Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T18:28:28.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

American Communes, 1865–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Robert S. Fogarty
Robert S. Fogarty
Affiliation:
Antioch College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Emerson's notation in his journal: ‘ They look well in July. We will see them in December ’ about the prospects for Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands venture reflects a commonplace caution about communal ventures. Namely, that the heat of co-operative passion is often insufficient to sustain a community through later problems of crowded circumstances, changing perspectives and weak natures.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , August 1975 , pp. 145 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 ‘I will not prejudge them successful. They look well in July. We will see them in December. I know they are better for themselves than as partners. Their saying that things are clear, and they are sane, does not make them so. If they will serve the town of Harvard, and make their neighbors feel them as benefactors wherever they touch them, they are as safe as the sun.’ (3 July 1843). Emerson, Edward Waldo and Forbes, Waldo Emerson (eds.), Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, VI, p. 421Google Scholar.

2 Bestor, Arthur Jr, ‘Patent Office Models of the Good Society: Some Relationships Between Social Reform and Westward Expansion’, The American Historical Review, 58 (04, 1953). 526CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Ibid.

4 Thomas, John L., ‘Romantic Reform in America, 1815–1865,’ American Quarterly, 18 (Winter, 1965), 679Google Scholar.

5 Holloway, Mark, Heavens on Earth (New York, 1962), p. 213Google Scholar.

6 There are a number of compilations of communities during the period under discussion, but no standard account. See Hinds, William, American Communities (Chicago, 1908)Google Scholar; Wooster, Ernest, Communities Past and Present (New Llano, 1924)Google Scholar; Albertson, Ralph, A Survey of Mutualistic Communistic Communities in America (New York, 1971 reprint)Google Scholar; Bushee, Frederick, ‘Communistic Societies in the United States’, Political Science Quarterly 20 (12, 1905)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kent, Alexander, ‘Cooperative Communities in the United States’, Bulletin of the Department of Labor, 6 (07, 1901)Google Scholar.

7 Noyes, John Humphrey, Confessions of John H. Noyes (New York, 1849), p. 141Google Scholar. Also letter Elizur Wright to A. A. Philips, 29 October 1837, Thomas Collection, Library of Congress.

8 Carden, Maren Lockwood, Oneida: Utopian Community to Modern Corporation (Baltimore, 1969), passimGoogle Scholar and Fogarty, Robert, ‘Oneida: A Utopian Search for Religious Security’, Labor History, 14 (Spring, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Greeley, Horace, Recollections of a Busy Life (New York, 1868), p. 145Google Scholar. New York seems to have disgusted numerous Utopians as Albert Brisbane's first contact with the city was when the ‘paddle wheel of his steamer churned up from the mud of the river the bloated corpse of a Negro woman’. Bestor, Arthur Jr, ‘Albert Brisbane: Propagandist for Socialism in the Forties’, New York History (04, 1947), 131Google Scholar.

10 See Bestor, Arthur Jr, ‘American Phalanxes: A Study of Fourierist Socialism in the United States’ (Yale University: unpublished dissertation, 1938), II, 160Google Scholar, for a discussion of the resurgence of interest in Fourierism as the result of Ernest Valeton Boissiere's project for a colony in Kansas. Charles Sears, Albert Brisbane and Elijah Grant all advised Boissiere on his colony. Correspondence can be found in the Grant Papers, University of Chicago.

11 ‘In accordance with repeated suggestions in The Tribune, several organizations have lately been formed among workingmen in the city to facilitate emigration to the West. The Excelsior Colony — one of the largest of these — have already forwarded 150 families to the Nebraska Territory, near Wayerville, on the banks of the Republican River, where they have established a settlement on the co-operative principle, and they are preparing to send another body Thursday….’ ‘Emigration Colonies’, New York Weekly Tribune (12 05 1869)Google Scholar.

12 Reynolds, Ray, Cat's Paw Utopia (El Cajon, California, 1971), p. 37Google Scholar.

13 Howland, Marie, Papa's Own Girl (New York, 1873)Google Scholar. Arthur Morgan cites the book–without specific evidence — as a possible source for Looking Backward. See Edward Bellamy (New York, 1944), p. 369Google Scholar.

