A new film depicts the life of the Shaker prophet Ann Lee. But what did her followers write?
by Hunter Ford
This blog is presented in conjunction with the American Writers Museum’s ongoing special exhibit and programming initiative. On display now, American Prophets: Writers, Religion, and Culture is a powerful new exhibit that takes visitors on the ultimate exploration through spirituality and storytelling. Discover rare artifacts and creative works from literature, film, music, and comedy along the way. This isn’t just an exhibit—it’s a shared journey of reflection, inspiration, and connection through the stories that move us all.
It’s a Sunday morning in the 1850s, but you’re not going to church—at least, not your church. The quaint New England village is a short walk from your own; you know the road well, because their farms grow the plumpest gourds and sweetest apricots in the entire county, but you’ve never actually seen the strange ways they’re said to worship. They live in big communal houses painted buttercup-yellow and brick-dust-red, with symmetrical-looking barns and workshops tidily aligned along the footpaths of their peculiar little village.
But the meetinghouse stands out amongst them all, vast and brightly white, with two doors on the long wall perpendicular to the street. You see them streaming in through the doors wearing their identical blue and white outfits, men through one door, women through the other. They’ve opened up their meetings to the world, supposedly to entice people to convert—not that you’d ever consider joining their strange group, of course! But it’s fun to gawk. Sometimes they shriek and babble as worship, bodies twitching and shaking and trembling; this is how, of course, they got their name. They do that in private now, and it’s unusual, but not absurd. What’s absurd is the spectacle that you’re about to see: organized dancing, in the name of Christian worship.
The worshipers all turned their backs to the audience, except those of the two wall rows, and commenced a backward and forward march, or dance, in a regular springing step, keeping time to the music of their voices, while their hands hung closely to their sides. The wall rows alone kept time with their hands moving up and down, the palms turned upward. The singing appeared like a simple refrain and a chorus of too-ral-loo, too-ral-loo, while all the movements with hand, foot, and limb were extremely graceful.
—Benson John Lossing, (“The Shakers,” Harper’s Magazine, 1857)
Who are the Shakers?
As of 1823, the group was officially called The United Society of Believers, but most people then and now know them as the Shakers. The religious sect transcended their apocalyptic, millenarian origins to become one of the most stable and successful communitarian groups in the United States during the 19th and into the 20th centuries. Their uniquely built communities reflected and reinforced their distinct belief systems, with simplicity, hard work, and chastity at the core of their religion. Belief and practice were one and the same for the Shakers, who used the interchangeable language of “consecrated labor” for the divine quality of their daily work and “laboring” for their organized dance.
If you’re familiar with the Shakers, it’s probably because of the legendary craftsmanship of their furniture, or perhaps the legacy of the song “Simple Gifts,” a folk song still sung to this day. Perhaps you’ve been struck by the elegant simplicity of the fully recreated Shaker Room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with its ingeniously multipurpose wall pegs and lovely yet efficient side tables and chairs.
Who is Ann Lee?
You might also have seen the trailer for the new film, The Testament of Ann Lee, a musical drama about the founder and prophet of the Shakers also known as Mother Ann, who lived between 1736 and 1784. Born in Manchester, England, Lee joined a religious sect that branched off from the Society of Friends (the Quakers) to become its own more radical group, preaching gender equality, celibacy, and, later, a utopian style of communitarian living. The religious movement she founded thrived through the 19th and 20th centuries, and still exists with 3 members as of January 2026.
The Writings of the Shakers
As a group, the Shakers have a fascinating relationship with the written word. Ann Lee herself was illiterate, and in the very early days of the sect they entirely eschewed any written documents. The earliest accounts of the group, therefore, come from outsiders and apostates. After Lee’s death in 1784, during the consolidation and codification of their communities and beliefs, published theological documents became necessary to establish the group’s legitimacy.
A Concise Statement of the Principles of the Only True Church of Christ (1785)
The first was written by Ann Lee’s immediate successor, Joseph Meacham. It is interesting in its complete detachment from the unique quirks of Shaker belief; it does not mention the sect’s female prophet, communal living, gender equality, or celibacy. What the Concise Statement does, importantly, is establish the Shaker religion within the history of the Christian religious experience. The connection between “visions and revelations and prophecies,” “spiritual gifts,” and Christ’s second appearing, grounds and legitimizes ecstatic Shaker worship in a continuing history of revelations that began with Abraham. Instead of being a radical break with Christian traditions, the emergence of the Shaker sect is contiguous with the development of Christian beliefs.
