 2008  Buy now

Table of contents

• From the Editor
• "The Mythical Structure is Created": Planning and Construction of the Center Family Dwelling House, Mount Lebanon, 1856-1868, by Lauren A Stiles
• From Bishop Hill to Pleasant Hill: The Swedish Shaker Experience, by John E. Norton
• News and Notes, by Walter A. Brumm
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Volume 1, no. 4 – October 2007  Buy now

Table of Contents

• From the Editor
• Shaker Seminar 2007: South Union and Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, by Christian Goodwillie
• A Meeting of Angels: Thomas Merton and the Shakers, by Paul M. Pearson
• "Dear Friend and Sister": Laura Holloway-Langford and the Shakers, by Diane Sasson
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions
  - Richard W. Couper Press

Volume 1, no.3 – July 2007 Buy now

Table of Contents

• From the Editor
• Sally Dean and Her Letter to "Respected Friend Phineas"
  - Introduction by Glendyne Wergland
  - Reprint of letters
• The Shaker Leaf Song: Solving a Perplexing Puzzle, by Roger L. Hall
• Church of Christ unto a People in Kentucky
  - Introduction by Ralph Stenstrom
  - Reprint of document
• Comment
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Hamilton College Acquires The Shaker Messenger Archive
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Volume 1, no.2 - April 2007  Buy now

Table of Contents

• From the Editor
• The Copley-Lyman Shaker Family of Enfield, Connecticut: An Annotated Genealogy, by M. Stephen Miller
• Michigan's Siberia: The House of David on High Island, by Clare E. Adkin, Jr.
• News and Notes, by Walter A. Brumm
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions
• News from the Communal Studies Association

Vol. 1, no. 1 - January 2007 Buy now

Table of Contents

• From the Editor
• The Road From Harmony, by Eileen Aiken English
• Mother Lucy's Last Visit to Watervliet
  - Introduction by David D. Newell
  - Reprint of manuscript
• A Sampling of Rare Shaker Broadsides, by Christian Goodwillie
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - Hamilton College Library's Special Collections: An Overview
  - Communal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions

Preview Issue, September 2006 [Sold Out]

Table of Contents

• From the Editor
• Introducing the Richard W. Couper Press
• William Scales' 1789 "Mystery of the People Called Shakers"
  - Introduction by David D. Newell
  - Reprint of Scales' article
• News and Notes, by Walter A. Brumm
• Hamilton College Library "Home Notes"
  - The Shaker Manifesto Digitized
  - New Acquisitions by Hamilton College Library's Communal Societies Collection