Download or read book Communal Utopias and the American Experience written by Robert P. Sutton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2004-02-28 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important study begins with America's first secular utopia at New Harmony in 1824 and traces successive utopian experiments in the United States through the following centuries. For the first time, readers will come to realize that American communalism is not a disjointed, erratic, almost ephemeral part of our past, but has been an on-going, essential part of American history. We have a communal utopian motif that sets the history of the United States apart from any other nation. The utopian communal story is just one other dimension of the Puritan concept that America was a city upon a hill, a beacon light to all the world where the perfect society could be built and could flourish. After discussing New Harmony and other Owenite communities, the author examines nine Fourierist utopias that were built before the Civil War. Next, he analyzes the five Icarian colonies that, collectively, were the longest-lived, non-religious communal experiments in American history. Then, discussion moves to the seven Gilded Age socialist cooperatives, followed by the utopian communities created during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Finally, Sutton turns to the hippie colonies and intentional communities of the last half of the 20th century.
Download or read book Utopias the American Experience written by Gairdner Bostwick Moment and published by Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 1980 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Communal Utopias and the American Experience Religious Communities 1732 2000 written by Robert P. Sutton and published by Praeger. This book was released on 2003-09-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American communalism is not a disjointed, erratic, almost ephemeral part of our past, but an on-going, essential part of American history. This important study begins with an examination of America's first religious utopia at Ephrata, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1732 and traces successive utopian experiments in the United States through the following centuries. The author demonstrates that the utopian communal story is an integral facet of the Puritan concept of America as a city upon a hill and a beacon light for the world where the perfect society could be built and where it could flourish. After discussing the Ephrata Cloister (1724-1812), the author turns to the dozen or so Shaker communities that spread utopian communalism from New England to the Ohio Valley frontier in the antebellum years. Next, he examines the various Separatists, as well as the Oneida Community. He traces the history of the Hutterite utopias from Russia to the Great Plains and Canada between the Civil War and World War I. In a chapter on California counter culture communities, he analyzes the Theosophist communes at Pint Loma and Temple Home. Finally, he discusses modern religious utopias ranging from the Koreshian Unity at Estero, Florida, to Zion City near Chicago, Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker Movement, the Sufi Utopia in the Berkshire Mountains, and the Pandanaram Settlement in Indiana.
Download or read book America s Communal Utopias written by Donald E. Pitzer and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010-01-20 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Shakers to the Branch Davidians, America's communal utopians have captured the popular imagination. Seventeen original essays here demonstrate the relevance of such groups to the mainstream of American social, religious, and economic life. The contributors examine the beliefs and practices of the most prominent utopian communities founded before 1965, including the long-overlooked Catholic monastic communities and Jewish agricultural colonies. Also featured are the Ephrata Baptists, Moravians, Shakers, Harmonists, Hutterites, Inspirationists of Amana, Mormons, Owenites, Fourierists, Icarians, Janssonists, Theosophists, Cyrus Teed's Koreshans, and Father Divine's Peace Mission. Based on a new conceptual framework known as developmental communalism, the book examines these utopian movements throughout the course of their development--before, during, and after their communal period. Each chapter includes a brief chronology, giving basic information about the group discussed. An appendix presents the most complete list of American utopian communities ever published. The contributors are Jonathan G. Andelson, Karl J. R. Arndt, Pearl W. Bartelt, Priscilla J. Brewer, Donald F. Durnbaugh, Lawrence Foster, Carl J. Guarneri, Robert V. Hine, Gertrude E. Huntington, James E. Landing, Dean L. May, Lawrence J. McCrank, J. Gordon Melton, Donald E. Pitzer, Robert P. Sutton, Jon Wagner, and Robert S. Weisbrot.
Download or read book Utopias in American History written by Jyotsna Sreenivasan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2008-10-24 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insightful look at the long tradition of communal societies in the United States from colonial times to the present, examining their ideological foundations, daily life, and relationships to mainstream American society. With this volume, a fascinating, yet often overlooked, part of the American story is brought to the forefront. In Utopias in American History, independent scholar Jyotsna Sreenivasan makes the case that from the founding of the American colonies to the hippie communes of the 1960s to the cohousing movement, which started in the 1990s, the United States has the most sustained tradition of utopianism of any modern country. Accessible yet authoritative and highly informative, Utopias in American History offers dozens of alphabetically organized entries covering all aspects of communal societies from colonial times to the present. Featured are descriptions of over 40 major utopian communities, both religious and secular. Entries are organized in terms of their histories, belief systems, leadership, economics, daily life, and the reactions they drew from mainstream society.
