The real life of Mother Ann Lee
Hollywood star Amanda Seyfried plays Mother Ann Lee in new film 'The Testament of Ann Lee'. What do we know about the real 18th-century religious leader?
Image: Public Domain
When the multitalented actress Amanda Seyfried stars in a film, people naturally take notice. That’s doubtless one reason why she was chosen to take the title role in the new historical musical drama The Testament of Ann Lee.
You may well have heard of the Shakers, the religious sect established and led by ‘Mother’ Ann Lee. At the same time, you might be more familiar with the Shakers’ legacy in architecture and furniture design than their spiritual teachings.
To understand why the Shakers were formed, you need to know about the Christian movement’s founder. How did Ann Lee’s early years inspire her beliefs, and why does her story still resonate today? Sky HISTORY were eager to find out…
Ann Lee’s Manchester upbringing
The Testament of Ann Lee’s director Mona Fastvold has suggested that Ann was ‘America’s first feminist’. However, though Ann Lee did make her name in America, she actually grew up in the northern English city of Manchester.
Her childhood experiences instilled in her the spiritual beliefs she would later take with her across the Atlantic. Ann Lee was born on 29th February 1736 to blacksmith John (her mother’s name has not survived in the historical record).
Ann never learned to read or write, but her early jobs included working at a textile mill and cutting hatters’ fur. In her early twenties, she joined a religious group that, though founded by Jane and James Wardley, would later develop into the Lee-led Shakers.
Ann Lee’s tumultuous early adulthood
One common theme of Ann’s life was a strong aversion to sexual activity. Even as a teenager, Ann was reluctant to marry, though her father eventually coerced her into getting hitched to blacksmith Abraham Standarin in 1761.
The marriage was punctuated by four pregnancies, but none of the resulting children reached their teen years. It is thought that Ann’s traumatic experiences as a mother eventually convinced her to turn celibate.
Who were the Shaking Quakers?
As the name suggests, the Shaking Quakers had many beliefs in common with the longer-established Quakers. These beliefs included that all people could reach out directly to God, without any need to use the church as an intermediary. Both sects also practiced pacifism and promoted gender equality.
The Quakers, though originally established as the Society of Friends, got their more familiar name from the way they would physically quake during worship. Similarly, the Shaking Quakers became known for their erratic forms of song and dance.
How did Ann Lee diverge from Quaker ideology?
The Shaking Quakers came to be more casually known as the Shakers, whose ecstatic dancing was intended to expel sin by literally shaking it off. However, Ann Lee did not take up real leadership of the Shakers until the early 1770s.
That’s when, while imprisoned for pushing her religious message in an overly disruptive manner, Ann received a religious vision. It convinced her that celibacy was the path to salvation — and that this was the religious message she should now spread.
In this respect, she now differed from orthodox Quaker thinking. Though the Shakers embraced communal living and accepted married members, sexual activity was prohibited.
Ann also saw God’s nature as both male and female. Ann’s disciples increasingly perceived her as God’s female personification, referring to her as ‘Mother Ann’ and ‘Ann the Word’.
The Shakers migrate to America
After years of religious persecution in England, Ann received another vision in 1774, urging her to start a Shaker ministry in America. With eight followers, she subsequently boarded a ship, Mariah, and took a three-month voyage to New York.
Though Ann’s husband joined her on the journey, they decoupled shortly afterwards. The immigrant Shakers were employed in New York State for years before eventually setting up their communal headquarters near Albany in 1779.
In America, the Shakers found converts, but also persecution. Their pacifist nature, for example, did not sit well with rebellious colonials during the American Revolution. Ann even spent time in jail after being suspected of undertaking espionage on behalf of the British.
Ann died at the age of 48 on 8th September 1784. Shaker numbers peaked in the thousands in the early 19th century, but have since declined to single digits. Nonetheless, as an illiterate, low-born immigrant dedicated to promoting social equality in an age with few female preachers, Ann Lee remains an inspirational feminist figure.
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