14 Schneider, Herbert W. and Lawton, George, A Prophet and A Pilgrim (New York, 1942)Google Scholar.

15 Blankenship, Russel, And There Were Men (New York, 1942), pp. 79–94Google Scholar.

16 The colonies started in the 1860s were: Point Hope, Industrial Fraternity (1860); Adonai-Shomo (1861); Domain (1860; Hutterites (1862); Berlin Heights (1865); Farist Community (1866); Brocton, Brotherhood of the New Life (1867–1868); Kingdom of Heaven (1867); Reunion (1868); Silkville (1868); Colfax German Colony (1869); Union Colony (1869).

17 The problems of defining a communal settlement have perplexed writers so much that a standard may be difficult to arrive at. Lockridge, Kenneth's study of Dedham, Massachusetts, A New England Town: The First Hundred Years (New York, 1970)Google Scholar states ‘It was also a Utopian experiment, hardly less so than the famous Amana, Oneida, and Brook Farm experiments of the nineteenth century. The founders of this community set out to construct a unified social organism in which the whole would be more than the sum of the parts’. A recent study of Owenite communities, Garnett, R. G.'s Co-operation and the Owenite Socialist Communities in Britain 1824–1845 (Manchester, 1972)Google Scholar, tries to rule out Fourierist joint-stock communities from communal history. Ranter, Rosabeth's discussion of the problem in Commitment and Community (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 241–6Google Scholar, is the most intelligent so far and I have tried to use a combined historical and sociological approach in deciding the ‘commonality of a colony’.

18 There is no single account of this tendency among American thinkers, as recent works like Gilbert, James's Designing the Industrial State (Chicago, 1972)Google Scholar do not include such figures in his survey of what he calls the ‘intellectual pursuit of collectivism in America’ Harrison, J. F. C.'s The New Moral World (New York, 1969)Google Scholar and Armytage, W. H. G.'s Heavens Below (Toronto, 1961)Google Scholar pursue the English idealists in some detail.

19 Greeley, Horace, ‘Moral Aspects of Co-operation’, New York Weekly Tribune, 31 07 1867Google Scholar.

20 Greeley, Horace, ‘Co-operation’, New York Weekly Tribune, 13 10 1869Google Scholar.

21 There are formal theological definitions of perfectionism in Peters, John L., Christian Perfectionism and American Methodism (New York, 1943)Google Scholar and Gaddis, Merrill, ‘Christian Perfectionism in America’, unpublished dissertation, University of Chicago, 1929Google Scholar. However, Thomas, John L.'s definition is a good working one: ‘Perfectibility — the essentially religious notion of the individual as the reservoir of possibilities — fosters a revolutionary assurance “that if you can so re-arrange society by the destruction of oppressive order then these possibilities will have a chance and you will get progress.”’ ‘Romantic Reform in America, 1815–1865,’ American Quarterly, 17 (Winter, 1965), 656Google Scholar. For charismatic definitions one should look to Weber, Max's essay ‘The Sociology of Charismatic Authority’ in Gerth, Hans and Mills, C. WrightFrom Max Weber: Essay in Sociology (New York, 1946)Google Scholar and Wallace, F. C. Anthony ‘Revitalization Movements’, American Anthropologists, 58 (1956), 264–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Wallace defines a revitalization movement as ‘… a special kind of culture change phenomenon: the persons involved in the process of revitalization must perceive their culture, or some major areas of it, as a system (whether accurately or not); they must feel that this cultural system is unsatisfactory; and they must innovate not merely discrete items, but a new cultural system, specifying new relationships as well as, in some cases, new traits’.

22 Buckeye State, Lisbon, Ohio, 25 10 1900Google Scholar.

23 Deposition by Robert McWhirter, 10 December 1887. Bell County Court House, Belton, Texas.

24 Quint, Howard's The Forging of American Socialism (Columbia, South Carolina, 1953)Google Scholar and Charles LeWarne's soon-to-be-published dissertation study ‘Communitarian Experiments in Western Washington, 1885–1915’ are both helpful guides for these groups.

25 Owen, Albert Kimsey, Integral Co-operation (New York, 1885), p. 8Google Scholar.

26 The seventeen communities were: Warm Springs Colony (1871); Chicago Workingmens Colony, Boston Colony (1872–1873); Chicago-Colorado Colony (1871); Springfield Industrial Works (1870c.); Thompson Colony (1872); Progressive Community (1871); Friendship Colony (1872); Bennett Co-operative Company (1873); Social Freedom Colony (1874); Dawn Valcour Colony (1875); Women's Commonwealth (1876); Investigating Community (1875); Mme. Modjeska's Colony (1877); The Home (1877); Esperanza Community (1878); Bible Community (1879); Societa Fraternia (1879).