Testimony of Christ’s Second Appearing: Containing a General Statement of All Things Pertaining to the Faith and Practice of the Church of God in this Latter-Day (1810)
This trend is continued in a later document written by three residents of the Turtle Creek, Ohio, settlement: Benjamin S. Youngs, David Darrow, and John Meacham. In contrast to the Concise Statement, the Testimony is an incredibly detailed and intellectually rigorous document that cites specific Bible passages, Christian theory, and the writings of prominent theologians such as Jonathan Edwards. It also cites newly-created American political documents such as the Ohio state constitution. The document slyly cites the freedom of religion granted by the Ohio constitution, reinforcing the Shakers’ right to legally practice their religion as they see fit. These political references, as well as a reference to the treachery of Benedict Arnold, establish Shaker mythology alongside that of the fledgling nation. Just as the republic of the United States was a new sociopolitical phenomenon, so too could the Shaker religion be a new religious phenomenon with as much legitimacy and renown.
Unlike the Concise Statement, the Testimony explicitly names Ann Lee as a prophet on the level of Jesus Christ. The Testimony builds the mythology of Ann Lee, establishing that “from her childhood” she was convinced “of the sinfulness and depravity of human nature.” The framing of Lee’s religious convictions as a lifelong pursuit solidifies her legitimacy as a prophet. Her sufferings are also framed in the language of martyrdom:
“Under the most severe tribulation, and violent temptations, as great as she was able to resist and endure, such was, frequently, her extreme agony of soul, that, clinching her hands together, the blood would flow through the pores of her skin.”
Yet the publication of this document established a need for a purpose-written document specifically about Ann Lee’s life and teachings. By the 1810s, living memory of Lee had become the domain only of older members of the sect, and most of these older people lived in eastern towns. Western villages such as Turtle Creek had been established during a period of western expansion of the gospel that began in 1805. Believers who resided in Kentucky and Ohio may not have felt the direct physical legacy of Lee’s influence the way the leadership did in towns where Lee had spent time proselytizing.
Testimonies of the Life, Character, Revelations and Doctrines of Mother Ann Lee, and the Elders with Her (1816)
The ministry therefore assembled a collection of memories of Lee and the founding members of the sect. Unlike the Concise Statement and the Testimony, which were published with the intention of communicating with “worldly” people outside the sect, the Testimonies was only ever intended to be seen by believers. Therefore, it does not represent the Shakers’ attempts to present a theologically unified and publicly defensible statement to the outside world, as the other two documents do. In this light, Testimonies is even more interesting to consider, as it characterizes Lee as erratic, moody, and sometimes contradictory or incoherent. This speaks, perhaps, to a truthfulness within the document, despite it being compiled decades after Lee’s passing.
The word “gift” has a very specific meaning in Shaker theology. It initially referred to “gifts of the spirit” that Ann Lee and her followers had received as part of their communication with the divine. Memories of the prophet Ann Lee were not to be questioned because these memories were in themselves an example of the divine processes associated with Lee’s life and membership in the group. A memory being received as a gift placed it in the Shaker theological tradition as something not to be questioned or criticized, simply because of the very nature of the “gift.”
Thus, to the believers, every memory recounted in the Testimonies was unquestionably true. Yet, as humans, our memories are fallible. Therefore the stories in the Testimonies exist in a strange space of tension between the past and the present. They are presented as entirely truthful but they really reflect the experiences, memories, and feelings of believers at the time of recording in the 1810s. The truth of the Testimonies is not necessarily in its outright statements about Lee’s life. Issues discussed in the Testimonies include Lee’s status as prophet and sect leader; the authority of the current Shaker leadership structure; and historical precedent for practices and beliefs. In other words, this document established continuity between Lee’s actions and current Shaker beliefs and practices. It was a document that aided in the construction and codification of Shaker communities and memory, and was particularly important in the transfer of knowledge between older New England and newer Western settlements.
The Testament of Ann Lee (2025), screenplay by Mona Fastvold & Brady Corbet
Every movie “based on a true story” engages in at least a little mythmaking; usually they engage in quite a lot. In The Testament of Ann Lee, we have a movie musical about a nearly extinct religious sect, adapting an 1810s mythmaking document comprised of miraculously recalled gift memories of a woman who was alive between 1736 and 1784. The layers of memory and myth here are profound and deep. Yet there might still be universal truths which echo through the ages—and I’m relieved that I’m not the only person outside of Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in Maine who cares deeply about this unique and fascinating religious group.
HUNTER FORD (they/them) worked in academic publishing for a decade before moving into the museum world in 2022. With a background in history and a love for historical interpretation, they can often be found talking about spiritualism, the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, nineteenth-century medicine and sanitation, and the lost Franklin expedition. Their contemporary media interests include horror movies and novels.