| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Elizabeth A. De Wolfe. Shaking the Faith: Women, Family, and Mary Marshall Dyer's Anti-Shaker Campaign, 1815–1867. New York: Palgrave. 2002. Pp. xiv, 233. $55.00.

American history and literature are replete with stories of dissent within and apostasy from religious groups. Likewise, among scholarship on the radical Christian sect known as the Shakers, not a small amount of attention has been given to causes of both conversion and apostasy. Yet Elizabeth A. De Wolfe's volume is the first in-depth case study of one woman's experience of conversion to and apostasy from the celibate, communal sect. Drawing on meticulous research in newspapers, tracts, periodicals, books, letters, diaries, and court records from the early years of the nineteenth century through the antebellum period, De Wolfe illustrates how Mary Marshall Dyer gained support from "the World"—all non-Shakers—through the press and public lectures. Not insignificantly, for example, Dyer persuaded the New Hampshire legislature to change the state's divorce statute. This fascinating story of a woman who fought to defame the group she had once joined, to gain custody of her children, who had been indentured to the Shakers by her husband, and to support herself financially after she and her husband separated because of their religious differences speaks loudly to scholars interested in those who have been victimized by a system or institution but have the intellect, perseverance, and charisma to do more than "make it through." . . .

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