While there are now only two practicing Shakers (Brother Arnold Hadd and Sister June Carpenter) their influence has greatly impacted American life and their designs and inventions have influenced modernist and contemporary designers all over the world. They were considered innovators and early adopters of new technology, inventing and improving things such as the table saw, the flat broom, the turbine water wheel, and the washing machine. They were early pioneers in modern manufacturing, producing chairs, brooms, commercial seeds, medicines, baskets and clothing that were sold to the outside ‘world’.