Download or read book Paradise Now written by Chris Jennings and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-01-12 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For readers of Jill Lepore, Joseph J. Ellis, and Tony Horwitz comes a lively, thought-provoking intellectual history of the golden age of American utopianism—and the bold, revolutionary, and eccentric visions for the future put forward by five of history’s most influential utopian movements. In the wake of the Enlightenment and the onset of industrialism, a generation of dreamers took it upon themselves to confront the messiness and injustice of a rapidly changing world. To our eyes, the utopian communities that took root in America in the nineteenth century may seem ambitious to the point of delusion, but they attracted members willing to dedicate their lives to creating a new social order and to asking the bold question What should the future look like? In Paradise Now, Chris Jennings tells the story of five interrelated utopian movements, revealing their relevance both to their time and to our own. Here is Mother Ann Lee, the prophet of the Shakers, who grew up in newly industrialized Manchester, England—and would come to build a quiet but fierce religious tradition on the opposite side of the Atlantic. Even as the society she founded spread across the United States, the Welsh industrialist Robert Owen came to the Indiana frontier to build an egalitarian, rationalist utopia he called the New Moral World. A decade later, followers of the French visionary Charles Fourier blanketed America with colonies devoted to inaugurating a new millennium of pleasure and fraternity. Meanwhile, the French radical Étienne Cabet sailed to Texas with hopes of establishing a communist paradise dedicated to ideals that would be echoed in the next century. And in New York’s Oneida Community, a brilliant Vermonter named John Humphrey Noyes set about creating a new society in which the human spirit could finally be perfected in the image of God. Over time, these movements fell apart, and the national mood that had inspired them was drowned out by the dream of westward expansion and the waking nightmare of the Civil War. Their most galvanizing ideas, however, lived on, and their audacity has influenced countless political movements since. Their stories remain an inspiration for everyone who seeks to build a better world, for all who ask, What should the future look like? Praise for Paradise Now “Uncommonly smart and beautifully written . . . a triumph of scholarship and narration: five stand-alone community studies and a coherent, often spellbinding history of the United States during its tumultuous first half-century . . . Although never less than evenhanded, and sometimes deliciously wry, Jennings writes with obvious affection for his subjects. To read Paradise Now is to be dazzled, humbled and occasionally flabbergasted by the amount of energy and talent sacrificed at utopia’s altar.”—The New York Times Book Review “Writing an impartial, respectful account of these philanthropies and follies is no small task, but Mr. Jennings largely pulls it off with insight and aplomb. Indulgently sympathetic to the utopian impulse in general, he tells a good story. His explanations of the various reformist credos are patient, thought-provoking and . . . entertaining.”—The Wall Street Journal “As a tour guide, Jennings is thoughtful, engaging and witty in the right doses. . . . He makes the subject his own with fresh eyes and a crisp narrative, rich with detail. . . . In the end, Jennings writes, the communards’ disregard for the world as it exists sealed their fate. But in revisiting their stories, he makes a compelling case that our present-day ‘deficit of imagination’ could be similarly fated.”—San Francisco Chronicle
Download or read book American Community written by Mark S. Ferrara and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-18 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Community takes us inside forty of our nation's most interesting experiments in collective living, from the colonial era to the present day. By shining a light on these forgotten histories, it shows that far from being foreign concepts, communitarianism and socialism have always been vital parts of the American experience.
Download or read book Heartland Utopias written by Robert P. Sutton and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a regional study of 19th century utopian movements, focusing on the Old Northwest Territory, the Dakotas, and Missouri, a region surpassed only by New England in the number of utopian settlements. It ranges from the first Shaker village near Dayton, Ohio, built in 1807, to the 1903 incorporation and ensuing stormy history of The House of David in Benton Harbor, Michigan. During these years, charismatic individuals built three different kinds of utopias : perfectionist, whose members thought they could achieve impeccancy almost immediately by living communally; cooperative, whose members believed that communalism would improve the moral and economic condition of its members and at the same time be the alternative to exploitative capitalism; and social and communist, whose members believed that democracy and equality could never be achieved without living in an ?association,? as with the socialists, or in a ?community of good,? as with the Icarians.
Download or read book The Quest for Utopia in Twentieth Century America written by Timothy Miller and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 1998-05-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the long-anticipated first volume of a two-volume work that will chronicle intentional communities in the twentieth century. Timothy Miller's chronological account is likely to be the standard work on the subject. Communities of the early twentieth century were often obscure and short-lived enterprises that left little trace of themselves. Historical accounts of them are few, and the ephemera such ventures produced have rarely been collected. Miller first looks at the older groups that were operating until I 900. He explores their impact of the early twentieth-century art colonies, and then turns to a decade-by-decade discussion of many dozens of new groups formed up to 1960. His comprehensive perspective—a synopsis of the first sixty years of this century—has never before been undertaken in the study of communal groups.
