DETERMINANTS OF MEMBERSHIP LEVELS AND DURATION IN A SHAKER COMMUNE, 1780-1880

Membership levels in Shaker communes and commitment of individual Shak ers were subject to religious and ether forces. Population data in man uscripts from an autonomous subunit of one Shaker community provide en trance and exit dates and limited information on individual members, a nd levels of overall population. It is proposed that the Shakers attra cted ever less well prepared entrants, and were unable to solve the se cond-generation problem of convincing young members to persist in the sect. Over time, entrants were ever more likely to have been urban-bor n, and urban born individuals were more likely to apostatize in the ne xt year than the rural born. The longer members spent in childhood as Shakers the sooner they apostatized. Communities may have acted as a s helter for those especially affected by economic difficulties. Men who joined during recessionary periods were more likely to apostatize soo n than those who joined in boom times, and overall levels of populatio n rose in times of economic recession.