The new film “The Testament of Ann Lee” follows the Shaker religious leader’s rise in England in the 1700s and her travels to America. Once here, the Shakers established several villages across the Northeast, including in Canterbury, New Hampshire.
NHPR’s Morning Edition host Rick Ganley spoke with Kyle Sandler and Shirley Wajda from the Canterbury Shaker Village about the history behind the film.
Transcript
Kyle, let me start with you. Tell us about who Ann Lee is and why her beliefs were considered revolutionary in England in the 1700s.
Ann Lee was a Protestant Christian leader in the 18th century. She was born in 1736, in Manchester, England, and Ann Lee from her earliest days – and this is stuff we get from Shaker primary source material – she wants to become more connected with God, and she has this sense of sinfulness.
And in 1770, she has this miraculous vision, and her central takeaway from the vision is that the cause of all man's troubles, suffering, ails, is lust. And so if you can live a celibate life, that is going to bring you closer to God. That's sort of the central aspect of Ann Lee's message.
But this belief in celibacy, this belief in a return of the Christ spirit to earth in the embodiment of a woman or coming through a woman, means that the Shakers develop different principles than would have been in the mainstream at the time.
Do they suffer some persecution in Britain because of that? I'm wondering why Lee and followers decided to come to America.
They do. They face persecution very early on, and Ann Lee herself is imprisoned on several occasions, particularly after her 1770 revelation. It's this imprisonment and persecution they face with the general populace there that really leads them to make the critical decision to move from Manchester to the British colonies in North America.
Shirley, when they first came to America, how did they come in and spread throughout the Northeast? I know there were communities throughout the region.
Right. They actually begin with an 11-week journey across the Atlantic and land in New York City. And Lee and her followers find jobs. Several of them travel up the Hudson River to locate a piece of land to rent and then to buy near Watervliet, New York. And they begin to build their first community there. And from that place they set out missionaries. So they go to all of the New England states except for Vermont. The Revolutionary War is going on at the time, and it's basically over in the North. It's still being fought through 1781 in the South.
Kyle, you interact with visitors at the museum all the time. What do you think it is about the Shakers and Ann Lee's movement that seems to resonate with people now?
Ann Lee, and I think the early Shakers in particular – whether you agree with their principles or their ideas or not, there was something special about these people to be able to come over on a boat, go to this remote wilderness area and these remote towns, and really be able to inspire the population to make what is, at the end of the day, a pretty radical lifestyle change. So you just get this feeling that there's something going on here that is special, that is inspiring, when you look at that part of the history.
How about you, Shirley? What do you think resonates with people today about the Shakers?
For me, they have an outsized impact on American culture, I think, because of the way they've stayed true to their principles of celibacy, communitarianism, pacifism, gender and racial equity. These are all goals that we as a nation wish to achieve, right? And so the Shakers become this wonderful example that it can be done. When I think about this idea of a more perfect union, the Shakers kind of get there in some really interesting ways.