Download or read book Communes in America 1975 2000 written by Timothy Miller and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-26 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Communes in America: 1975–2000 is the final volume in Miller’s trilogy on the history of American intentional communities. Providing a comprehensive survey of communities during the last quarter of the twentieth century, Miller offers a detailed study of their character, scope, and evolution. Between 1975 and 2000, the American communal experience evolved dramatically in response to social and environmental challenges that confronted American society as a whole. Long-accepted social norms and institutions—family, religion, medicine, and politics—were questioned as the divorce rate increased, interest in spiritual teachings from Asia grew, and alternative medicine gained ground. Cohousing flourished as a response to an increasing sense of alienation and a need to balance community and private lives. At the same time, Americans became increasingly concerned with environmental protection and preservation of our limited resources. In the face of these social changes, communal living flourished as people sought out communities of like-minded individuals to pursue a higher purpose. Organized topically, each chapter in the volume provides basic information about various types of communities and detailed examples of each type, from ecovillages and radical Christian communities to pagan communes and cohousing experiments. Miller also takes a step back to look at the prevalence of communal living in American life over the twentieth century. Based on exhaustive research, Miller’s final volume provides an indispensable survey and guide to understanding utopianism’s enduring presence in American culture.
Download or read book Commitment and Community written by Rosabeth Moss Kanter and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1972 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rosabeth Kanter offers a unique analysis of the nature and process of enduring commitment, basing her theory of commitment mechanisms on exhaustive research of nineteenth–century utopias, sharpened by first–hand knowledge of a variety of contemporary groups.
Download or read book Experimental Americans written by George L. Hicks and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Founded in 1937 by Arthur Morgan, first chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Celo (pronounced see-lo) established its own rules of land tenure and taxation, conducted its internal business by consensus and did not require its members to accept any particular ideology or religious creed. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Celo and among its local neighbors, consultation of Celo's documentary records, and interviews with ex-members, Hicks traces the Community's ups and downs. Attacked for its opposition to World War II, Celo was revived by pacifists released from prisons and Civilian Public Service camps after the war; debilitated in the 1950s by bitter feuds with ex-members, it was buoyed up in the 1960s by the radical enthusiasm of new currents in the nation."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Escape to Utopi written by Everett Webber and published by . This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Utopian Thought and Communal Experience written by Dennis Hardy and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Women Family and Utopia written by Lawrence Foster and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of women's roles, family relationships, and sexuality in three unorthodox 19th-century communal experiments, with analysis of the implications such systems may have for present-day Americans concerned with the sense of crisis in family life and sex roles.
Download or read book Seven American Utopias written by Dolores Hayden and published by Mit Press. This book was released on 1979 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the time of its discovery, the new world was regarded by American settlers as a new Eden and a new Jerusalem. Although individual pioneers' visions of paradise were inevitably corrupted by reality, some determined ideatists carved out enclaves in order to develop collective models of what they believed to be more perfect societies. All such communitarian groups consciously attempted to express their social ideals in their buildings and landscapes; invariably, ideological predispositions can be inferred from a close study of the environments they created. The interplay between ideology and architecture, the social design and the physical design of American utopian communities, is the basis of this remarkable book by Dolores Hayden.At the heart of the book are studies of seven communitarian groups, collectively stretching over nearly two centuries and the full breadth of the American continent-the Shakers of Hancock, Massachusetts; the Mormons of Nauvoo, lllinois; the Fourierists of Phalanx, New Jersey; the Perfectionists of Oneida, New York; the Inspirationists of Amana, Iowa; the Union Colonists of Greeley, Colorado; and the Cooperative Colonists of Llano del Rio, California. Hayden examines each of these groups to see how they coped with three dilemmas that all socialist' societies face: conflicts betweeft authoritarian and participatory processes, between communal and private territory, and between unique and replicable community plans.The book contains over 260 historic and contemporary photographs and drawings which illustrate the communitarian processes of design and building. The drawings range in scale from regional plans showing land ownership, access to transportation, and availability of natural resources, through site plans of communal domains and building plans of dwellings and assembly halls, down to detailed diagrams of furniture configurations. To aid readers in making comparisons, a series of site and building plans drawn at constant scales has been provided for all seven case studies.
Download or read book All Things New written by Robert S. Fogarty and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive study of 125 communities and their leaders, countering the view that communes and the utopian movement declined after the 1840s.
