Anna White (21 Jan. 1831 – 16 Dec. 1910) was a Shaker Eldress, social reformer, author, and hymn writer.

Biography

Anna White born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, the third daughter of five children of Robert White and Hannah (Gibbs) White. Her parents were both Quakers, her father having joined by marriage. One of her earliest memories was hearing anti-slavery lecturer

Lucretia Mott Lucretia Mott (''née'' Coffin; January 3, 1793 – November 11, 1880) was an American Quaker, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer. She had formed the idea of reforming the position of women in society when she was amongs ...

speak, but she was disturbed when Mott was "abruptly silenced by the guardians of Quaker orthodoxy." She went to a Quaker school in

Poughkeepsie, New York Poughkeepsie ( ), officially the City of Poughkeepsie, separate from the Town of Poughkeepsie around it) is a city in the U.S. state of New York. It is the county seat of Dutchess County, with a 2020 census population of 31,577. Poughkeepsi ...

called Mansion Square Seminary,White, Anna
American National Biography. and had a strong social conscience influenced by both her faith and her parents. White became interested in the

Shakers The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers, are a Millenarianism, millenarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian sect founded in England and then organized in the Unit ...

after her father joined

Hancock Shaker Village Hancock Shaker Village is a former Shaker commune in Hancock and Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It emerged in the towns of Hancock, Pittsfield, and Richmond in the 1780s, organized in 1790, and was active until 1960. It was the third of nineteen majo ...

, where he had done business.White, Anna (1831-1910)
Shaker Museum. Anna was the only member of the family to join her father in the religion, joining the

Mount Lebanon Shaker Society Mount Lebanon Shaker Society, also known as New Lebanon Shaker Society, was a communal settlement of Shakers in New Lebanon, New York. The earliest converts began to "gather in" at that location in 1782 and built their first meetinghouse in 1785. ...

's North Family at 18 years old in 1849. Joining the Shakers alienated both of them from the rest of the family, with a rich uncle even threatening to dis-inherent her of if she went through with it. The music of the Shakers were one of the things that had initially attracted her to the religion, and she would go on to write hundreds of spiritual songs, and compile two books of Shaker music which included some of her own hymns. In 1865, White became second eldress to Antoinette Doolittle, and upon Doolittle's death in 1887, became first eldress. She became a vegetarian following the example of Elder Frederick Evans of the Mount Lebanon Society, and the rest of the North Family followed her example. White was an active advocate for social reform and pacifism. She wrote in support of

Alfred Dreyfus Alfred Dreyfus ( , also , ; 9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. ...

during the

Dreyfus affair The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francop ...

. She gave a number of speeches, most notably those at the

Universal Peace Union The Universal Peace Union was a pacifist organization founded by former members of the American Peace Society in Providence, Rhode Island with the adoption of its constitution on 16 May 1866; it was chartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 9 Apri ...

, the Equal Rights Club, and at a peace conference at Mount Lebanon. The resolutions written at the Mount Lebanon meeting in 1905 were forwarded to

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

, and subsequently adopted, and were brought to President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

by White personally. She also wrote a number of articles, was a leader in Alliance of Women for Peace and National Council of Women, and a member of the

National American Woman Suffrage Association The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was an organization formed on February 18, 1890, to advocate in favor of women's suffrage in the United States. It was created by the merger of two existing organizations, the National ...

. In 1904, White cowrote ''Shakerism: Its Meaning and Message'' with Eldress Leila S. Taylor, which at the time, was the only published history of the Shaker movement written by one of its members. The book joined Shaker principles and socially progressive values such as women's equality. White died on the 16th of December, 1910.

Biography

References

Further reading