Photograph by Nate Byrum.
Thrilled to finally see "The Ballad of Anne Bunnell: Troubled Families in the Shaker West, 1805-1825" in print!
Recently published in the Journal of American History, this microhistory examines the 1825 suicide of Anne Bunnell, a middle-aged Ohio woman whose husband, Abner, abandoned her to join one of the most radical religious sects of the early national period in American history: the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Coming, or the Shakers. Framed around the Bunnell’s exceptionally detailed family history and divorce case, the argument moves outward to consider the broader impact of radical religious dissent on family life in the trans-Appalachian west. Arriving in southern Ohio in 1805, Shaker missionaries capitalized on widespread ecclesiastical discontent created by the Great Revival (1799–1805) and succeeded in converting hundreds of men and women to their distinctive celibate, communal faith. Most western “young Believers” joined in family groups, but a few men did so in direct opposition to their wives. Abandoned by their seeker husbands, pioneering women such as Anne Bunnell faced devastating emotional loss, social alienation, legal jeopardy, and economic disaster. Western Shakerism thus threatened the orderly expansion of the settlers’ frontier republic. In response, troubled families riven by Shakerism initially turned to violence but later sought legal redress to protect abandoned women. The Ohio and Kentucky legislatures responded by passing new laws that curtailed the rights of Shaker husbands and violated state and federal constitutional provisions guaranteeing religious freedom. Shakerism played an outsized role in shaping the legal meanings and lived experiences of frontier family life, in which men and women increasingly viewed marriage in contractual terms based on mutual affection, rather than a religious sacrament sanctioning patriarchal property rights. Anne Bunnell’s death was the culminating act of defiance in a life spent struggling—and often succeeding—to overcome the entrenched patriarchal legal, social, and cultural structures that circumscribed her position. As her husband ascended from Great Revival convert to perfectionist Shaker, Bunnell became a casualty of the democratization of American Christianity, the emergence of a competitive religious market, and the rise of American evangelicalism.
Many thanks to friends and colleagues who helped me hone my argument and tell this poignant, tragic tale. Cheryl and Mark Kolb graciously allowed me to visit the Bunnell farm and examine the historic barn where Anne ended her life. Nate Byrum’s drone video footage of this beautiful but haunting structure is available below. And a special shoutout to UR students in my spring 2022 First-Year Seminar, “Devil in the Details: Microhistory & Historical Narrative,” for reading and critiquing an early draft.