Bench 1825-50 United Society of Believers in Christs Second Appearing (“Shakers”), Mount Lebanon, New York Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, Shakers (or United Society of Believers in Christs Second Appearing) united on this bench for religious services. In the late eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries, the Shakers established utopian communities that were progressive for the period in their practice of gender and social equality. The streamlined form of this bench also reflects the Shakers interests in asceticism and efficiency in the face of amplified American consumerism and industrialization.. Bench 458