My dissertation examines the popular construction of American citizenship in the early nineteenth century by focusing closely on the experiences of the Shakers, a sectarian and controversial Christian church. Americans often worked out the meaning of their citizenship in real world settings, sometimes in the rough-and-tumble debates and confrontations between neighbors. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, the United Society of Believers or Shakers challenged early Americans in places like Lebanon, Ohio and Watervliet, New York by establishing insular communities dedicated to pacifism, communal living, celibacy, and spiritually-defined families. They rejected the biological and marital ties of traditional family, and the social impact of conversion on women and family has been well-studied by historians. My study broadens the scope of analysis and shows that men and women joining the Shakers faced political, economic, and legal repercussions as well. States passed divorce, property, and militia laws directed at the Society, and these laws sometimes infringed on Shakers' rights and freedoms, such as their contract rights and freedom of conscience. These actions contributed to a debate regarding the fitness of Shakers for citizenship and the Society's place in American society.

The Shakers did not sit idly by while others defined their status as American citizens. By asserting their rights, they emerged as a dynamic force in the construction of economic, political, and gendered citizenship. The Shaker experiences of the early nineteenth century demonstrate the strategies employed by some particular communities to make a space for themselves in American society. By adhering to "worldly" legal and economic conventions, the Shakers received protection from the state and the support of a number of allies in the non-Shaker community. Inside the Shaker villages, Shakers constructed a religious identity based on perfectionism, separation, and communal ideas. Outside the Shaker village, they constructed an identity as Shaker-Americans based on religious freedom and individual rights. They owed their long-term survival, in part, to their success in asserting and garnering support for their rights as citizens.