Shoe

Description

Hand-sewn shoes with blue prunella tops and three pairs of steel eyelets for lacing. Sole and stacked heel made of leather, with the heel measuring 1 1/4". Lined with a blue and white striped cotton fabric. Initials "SR" cross-stitched in red on the inner right-hand sides of the shoes.

Notes

In 1824 the custom of wearing special shoes in meeting had become well enough established so that the new Meetinghouse included "shoe rooms." Brothers and sisters who came to meeting would exchange their regular shoes for meeting shoes that would not make unsightly black streaks on the otherwise pristine floor on which Shakers performed their religious dances. Shakers made meeting shoes specifically to coordinate with their meeting dress and to enhance the visual effect of the dance. In 1857 Benson J. Lossing described the meeting shoes he had seen during a visit to the Mount Lebanon community as "sharp-toed and high heeled, according to the fashion of the day when the Society was formed...made of prunella (a heavy wool fabric used on the upper part), of a brilliant ultramarine blue."[1] This pair of sisters meeting shoes was made and used at Canterbury, NH. As the Shakers in all communities worked hard to emulate the clothing worn at Mount Lebanon, it should be expected that they would be very similar to those described by Lossing. The shoes are "straight shoes," that is, with no difference between the right one and the left. They are made of two layers of cloth, a solid wool (prunella) on the outside and a cotton, blue with white stripe inside. Henry Blinn, Canterbury elder, writing about the dress of Believers described meeting shoes made at Canterbury: "all were formed on straight lasts, the toes of which came to a very sharp point." High heels, one-and-one-half to two-inches high, were common on the earliest sisters shoes but low heels became more common. All of the heels were set forward about one-and-one-half inches from the back end of the shoe. [2] On the inside of both shoes, in very small, red, cross-stitching, are the initials "S.R.," suggesting that they were worn by Susan Ridout, a member of the Church Family. [1] Benson John Lossing, "The Shakers," Harper's New Monthly Magazine 15 (July 1857): 164-177. [2] Henry Clay Blinn, ed. by Bertha Lindsay, The World of Shaker 4 (Winter 1874) 2.