BASKET SHOP

Basket making had always been a craft of the folks with the lowest income. We discovered that Shaker basket making went back into the 1790s and became an industry in the 1820s. Their basket making was the craft of the Church Family Shakers which was the lead family and the elders of this family were the Supreme Leader of all Shakers. The Shakers with their 19 communities were the first wealthy basket makers. The Church Family Shakers at New Lebanon, New York wove over 4,000 basket a year with 6 women working 6 months out of the year. This explains the superb quality and why they were known throughout the 1800s as the makers of the worlds finest baskets... In the early days of our research we were offered by Eldress Bertha Lindsay and Eldress Gertrude Soule, a shop in Canterbury Shaker Village. We opened the first basket shop in a Shaker village in 90 years. For many years we made baskets on original molds at the village while we searched for more of the secrets of the lost craft. On..

Primary location: Hohenwald United States