this means. Mikkelsen says of the Jansonists that their "letters home
concerning the new country paved the way for that mighty tide of
Swedish immigration which in a few years began to roll in upon
Illinois and the Northwest."

The Shakers are the oldest and the largest communistic sect to find a
congenial home in America. The cult originated in Manchester, England,
with Ann Lee, a "Shaking Quaker" who never learned to read or write
but depended upon revelation for doctrine and guidance. "By a direct
revelation," says the Shaker Compendium, she was "instructed to come
to America." Obedient to the vision, she sailed from Liverpool in the
summer of 1774, accompanied by six men and two women, among whom were
her husband, a brother, and a niece. This little flock settled in the
forests near Albany, New York. Abandoned by her husband, the
prophetess went from place to place, proclaiming her peculiar
doctrines. Soon she became known as "Mother Ann" and was reputed to
have supernatural powers. At the time of her death in 1784 she had
numerous followers in western New England and eastern New York.

In 1787 they founded their first Shaker community at Mount Lebanon.
Within a few years other societies were organized in New York,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Connecticut. On the wave of
the great religious revival at the beginning of the nineteenth
century their doctrines were carried west. The cult achieved its
highest prosperity in the decade following 1830, when it numbered
eighteen societies and about six thousand members.

In shrewd and capable hands, the sect soon had both an elaborate
system of theology based upon the teachings of Mother Ann and also an
effective organization. The communal life, ordaining celibacy, based