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A wide range ofutopianintentional communities were founded across US since the 1800s. Several of them are active in the present day.
Harmonites dominated in the early 1800s.
Secularutopian socialism in the US during the 19th century included adherents ofOwenism of the 1820s,[1]Fourierism (American Union of Associationists) (1843–1850),Icarianism (1848–1898), andBellamyism of theBrotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth (1889–1896).
As well, several anarchist communities were established in the U.S. These includedHome, Washington (founded in 1898) and theSocialist Community of Modern Times, founded in New York in 1851.
| Name | Location | Founder | Founding date | Ending date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Province of Carolina (British Colony of Carolina) | Carolina | 1670 | 1711-1729 | Chartered as arestoration colony, it was planned as a utopian society with an integrated physical, economic and social design. Cooper,Earl of Shaftesbury, with the assistance of his secretary, the philosopherJohn Locke, drafted theGrand Model for the Province of Carolina, Carolina's constitution, which was influenced by the utopian aspirations ofJames Harrington. Settlers were promised religious freedom and free land.[2] Unrest led toCary's rebellion in 1711. Became a royal colony in 1729. | |
| Province of Pennsylvania (British colony of Pennsylvania) | Pennsylvania | William Penn | 1681 | Chartered as arestoration colony. Inspired by the writings ofJames Harrington. Planned as a utopian society with an integrated physical, economic and social design | |
| Ephrata Cloister AKA Ephrata Community | Lancaster County, Pennsylvania | Johann Conrad Beissel | 1732 | 1934 | Founded as a monastic religious community. Restructured as a both-gender community in 1814. Branches were established at other locations, of which two are said to still exist today.[3] |
| Province of Georgia (British colony of Georgia) | Georgia | GeneralJames Oglethorpe | 1733 | Inspired by writings ofJames Harrington. Oglethorpe planned the colony to be a utopian society with an integrated physical, economic and social design. Liquor and slavery were prohibited. "Agrarian equality" in which land was allocated equally. Acquisition of land through purchase or inheritance was prohibited. The plan was an early step toward the yeoman republic later envisioned byThomas Jefferson. Prohibitions against liquor, slavery and private land ownership were lifted in 1749 and 1751,[4] fundamentally ending Georgia's utopian experiment. |
| Name | Location | Founder | Founding date | Ending date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harmony | Pennsylvania | George Rapp | 1805 | 1814 | AHarmonites village. TheHarmony Society is aChristian theosophy andpietist society founded inIptingen,Germany, in 1785. |
| New Harmony, Indiana | Indiana | George Rapp | 1814 | 1824 | AHarmonites village. Colonists were formerly living inHarmony, Pennsylvania. Moved out toOld Economy Village. Sold the property toRobert Owen who himself founded a short-lived utopian settlement there. |
| Zoar | Ohio | Joseph Bimeler | 1817 | 1898 | Founded by German religious separatists who wanted religious freedom in America. Prosperous by the 1890s when it was one of the three strongest communistic societies in the U.S.[5] |
| Old Economy Village | Pennsylvania | George Rapp | 1824 | 1906 (last leaders died in 1951) | AHarmonites village. Colonists formerly lived in Harmony and New Harmony. |
| New Harmony | Indiana | Robert Owen | 1825 | 1829 | Former Harmonite village bought by British reformer Robert Owen. It then became a short-livedOwenite colony.Josiah Warren formedhis anarchist beliefs from his experience there. |
| Nashoba | Tennessee | Frances Wright | 1825 | 1828 | An abolitionist, free-love community inspired byNew Harmony, Indiana. (LEP). History covered in 1963 bookNashoba written byEdd Winfield Parks. |
| United Order | Jackson County, Missouri,[6] Ohio, Utah | Joseph Smith | 1832 | 1874 | Based on theLaw of Consecration, a revelation from Joseph Smith who was the founder ofThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints andMormonism |
| New Philadelphia Colony | Pennsylvania | Bernhard Müller[7] | 1832 | 1833 | Alibertarian socialist community |
| Oberlin Colony | Ohio | John J. Shipherd and 8 immigrant families[7] | 1833 | 1843 | Community based on Communal ownership of property[7] |
