Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress

Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981. First Edition (presumed; no prior editions or printings cited). Octavo with red cloth boards and gilt spine title in black and white pictorial jacket; red endpapers; viii, 368 pages: illustrations; 25 cm Near fine with small prior owner sticker on half title; jacket is near fine, now in archival mylar. Hardcover. ISBN: 0870232991

"A free black woman in antebellum America, Rebecca Cox Jackson (1795-1871) was an independent itinerant preacher and religious visionary who founded a Shaker community in Philadelphia that survived her death by twenty-five years. Gifts of powers containers her complete extant writings, covering the period 1830 to 1864."--Dust jacket // Contents: A Note on the Text. I. Awakening and Early "Gifts" (1830-1832). II. Breaking Away from Family and Churches (1833-1836). III. Finding "God's True People on Earth" (1840-1843). IV. Shaker Doctrine and First Residence at Watervliet (1844-1857). V. Interim in Philadelphia: Experiments in Séance Spiritualism (1851-1857). VI. Second Residence at Watervliet: Establishment of the Philadelphia Shaker Community (1857-1864). Appendix: Significant Textual Variants; Writings of Rebecca Perot (as Dictated to Rebecca Jackson); Documents: Female Preaching and the A.M.E. Church, 1820-1852; Documents: Shakes Doctrine; Names Associated with Philadelphia Shaker Family.