I picked up a fascinating book about Shaker furniture and architecture at a thrift store a while ago. Their religious ideals led to some extremely functional designs of furniture and structures that honestly can still be useful today. For example, Shaker chairs are designed with extra tall backs to be able to be hung up on the wall to make it easy to sweep underneath them when cleaning

I’ve seen a theory that the shakers were specifically founded by a handful of aromantic/asexual folks and basically built a community for aro/ace folk before any acknowledgement of these concepts existed. Given their views on equality and functionality it does not take much of a leap of the imagination to see how such a community could form from a bunch of autistic aro/ace folks in a period when any of those characteristics would make it difficult to survive