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The Shaker Village Work Group was a recreational summer camp and teen educational program that occupied historic Shaker land and buildings in New Lebanon, New York. The property was purchased by founders Jerome (Jerry) and Sybil A. Count from the Mount Lebanon Shaker Village community in 1946, and was opened to its first group of young "villagers" as the Shaker Village Work Camp in 1947.〔〔 Around 1960, the Work Camp's name was changed to the Shaker Village Work Group. Operating until 1973,〔 the Shaker Village Work Group was noteworthy as a program that gave urban youths the opportunity to learn skilled hands-on work through folk crafts,〔 for its efforts to preserve Shaker architecture and culture,〔〔〔 for its role in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 60s,〔 and for its influence on the 1960s counterculture movement. During its twenty-six year span the Shaker Village Work Group presented a microcosm of American work and political ideals, weaving together the Protestant work ethic and communitarianism of the Shakers, the labor movement's celebration of ordinary working class manual labor, and libertarian ideals of self-sufficiency and self-ownership. == Beginnings == The Shaker Village Work Group operated on land formerly owned by the Mount Lebanon Shaker Society, the Shaker community that built and occupied the Mount Lebanon Shaker Village from 1787 until its population became too small to make use of it.〔 Under the Shakers, the Village was organized into "Families" that occupied clusters of buildings sited around the property.〔 The Church Family site was sold to and is currently occupied by the Darrow School.〔〔 The North Family site is currently owned, preserved and being restored by the Shaker Museum, Mount Lebanon.〔〔 Jerry and Sybil Count purchased the South Family and West Family land for their planned youth work camp in 1946.〔〔 The "work camp" part of the Shaker Village Work Camp name is rooted in the 1930s. As part of government efforts to help the United States escape the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was established and operated between 1933 and 1942 to train unemployed young men in useful manual labor job skills and also to provide employment for them in public works projects. Large scale CCC projects were sometimes accompanied by what were called "work camps," in which up to 200 workers were housed together and which operated under a quasi-military organization.〔〔 During World War II, some of the work camps were re-purposed by the Civilian Public Service to provide conscientious objectors an alternative to military service.〔 After World War II, informed by these earlier public service work camps, many new "progressive work camps" were created for teenagers and young adults to let them "visit and labor in fields and factories,"〔 to provide "work experience for youth under expert counselors,"〔 "to help children understand the democratic roots of their country,"〔 or to "teach neighborliness, public service, respect for manual labor, () self-government."〔 For at least some of these new work camps, the "word ''work'' in 'work camp' signified a solidarity with labor on the part of the affluent, progressive middle class."〔 The Counts opened the Shaker Village Work Camp as one of these new progressive work camps.〔〔 There, urban teenage boys and girls would learn manual skills for the purposes of building character and to preserve and celebrate the crafts and work ethic of the Shaker culture.〔 Some alumni of the work camp's early years have noted what Villager and artist Henry Halem called the "very socialist"〔 character of the Village. Describing his time at the newly opened Shaker Village Work Camp, philosopher Robert Paul Wolff wrote, "Many of the counselors had roots in the various progressive movements that had emerged during the depression, though whether any were actually members of the Communist Party I never knew."〔 Some later attending Villagers have stated that this character was not apparent by the 1960s, and that Jerry Count was more concerned with "work education" than "socialism for the sake of socialism."〔 An unusual feature of the Shaker Village Work Group compared to typical summer camps was the extent to which the Villagers were autonomous, without direct counselor supervision.〔 For example, the Villagers were entitled to set their bedtime hour by voting as a community.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Shaker Village Work Group」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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