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SHAKER WOMEN AND SEXUAL POWER: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the Shaker Village of Harvard, Massachusetts
This article traces the careers of Roxalana Grosvenor and Fidelia Grosvenor, members of the Shaker village of Harvard, Massachusetts, whom the community expelled in 1865 for claiming a divine call to introduce the celibate Shakers to a new dispensation based on procreation. Examining the Shakers' "orthodox" position on celibacy as well as the changing range of ideas concerning sexuality and female power found within Shakerism in the mid- to late-nineteenth century provides a context in which to assess the Grosvenors' heresy, its challenge to Shaker orthodoxy, and its impact on Shaker women.
In 1865, Roxalana Grosvenor and Fidelia Grosvenor, members of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing (more commonly known as Believers or Shakers), were expelled from the Shaker village of Harvard, Massachusetts, for heresy. To the Believers, the sisters' claim to a divine call to introduce procreation to the celibate sect was especially dangerous because they were visible leaders in the community. The Grosvenors' position as female authority figures, however, was not unique. Shakerism provided many women with opportunities to participate in the public sphere that were denied them in the outside world. From the beginning of the movement, Shaker sisters at Harvard and in other communities served as powerful and effective leaders, writers, historians, and theologians. At issue between the Grosvenor sisters and the Harvard Shakers, then, was not women's participation in the public sphere, but the source and nature of their power within that sphere -- and here sexuality was key.
Both the Grosvenors and the Shakers of their community believed that sexuality was a powerful force, but they disagreed upon how to channel that energy. The Shakers argued that celibacy was the appropriate (if paradoxical) manifestation of sexual power and the proper source of female power. Though the Believers' views on sexuality were never static, they always held that celibacy -- a total eradication of the sexual self -- was an essential element in salvation. This belief constituted the core of their orthodox position. The Grosvenors' radical challenge to this belief was that female power came through active sexuality. To fully understand the Grosvenor controversy, I will first examine the Shakers' orthodox position,...