| Brook Farm (Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education) | Massachusetts | George Ripley Sophia Ripley | 1841 | 1846 | ATranscendent community. Transcendentalism is based on belief in the inherent goodness of people and nature and on benefits of being truly "self-reliant". Under influence ofAlbert Brisbane, it adoptedFourierist principles in 1844. |
| North American Phalanx | New Jersey | Charles Sears | 1841 | 1856 | AFourier Society community. The Fourier Society is based on the ideas of FrenchphilosopherCharles Fourier. Longest-lasting of the 30 or so Fourierist communities in the U.S. |
| Northampton Association of Education and Industry (NAEI) (sometimes called "The Community") | Florence,Northampton, Massachusetts | Samuel Hill | 1842 | 1846 | Abolitionist community. Owned some 500 acres, a silk factory, and a sawmill. Workers did not get a wage but a profit share.[8] (see Clark, Christopher, The Communitarian Moment: The Radical Challenge of the Northampton Association. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995) |
| Hopedale Community[9] | Massachusetts | Adin Ballou | 1842 | 1868 | AFourierist community based on "Practical Christianity", which included ideas such astemperance,abolitionism,Women's rights,spiritualism andeducation.[10] |
| Fruitlands | Massachusetts | Amos Alcott | 1843 | 1844 | ATranscendent community. |
| Skaneateles Community | New York | Society for Universal Inquiry | 1843 | 1846 | A Society for Universal Inquiry and Reform community, based onFourierist principles at least at first. |
| Sodus Bay Phalanx | New York | Sodus Bay Fourierists | 1844 | 1846 | AFourierist community. |
| Wisconsin Phalanx[11] | Wisconsin | Albert Brisbane[12] | 1844 | 1850 | AFourierist community.[11] One of the longest-lived phalanxes of the 1840s Fourierist boom in the U.S. |
| Clermont Phalanx | Ohio | Followers of Charles Fourier | 1844 | 1845 | AFourierist community. replaced by Spiritualist community. later becameanarchist society. |
| Prairie Home Community (also known as "Grand Prairie Community") | Ohio | John O. Wattles[7] Valentine Nicholson[7] | 1844 | 1845 | A Society for Universal Inquiry and Reform community. Ascribed toFourierist principles. |
| Alphadelphia Association | Kalamazoo County, Michigan | Reverend Richard Thornton, Reverend James Billings, Dr. H. R. Schetterly | 1844 | 1848 | Fourierist community. Published commune's newspaper, The Alphadelphia Tocsin |
| Fruit Hills | Ohio | Orson S. Murray[7] | 1845 | 1852 | A community based onOwenism andanarchism.[7] Maintained close contact with the Kristeen and Grand Prairie Communities. |
| Kristeen Community | Indiana | Charles Mowland[7] | 1845 | 1847 | Founded by Charles Mowland and others who had previously been associated with the Prairie Home Community.[7] A Society for Universal Inquiry and Reform community. |
| Bishop Hill Colony | Illinois | Eric Jansson | 1846 | 1862 | A Swedish Pietist religious commune. |
| Spring Farm Colony | Wisconsin | Six Fourierist families[7] | 1846 | 1848 | AFourierist community. |
| Utopia | Ohio | Josiah Warren | 1847 | 1876 | Decentralized community based on equitable commerce ormutualism.[13] replaced a Spiritualist community that in turn had replaced a Fourierist community. |
| Oneida Community | New York | John H. Noyes | 1848 | 1880 | AUtopian socialism community. Oneida Community practices includedCommunalism,Complex Marriage,Male Continence,Mutual Criticism andAscending Fellowship. |
| Icarians Nauvoo, Icaria, etc. | Louisiana, Texas, Nauvoo, Illinois, ,Corning, Iowa,Cheltenham, Missouri,Cloverdale, California | Étienne Cabet | 1848 | 1898 | Egalitarian communities based on the Frenchutopian movement founded by Cabet, after his followers emigrated to the US.[14][15] |
| Amana Colonies | Iowa | Community of True Inspiration | 1850s | 1932 | The Amana villages were built one hour apart when traveling by ox cart. Each village had a church, a farm, multi-family residences, workshops and communal kitchens. Prosperous by the 1890s when it was one of the three strongest communistic societies in the U.S.[16] The communal system continued until 1932. |
| Modern Times | Brentwood, New York | Josiah Warren andStephen Pearl Andrews | 1851 | 1864 | Founded uponindividual sovereignty,equitable commerce andmutualism. |
| Raritan Bay Union | New Jersey | Marcus Spring Rebecca Buffum | 1853 | 1858 | AFourierist community.[7] |
| Aurora Colony | Oregon | William Keil | 1853 | 1883 | Christian utopian community |
| Free Lovers at Davis House | Berlin Heights, Erie County, Ohio | Francis Barry[12] | 1854 | 1858 | A community based onFree love andspiritualism.[12] |