27 James, Edward T. (ed.), ‘Elizabeth Rowell Thompson’, Dictionary of Notable American Women (Cambridge, 1971), vol. III, p. 452Google Scholar.

28 James L. Dennon, ‘The Oahspe Story’ (printed by author, 1965), p. 12.

29 Sources for the ethnic colonies can be found in a wide range of books and unpublished dissertations. The most prominent studies are: Berthoff, Roland T., British Immigrants in Industrial America, 1790–1950 (Cambridge, 1953)Google Scholar; Shepperson, Wilbur, Emigration and Disenchantment (Norman, Oklahoma, 1965)Google Scholar; Waldron, Nell Blythe, ‘Colonization in Kansas From 1861–1890’ (unpublished dissertation, Northwestern University, 1932)Google Scholar; Miller, Kenneth, ‘Danish Socialism and the Kansas Prairie’, Kansas Historical Quarterly, 38 (Summer, 1972), 156–68Google Scholar.

30 Cited in Hinds, William, American Communities (Chicago, 1908), 439Google Scholar.

31 There is no complete study of the Women's Commonwealth with sources difficult to locate, but Garrison, George P., ‘A Women's Community in Texas’, Charities Review, 3 (11, 1893), 28–46Google Scholar and James, Eleanor, ‘The Sanctificationists of Belton’, American West, 2 (Summer, 1945), 65–73Google Scholar, provide a basic outline.

32 See Grant, H. Roger, ‘Missouri's Utopian Communities’, Missouri Historical Review, 66 (10, 1971), 20–48Google Scholar and Sears, Hal, ‘Alcander Longley, Missouri Communist’, Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society, 25 (01, 1969), 123–37Google Scholar.

33 Yarmolinsky, Avrahmn, A Russian American's Dream (Manhattan, Kansas, 1965), p. 12Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., p. 18.

35 Ibid., p. 65.

36 Hughes, Thomas, Rugby, Tennessee (New York, 1881), p. 21Google Scholar.

37 See Armytage, W. H. G., ‘New Light on the English Background of Thomas Hughes' Rugby Colony in East Tennessee’, East Tennessee Historical Society Publications, 21 (1949), 49;Google ScholarStagg, Brian L., ‘Tennessee's Rugby Colony,’ Tennessee Historical Quarterly, 29, 209–226Google Scholar.

38 For a recent view of American spiritualism in the 1860s see Delp, Robert W., ‘Andrew Jackson Davis: Prophet of American Spiritualism’, Journal of American History, 54 (06, 1967), 43–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There is no full history of Shalam though valuable information can be found in two articles by Stoes, K. D., ‘The Land of Shalam’, New Mexico Historical Review, 33 (01, 1958), 1–23Google Scholar; (April, 1958), 103–127; and in James Dennon, ‘The Oahspe Story’ (privately printed, 1965).

39 There are two major sources for Owen's career. Pletcher, David's Rails, Mines, and Progress (Ithaca, 1958)Google Scholar emphasizes his promotional efforts in Mexico, while Reynolds, Ray' Cat's Paw Utopia (El Cajon, California, 1971)Google Scholar is a close study of the social forces which took Owen and the colonists to Pacific City. And there is his own writing with Integral Co-operation (New York, 1885)Google Scholar the most useful for the colonial project.

40 Owen, Albert Kimsey, Integral Co-operation (New York, 1885), p. 115Google Scholar.

41 Ibid., p. 30.

42 Ibid., p. 32.

43 Reynolds, , Cat's Paw Utopia, passimGoogle Scholar.

44 Ibid., p. 70.

45 See Davidson, Gabriel, Our Jewish Farmers and the Story of the Jewish Agricultural Society (New York, 1943)Google Scholar; Brandes, Joseph, Jewish Colonies in New Jersey (Philadelphia, 1971 reprint)Google Scholar; Shpall, Leo, ‘Jewish Agricultural Colonies in the United States’, Agricultural History, 14 (07 1950), 120–46Google Scholar.

