Several readers responded to my column advocating a change from “Pit Spitters” to “Shakers” for our baseball team by reminding me about the 19th-century Shakers, a religious movement that originated in England before moving here, and who, among other ideas, promoted celibacy and gender equality. The group’s name derives from their bodily contortions during their ceremonies, not unlike Quakers.

Let’s place them into their historical context when thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic in what came to be known as the Romantic Movement rejected the emphasis on materialism in emerging capitalistic societies and were trying to figure out the balance between the individual and the values of the larger society. That process began by accepting the premise that people are essentially good but can,

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