Backwoods Utopias

The Sectarian Origins and the Owenite Phase of Communitarian Socialism in America, 1663-1829

Arthur Bestor

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press Anniversary Collection
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780812210040
• eBook ISBN: 9781512809640
• Edition: 2
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early American History
• Index: History

The new society that the world awaited might yet be born in the humble guise of a backwoods village. This was the belief shared by the many groups which moved into the American frontier to create experimental communities—communities which they hoped would be models for revolutionary changes in religion, politics, economics, and education in American society. For, as James Madison wrote, the American Republic was "useful in proving things before held impossible."The communitarian ideal had its roots in the radical Protestant sects of the Reformation. Arthur Bestor shows the connection between the "holy commonwealths" of the colonial period and the nonsectarian experiments of the nineteenth century. He examines in particular detail Robert Owen's ideals and problems in creating New Harmony.Two essays have been added to this volume for the second edition. In these, "Patent-Office Models of the Good Society" and "The Transit of Communitarian Socialism to America, " Bestor discusses the effects of the frontier and of the migration of European ideas and people on these communities. He holds that the communitarians could believe in the possibility of nonviolent revolution through imitation of a small perfect society only as long as they saw American institutions as flexible. By the end of the nineteenth century, as American society became less plastic, belief in the power of successful models weakened.

INDEX

NOTE. Incorporated in this general index is an author index, printed in SMALL CAPITALS, to the books, pamphlets, articles, contemporaneous periodicals, and manuscripts cited in the present work, whether in text, footnotes, or bibliographical essay. The boldface numeral indicates the page that furnishes the most complete bibliographical data on the given work. Under the most important authors, separate titles, in shortened form, are listed in chronological order, and there are subheadings for letters and manuscripts other than letters (MSS). Newspapers are indexed under place of publication, not title.

Regular subject entries are in upper- and lower-case letters. Where an individual or an organization figures both as author and subject, the two types of entries are frequently combined in one. The subject entries are given at the end and are introduced by such phrases as “personal references” or “history of.” The subject entries are omitted entirely, however, if they merely duplicate the page references in the bibliographical part of the entry.

The “Checklist of Communitarian Experiments” is fully indexed herein, the serial number from the appendix being added (in parentheses) to the page reference. The index does not cover the two supplemental essays, or the additions made to the Bibliographical Essay in the second edition.

Abolition, see Antislavery

Academy of Natural Sciences, see Philadelphia (Pa.), education and science in

Accounts, financial, see Bookkeeping

ACRELIUS, ISRAEL

Acts, Book of, see BIBLE

ADAMS, CHARLES C.

ADAMS, FREDERICK B., JR.

Adams, John

ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY, Memoirs

personal references

ADAMS, RAYMOND

Agriculture, proposals to combine with manufacturing

at New Harmony

AGRIPPA, Brother, see CHRONICON EPHRATENSE

Aix-la-Chapelle, Congress of

Albany (N.Y.), Owen’s visits to

ALBERTSON, RALPH, “Survey of Mutualistic Communities”

letters

Albion (Ill.)

ALBJERG, VICTOR L., Richard Owen

Alcott, A. Bronson

Alcott House (Eng.)

Alfred (Me.), Shaker community

Allegheny County Cooperating Society

Allen, William, English philanthropist

Alphadelphia Phalanx (Mich.)

ALTRUIST (periodical)

Altruist Community (MO.)

Amana Community (Iowa)

AMERICAN ANNALS OF EDUCATION

American Antiquarian Society, Worcester (Mass.), MSS in

American Colonization Society, see Antislavery

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE

American Phalanx (Ohio)

American Philosophical Society, MSS in. See also Philadelphia (Pa.), education and science in

AMERICAN SOCIALIST (periodical)

AMPHLETT, WILLIAM, MSS

Anabaptists

ANDLER, CHARLES

ANDRESSOHN, JOHN C.

ANDREWS, CHARLES M.

ANDREWS, EDWARD D., works on Shakers

MSS owned by

ANDRUS, J. RUSSELL

Antislavery, connections with communitarianism

Ar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Preface
• Contents
• I The Communitarian Point of View
• II Holy Commonwealths: The Communitive Sects
• III Transmitting The Communitarian Tradition to the Nineteenth Century
• IV Robert Owen’s New View of Society
• V The Reception of Owenism in America
• VI Educational Allies of Communitarianism
• VII New Harmony: A Study in Dissonance
• VIII The Owenite Legacy
• Supplemental Essays:
• Appendix: Checklist of Communitarian Experiments Initiated in the United States Before 1860
• Bibliographical Essay (with addenda, 1949–1969)
• Index