| Reunion Colony | Dallas, Texas | Victor P. Considerant | 1855 | 1869 | AFourierist community. |
| Octagon City | Kansas | Henry S. Clubb Charles DeWolfe John McLaurin | 1856 | 1857 | Originally built as avegetarian colony north of the present-day site ofChanute, Kansas nearVegetarian Creek, a tributary of the Neosho River |
| Workingmen's Co-operative Colony (Llewellyn Castle)[17] | Kansas | followers ofJames Bronterre O'Brien | 1869 | 1874 | A community based on the political reform philosophy of Chartist James Bronterre O'Brien. |
| Silkville | Kansas | Ernest de Boissière | 1869 | 1892 | Sericulture farm in Kansas that was founded onFourierist principles. Later shifted away from Fourierism before its collapse. |
| Progressive Colony, near Cedar Vale | Kansas | William Frey | 1871 | 1879 | A Russian communist colony with a mixture of atheism and liberal Christianity. Fell apart due to the domineering and sometimes cruel manner of its founder.[18] |
| Zion Valley | Kansas | William Bickerton | 1875 | 1879 | Bickertonite Mormon religious colony that secularized in 1879 to become the town of St. John, Kansas.[19] |
| Danish Socialist Colony[20] | Kansas | Louis Pio | 1877 | 1877 | A utopian socialist community near Hays |
| Esperanza | Kansas | unknown | ? | 1879 | A utopian communist community founded by settlers from Missouri.[21] |
| Rugby | Tennessee | Thomas Hughes (author of bestseller Tom Brown's School Days (1857)); London and Boston Boards of Aid to Land Ownership | 1880 | 1887 | A community based on Christiansocialism. “Associations” (joint-stock corporations) operated general store and other businesses. A tomato cannery and Rugby Pottery Company operated as joint-stock enterprise but failed financially. Hughes left scene in 1887, $250,000 poorer.[22] |
| Am Olam | Oregon and various locations across the US | Mania Bakl and Moses Herder | 1881 | Mostly disbanded by the 1890s | Jewish social movement that sought to create agricultural communities in America.[23] |
| Shalam Colony | New Mexico | John B. Newbrough Andrew Howland | 1884 | 1901 | A community in which members would live peaceful, vegetarian lifestyles, and where orphaned urban children were to be raised. |
| Kaweah Colony | Sierra Nevada range, California | 1886 | 1892 | Inspired by thescientific socialism ofLaurence Gronlund andEdward Bellamy. Livelihood based on logging of giant sequoia trees. This ended with creation of theSequoia National Park. "Squatter's Cabin" is last surviving structure of the colony.[24] | |
| Ruskin Colony | Dickson County, Tennessee | Julius Wayland | 1894 | 1899 | Attempt to create aco-operative communal movement. Principles of the community were inspired by Edward Bellamy's utopian novel, Looking Backward (1886). Communal dining hall and laundry, housing, medical care, education, equality, and job security. success hampered by no clear business plan. Eventually some members forced sale of land and disbandment.[25] |
| Altruria | California | Edward Byron Payne | 1894 | 1896 | Christian socialist colony inspired byWilliam Dean Howells' 1884 novelA Traveler from Altruria. |
| Fairhope Single Tax Corporation, Fairhope, AL | Alabama | Fairhope Industrial Association | 1894 | currently active | Fairhope was first settled in 1894 byGeorgists. The Single tax experiment was incorporated as the Fairhope Single Tax Corporation under Alabama law in 1904. The municipality of Fairhope was incorporated in 1908.[26] |
| Koreshan Unity | Estero, Florida | Cyrus Teed | 1894 | Last new member admitted in 1940 (died 1982) | Believed in Teed as aMessiah namedKoresh, entered heavy decline after Teed's death in 1908.[27][28] |
| Home, Washington | Washington | George H. Allen Oliver A. Verity B. F. O'Dell | 1895 | 1919 | Anintentional community based onanarchist philosophy |
| Nucla | Colorado | Colorado Cooperative Company | 1896 | Decommmunalized, city remains extant | Established following thePanic of 1893. Originally called Piñon.[29][30] |
| Equality Colony | Skagit County, Washington | Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth[citation needed] | 1897 | 1907 | Principles of the community were inspired by Edward Bellamy's utopian novel, Looking Backward (1886) and its sequel novel Equality (1897). In 1905 colony was divided by arrival of Alexander Horr and other adherents ofTheodor Hertzka’s "Freeland" concept. Wave of arsons effectively ended the social experiment. |
| Bellamy Cooperative Colony | Lincoln County, Oregon (on the Depai Creek 4 miles north of the county seat of Lincoln) | Founded by Norwegian settlers | 1897 | unknown | Principles of the community were inspired by Edward Bellamy's utopian novel, Looking Backward (1886) and its sequel novel Equality (1897).[31] |
