Shaker furniture

[1] The plain style origins of Shaker furniture connect back to the craft traditions of colonial New York and New England.

The furniture brought into early Shaker society were the humble possessions of common people of the day such as farmers, mechanics, and small tradesman.

[2]Shaker communities were largely self-sufficient: in their attempt to separate themselves from the outside world and to create a heaven-on-earth, members grew their own food, constructed their own buildings, and manufactured their own tools and household furnishings.—Metropolitan Museum of Art[1] Furniture was made thoughtfully, with functional form and proportion.

Rather than using ornamentation—such as inlays, carvings, metal pulls, or veneers—which was seen as prideful or deceitful, they developed "creative solutions such as asymmetrical drawer arrangements and multipurpose forms to add visual interest."

Furniture was made from readily available wood[3] such as cherry, maple or pine lumber, which was generally stained or painted with one of the colors which were dictated by the sect, typically blue, red, yellow or green.

[4] A core business for the New Lebanon Shaker community by the 1860s was the production of well-made "ladder" back or turned post chairs.

Shaker ladder back chairs, for instance, deeply influenced the work of an entire generation of postwar Danish designers.