Simple Gifts Images

Songwriter, Joseph Brackett, Jr.

Brackett was an elder in the Shaker community at Alfred, Maine.

Aaron Copland

The 20th-century American composer revived the Shaker song “Simple Gifts” by placing it within his score for Appalachian Spring, a 1944 ballet.

Shaker Furniture

Shaker furniture was designed with the belief that “beauty rests on utility.”

Shaker Dance

The well-known lithographer D.W. Kellogg prepared this lithograph.

More Shaker Dance

A visitor prepared this sketch in the 1840s.

Original Community, ca. 1870

The Watervliet Shaker village was the site of the original Shaker community (then labeled Niskeyuna).