46 Shpall, ‘Jewish Agricultural Colonies’, p. 123.

47 There are monographs on each of the colonies and they add detail to Shpall's article. Some of the monographs are: Roberts, Dorothy, ‘The Jewish Colony at Cotopaxi’, Colorado Magazine, 18 (07 1941), 123–31Google Scholar; Plaut, Gunther, ‘Jewish Colonies at Painted Woods and Devils Lake’, North Dakota History, 32 (01 1965), 59–70Google Scholar; ‘A Colony in Kansas’, American Jewish Archives, 17 (11 1965), 114–39Google Scholar; Rudin, A. James, ‘Bad Axe, Michigan: An Experiment in Jewish Agricultural Settlement’, Michigan History, 56 (Summer, 1972), 119–30Google Scholar.

48 Communities started in the 1880s: Rugby (1880); Cloverdale (1881); Mutual Aid (1883); Shalam (1884); Icaria Speranza (1884); Joyful (1885); Kaweah (1885); Columbia Co-operative Colony (1886); Hays City (1887); Puget Sound Co-operative Colony (1887); Topolobampo (1888); Israelite House of David (1888); The Sanctified (1889); Christian Co-operative Colony (1888); Lord's Farm (1889); twenty-six Jewish Agricultural Colonies.

49 Howard Fine is just completing a study of Koreshan at Notre Dame University and Teed's own writings are available in scattered places. See also Mackle, Elliott James, ‘The Koreshan Unity in Florida’ (unpublished master's thesis, University of Miami, 1971)Google Scholar and Michel, Hedwig, A Gift to the People (n.d.)Google Scholar.

50 ‘Scientific Colonization’, Bureau of Equitable Commerce (Chicago, 1895)Google Scholar.

51 Willard, Cyrus Field, Autobiography of Cyrus Willard, unpublished manuscript, Morgan Collection, Antioch College LibraryGoogle Scholar.

52 Howard Quint, The Forging of American Socialism.

53 LeWarne, Charles, ‘Communitarian Experiments in Western Washington, 1885–1915’ (unpublished dissertation, University of Washington, 1971)Google Scholar.

54 The Hiawatha Colony, for example, was established in Escanaba County, Michigan, by Thomas Mills, a socialist, on a 240-acre farm donated by Abe Byers, a Populist leader. It lasted till 1896 when a suit dissolved the community. Holland City News, 14 December 1895.

55 Cited in Quint, Forging of American Socialism.

56 Paper given by Fish, John, Organization of American Historians, 04, 1971Google Scholar.

57 Ibid.

58 The colonies started in the 1890s were: Union Mills (1892); Hiawatha Colony (1893); Winters Island (1893); Ruskin Colony (1894); Kinder Lou (1894); Home Employment (1894); Colorado Co-operative (1894); Altruria (1894); Willard Co-operative (1895); Fairhope Colony (1895); Higbee Colony (1896); Christian Commonwealth (1896); Koreshan Unity (1894); Co-operative Industrial College (1896); Home Colony (1896); Freedom Colony (1897); Point Loma (1897); Equality (1897); Christian Corporation (1896); Grosse Pointe Religious Colony (1897); Burley-Social Democracy Colony (1898); Temple Home (1898); Harmony Colony (1898); American Settlers Association (1898); Christian Social Association (1899); Fruit Crest (1898); Lystra (1899); Freidheim (1899); Niksur Co-operative Association (1897); Edison Colony (1898); Commonwealth of Israel (1899); Louisiana Colony (1899); Magnolia Colony (1896); Summer Resort (1898).

59 The colonies started in the 1900s were: Arden (1900); Mutual Aid Co-operative Association (1900); Association of Altruists 1900); Freeland (1900); Southern Co-operative Association (1900); Roycrofters (1900c.); Fulton Community (1900c.); Straight Edge (1900); House of David (1903); Spirit Fruit (1900); Helicon Hall (1907); Little Landers (1909); Fellowship Farm (1912); Metropolitan Church Association (1912); Llano Co-operative Coloney (1914); Pisgah Gardens (1914); Army of Industry (1914); Nevada Colony (1916); Holy City (1918); Incoming Kingdom Missionary Unity (1919); April Farm (1918); Ferrer Colony (1915).

60 This paper was presented at the American Studies Association Convention at San Francisco in October 1973.