Dr, Crosthwaite will discuss her 2014 book, The Shaker Spiritual Notices of Eleanor Potter. In 1845, Eleanor Potter, a 33-year-old Shaker sister, created a set of booklets, one for each of the four leading Shaker ministers. These "Notices," as she called them, contained appreciative and encouraging words for the Ministry; they are also notable for the illustrations which accompany the internal messages. Close examination of the booklets leads one into the intricacies of the Era of Manifestation, revealing complicated routes of inspiration, insights into personalities, and the sometimes disturbing approach to native Americans. These documents now reside in the collection of the Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon. The book, published by Hamilton College's Richard Couper Press, reproduces four sixteen-page manuscript books by Sister Eleanor Potter which record her spirit messages for the leaders of the Ministry at Mount Lebanon.

Dr. Jane F. Crosthwaite is interested in the roles of women in American religious history and Shaker history and art. Her biographical entries for R. Mildred Barker and Hannah Cohoon are included in the American National Biography project (Oxford University Press), and her reviews and articles are frequently published in scholarly journals. She has received the Distinguished Alumni Award from her alma mater, Wake Forest University. Jane is one of the founding members of the women's studies program at Mount Holyoke.