Shaker pegs might be the most notable characteristic of Shaker style. Unlike the chairs or oval boxes that could be mistaken as a member of another similar style, Shaker pegs stand out as being very different. Placed on the walls at roughly head or shoulder height, Shaker pegs run around practically every room in a Shaker home and provide ample storage space for practically anything you could imagine. "Well, they hung up clothes," the Interpretation and Education Manager at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Susan Hughes, said. "They hung up bonnets and hats. They hung chairs." At which point, I looked in shock and said, "Chairs?" "If you're sweeping the floor, do you want to have to move all of the chairs back and forth," Hughes said. "No you pick them up, you hang them on the peg, pick them up and put them back down." Those pegs served a very practical purpose: they kept Shaker homes neater and easier to clean. Don't we all want that? But that wasn't all the pegs did. http://www.askthedecorator.com/Shaker_Article.shtml
The same principle holds true for Shaker peg rail; it could be made by the running foot, with pegs turned on water-powered lathes, placed into molded rails, and installed between the windows on all four sides of a Shaker room, and in double rows if desired. Such standardization of interiors is consistent with industrial design, and created an atmosphere of a prevailing style throughout the village.
It can be seen, for example, in the infinite variety of pegs found on Shaker peg rail throughout Canterbury. The basic concept of Shaker peg rail did not change from 1792 to the 1850s. Thousands of running feet of similar peg rail were made, but the pegs themselves are rarely the same length, diameter, or shape from one room to the next. http://www.abbeville.com/pdf/0789203588.pdf