The Spirit Drawings of Hannah Cohoon: Window on the Shakers and Their Folk Art

THE SHAKERS SAID that they did not allow or approve of art; yet one of the major legacies of their early nineteenth-century revival period was a small, but engaging, collection of drawings. 1Between 1830 and 1860, visionaries of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing produced a series of drawings which document a unique moment in Shaker history-unique not only because of the spirit manifestations which assured the abiding presence of the Heavenly Parents for the Shaker communities, but because of the artistic venture itself. 2 While