Ann Lee
- Also called: Mother Ann
- Born: February 29, 1736, Manchester, England
- Died: September 8, 1784, Watervliet, New York, U.S. (aged 48)
- Associated with: Shaker religious sect
Who was Ann Lee?
What was Ann Lee’s early life like?
Did Ann Lee claim to be Jesus?
Are there still practicing Shakers today?
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Ann Lee (born February 29, 1736, Manchester, England—died September 8, 1784, Watervliet, New York, U.S.) was a religious leader who brought the Shaker sect from England to the American colonies. Believing that her inspiration came directly from God, Lee rejected much of the theology of established churches and drew a dedicated and at times persecuted following that was attracted to her teachings, charisma, and leadership. Sometimes hailed as a forerunner of modern feminist thought for her views on God’s dual feminine and masculine natures and equality between men and women, Lee’s work led to the establishment of numerous Shaker communities that were remarkably egalitarian.
Early life
Lee was the illiterate daughter of a blacksmith who was probably named Lees. The second of eight children, she grew up in poverty and worked in a textile mill in her youth. At age 22 she joined a Nonconformist sect led by James and Jane Wardley that was known as the Shaking Quakers, or Shakers, because of the shaking and dancing that characterized their worship. Like the Quakers, the Wardleys’ group emphasized personal revelation from God and the Inner Light through which an individual understands God’s will. They also stressed the public confession of sin for redemption and atonement.
At her family’s urging, Lee married blacksmith Abraham Standerin in 1762, a union that tradition holds was unhappy. She suffered the losses of her four infant children, which, together with her traumatic marriage, likely influenced her later doctrinal insistence on celibacy.
Visions, theology, and rise to prominence
Lee was imprisoned in 1770 during a period of religious persecution by the English authorities. While in jail, she became convinced of the truth of certain religious ideas that she perceived in a vision. She came to believe that sexual lust had caused the fall of humankind and impeded Christ’s work; only through celibacy could men and women further God’s kingdom on Earth. She also developed the theological position that God’s nature was both male and female. Lee emerged from jail transformed, and as a passionate preacher with outspoken convictions, she soon assumed a position of prominence in the radical Shaker sect.
Shakers in the New World
In 1774, commanded by another vision and motivated by both the Shakers’ continued persecution in England and the Great Awakening revival in the New World, Ann Lee persuaded her husband, her brother William Lee, and six other followers to immigrate to the American colonies. Her husband soon left her, but Lee and her followers founded a settlement and collectively purchased land in the woods of Niskayuna (near Watervliet), in present-day New York state. Beginning with an influx of converts from nearby settlements, the Shaker movement grew and began to spread throughout New England. Mother Ann, as she came to be known, was believed to have ushered in the millennium, for the Shakers asserted that as Christ had embodied the masculine half of God’s dual nature, so she embodied the feminine half. This Endtime message was seemingly validated by the unusual and disturbing “Dark Day” of May 19, 1780 (caused by Canadian wildfires and fog), which garnered more converts.
In 1780 Mother Ann was imprisoned for treason because of her pacifist doctrines and her refusal to sign an oath of allegiance to the newly formed United States of America. She was eventually freed after her brother helped secure her release. During the final years of the American Revolution, from 1781 to 1783, Mother Ann, her brother, and another British Shaker, James Whittaker, toured New England on a missionary journey. According to witnesses, she performed a number of miracles, including prophecy, healing the sick by touch, and practicing the gift of discernment (the ability to perceive and evaluate one’s character or the spiritual origins of something). Although this itinerant proselytizing laid the groundwork for the establishment of later Shaker communities, the missionaries and their followers faced frequent confrontations with local authorities. Mother Ann was jailed several times, and the group was met with violence in many places. They concluded their missionary endeavor injured and mentally and physically exhausted, and William Lee and Mother Ann both died in 1784.
Legacy
After Mother Ann’s death her followers organized the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, which was also known as the Millennial Church and, most commonly, as the Shakers. Shakerism continued to evolve into a culture and faith beyond that of Lee’s making, though many aspects of the celibate, communal, and egalitarian faith communities clearly embodied her spirit. By 1826 the sect had grown to encompass 18 Shaker villages in eight states. The Shaker movement reached its height during the 1840s, with about 6,000 members. It later declined, however, because of changes in spiritual needs and the church’s continued insistence on celibacy and its opposition to childbearing. In 2025 one active Shaker village remained, with three members.
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