Utopia

Utopia is the name commonly given to any society (fictional or experimental) in which everything is perfect; economic and social conditions are ideal.

 

v He wrote this book Utopia in 1516.

v It pictures an idea state where all is ordered for the best for humanity as a whole

v Evils of society such as poverty and misery have been eliminated

v It was a satire to point out the problems in England at the time

 

 

 

 

 

This woodcut, taken from the first edition of Sir Thomas More’s famous work Utopia, depicts the island that symbolized More's concept of an ideal community. More, who was a statesman as well as a writer, used the fictional Utopia to satirize conditions in England.

 

Utopian Communities

 

v A town, Posey County, southwestern Indiana, on the Wabash River; incorporated 1850.

v It is a commercial center situated in a productive farm region.

v The community was established in 1814 as Harmonie by members of the Harmony Society under the leadership of the German-born religious leader George Rapp.

v In 1825 the Harmonists sold their holdings to the British social reformer Robert Owen and returned to Pennsylvania.

v Owen and his followers renamed the settlement New Harmony and founded a community based on Owen's theories of cooperative living.

v As a result of internal dissension, however, the colony was dissolved as a distinct entity in 1828.

 

Brook Farm

v Cooperative community established in 1841 in West Roxbury (now part of Boston) as a joint-stock company by leaders of the philosophical movement known as transcendentalism.

v Directed by the American critic and social reformer George Ripley, the community was organized as the Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education on a farm of 200 acres.

v The members of the group were to contribute equally to the work and to share equally in the proceeds from the work and from the social and educational opportunities.

v Among the American literary and religious leaders associated with Brook Farm were Amos Bronson Alcott, William Ellery Channing, Charles Anderson Dana, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Theodore Parker, and Orestes Augustus Brownson.

"Brook Farm," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

 

 

Oneida Community

v utopian society established at Oneida, New York, in 1848 and dissolved about 1880.

v The community was a religious and social experiment based on communistic principles.

v It was founded originally at Putney, Vermont, by the American religious leader John Humphrey Noyes in the late 1830s.

v The members of the community, who were called Perfectionists, believed that freedom from sin could be obtained on earth by communion with God, followed by a renunciation of personal property and of binding personal relationships, including marriage.

v After being expelled from Putney, where the group's practices had aroused opposition, the members settled at Oneida and established several successful manufacturing enterprises there.

v All properties, including farms and industries, were held in common; the community government was conducted by committees that met weekly in public sessions.

v Women had equal rights with men in the society. Cohabitation was permitted, but conception was directed, theoretically, by the community leaders, who attempted to impose eugenic principles in order to produce healthy and intelligent offspring.

v Children were reared by the community, which in many cases provided them with professional and technical training.

v Because of outside antagonism to the system of "complex marriage," whereby all adults in the community were considered married to one another, the system was abandoned in 1879.

v Soon afterward, the members also abolished their communal property system, thus ending the utopian experiment

v A joint-stock company, known as Oneida Community, Limited, was formed to carry on the various manufacturing establishments, which had become profitable endeavors.

v The company still exists; but it has gradually narrowed its activities from the manufacture of steel traps and silk and the canning of fruits and vegetables to the manufacture of fine plated and sterling silverware, for which it is now known.

 

"Oneida Community," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

 

Modern Communities

Follow the links below to read about modern utopian communities:

http://www.ic.org/acorn/

The Acorn Community, a community in rural Virginia

http://www.twinoaks.org/

Twin Oaks Community, another community in Virginia, seven miles from the Acorn Community

http://www.thefarm.org/general/farmfaq.html

The Farm, a community in Tennessee

http://www.findhorn.org/

A community in Scotland

http://www.victorycities.com/

Victory City, a utopian city of the future to be built all under one roof

http://www.new-utopia.com/

Principality of a New Utopia, another utopian society not yet built, but plans for a society in the middle of the ocean