| Freedom | Bourbon County, Kansas | G. B. De Bernardi | 1897 | 1905 | colony's economy was based on aLabor Exchange, designed to eliminate poverty and want, through the creation of a “soft” currency that served as legal tender. At the colony's warehouse, workers exchanged goods for “labor checks” redeemable for items in the warehouse.[32][33] |
| Name | Location | Founder | Founding date | Ending date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arden Village | Delaware | Frank Stephens William Lightfoot Price | 1900 | currently active | Anart colony founded as aGeorgist single-tax art community. |
| Zion, Illinois | Illinois | John Alexander Dowie | 1900 | 1907 | A Utopian Christian religious community, reorganized following fraud allegations and founder's death into modern city. |
| Equality Colony | Washington | Norman W. Lermond Ed Pelton | 1900 | 1907 | One of the many U.S.socialist intentional communities inspired byEdward Bellamy's utopian novel, Looking Backward. These communities were often called Nationalist Clubs. |
| Freeland Association | Washington | Dissident members of the Equality Colony | 1900 | 1906[12] | Asocialistcommune. The first settlers dissident members of the nearbyEquality Colony.[34] While the Freeland Association dissolved in 1906[12] thecensus-designated place (CDP) ofFreeland, Washington continues to exist. |
| Helicon Home Colony | New Jersey | Upton Sinclair (who had funds due to his successful bookThe Jungle) | 1907 | 1908 | A "co-operative home". A "home colony," in which to "secure the advantage of the application of machinery to domestic processes, and incidentally to solve the problem of the management of servants."[35] |
| Post | Post, Texas | C.W. Post | 1907 | currently active | |
| Free Acres | New Jersey | Bolton Hall | 1910 | currently active | Georgist community |
| Llano del Rio | California | Job Harriman | 1914 | 1918 | Project designed by architect and plannerAlice Constance Austin with strong emphasis on shared domestic work |
| New Llano | Louisiana | Job Harriman | 1917 | 1937 | Founded by Job Harriman & other members of the California Llano del Rio colony who relocated to Louisiana. |
| Holy City | California | William E. Riker | 1919 | 1959 | Founded by a sect that promotedcelibacy,temperance and a segregationist interpretation of Christianity. |
| Jersey Homesteads | Roosevelt, New Jersey | PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt,Benjamin Brown | 1936 | 1939 | socialist Jewish farming community formed as part of F.D.R.'sNew Deal. Its history is presented in a 1983 documentaryRoosevelt, New Jersey: Visions of Utopia |
| Druid Heights | California | Elsa Gidlow Isabel Quallo Roger Somers | 1954 | 1987 | Bohemian and artistic community. A meeting place used by three U.S. countercultural movements -- theBeat Generation of the 1950s, thehippie movement of the 1960s, and thewomen's movement of the 1970s. |
| Kerista Commune | New York ("Old Tribe") San Francisco ("New Tribe") | John Peltz "Bro Jud" Presmont | 1956 (Old Tribe) 1971 (New Tribe) | 1991 | Polyamorous new religious movement with communal ownership and apolyfidelitous nightly sleeping schedule. |
| Padanaram Settlement | Indiana | Daniel Wright | 1966 | largely privatized soon after the death of the founder in 2001 (communal businesses, school, dining hall, common purse were all discontinued) | Christian fundamentalist commune in rural Indiana |
| Twin Oaks | Virginia | Kat Kinkade, others | 1967 | currently active | Originally a behaviourist utopian society based on the novelWalden Two; eventually becoming anegalitarian commune. |
| The Farm | Lewis County, Tennessee | Stephen Gaskin | 1971 | currently active (became a co-op in 1983) | Buddhist-inspiredHippie vegetarian community. De-collectivized in 1983. |
| East Wind Community | Ozark County, Missouri | Kat Kinkade | 1973 | currently active | A secular and democratic community in which members hold all communities assets in common. |
| Uranian Phalanstery and the associated First New York Gnostic Lyceum Temple | Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York | Richard Oviet Tyler and Dorothea Baer | 1974 | currently active | follows the "Practice of the Eightfold Way on the Path" and exercise "Creativity in Practice of the Path".Fourierist. |
| Acorn Community Farm | Virginia | Ira Wallace | 1993 | currently active | egalitarian commune; branched off of Twin Oaks. |
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