2011 AP US PP - Utopian Societies 1800 - 1850

1. Utopian Societies
By: Kelly Morris and Lauren
Sandy
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2. What is an Utopian Society?
•An utopian society is a society with a
visionary system of political or social
perfection.
•The word utopia comes from the Greek
that combines the meanings of “a good
place” and “no such place.”
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3. Where do utopias come from?
•Utopian societies began in the ancient
world because of legends of perfect
societies and the human desire to create
perfection in a civilization.
•We can trace the utopian roots back to the
Protestant Reformation, Christian
communities, Saint Benedict of Nursia,
Martin Luther, and leaders of the such.
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4. The Shakers
•The Shakers were known as
the United Society of
Believers in Christ’s Second
Coming.
•Ann Lee was a significant
leader in laying the
foundation in 1774, when she
and some followers arrived in
America. To our distress, Ann
Lee died in 1784. But luckily,
the society thrived due to the
6,000 followers Ann Lee left
behind.
•Their lifestyle included a
ritual which involved
dancing and shaking, for
which they are known. It
also included communal
living, productive labor,
celibacy, pacifism, and
equality of the sexes.
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5. The Shakers
•They were majorly
involved in reform
movements such
feminism and
abolitionism.
•They work changed
from agriculture to
handmade products.
•The community at
Enfield climaxed in
the 1830s-1860s.
•There are four
National Historic
Landmarks (former
Shaker villages) in
Kentucky, New
Hampshire, New
York, and Maine.
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6. The Brook Farm Community
•The theories of
transcendentalism
began and Europe,
but were brought to
America.
•Transcendentalism
took root, creating a
Renaissance period in
New England from
1830-1845.
•Many people wanted to
put their theories into
practice, thereby creating
the Brook Farm Institute
of Agriculture and
Education.
•West Roxbury,
Massachusetts was the
site of establishment,
where transcendental
ideas flourished on 200
acres of land from
1841-1847.
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7. The Brook Farm Community
•The community was
run by George Ripley,
who was a Unitarian
minister and literary
critic for the New York
Tribune. There were
many other leaders
such as Emerson,
Hawthorne, and
Sophia Dana Ripley.
•Farmers as well as
intellectuals, shoe
makers, carpenters, and
printers were drawn to
this community.
•The community was self-
sufficient, with an infant
school, primary school,
and college preparatory
course.
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8. The Brook Farm Community
•In 1847, the
community was
terminated due to a
fire disaster in 1846,
financial troubles, and
Hawthorne’s suit to
recover his
investment from
Ripley and Dana.
•The site of Brook
Farm is now a
National Historic
Landmark.
•Beginning with 15
members, the entire
community never
consisted of more that
120 members at one
time.
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9. Fruitlands
•Bronson Alcott and
Charles Lane founded
Fruitlands Commune,
in Harvard,
Massachusetts.
Previously, they had
visited Brook Farm
and found it too
worldly.
•The members were never
to eat meat or use any
animal products or animal
labor. The plants they
planted were to
immediately grow up out
of the ground so as not to
disturb the worms and
other organisms in the
ground.
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10. Fruitlands
•Members viewed manual
labor as an obstruction to
their spiritual life,
therefore they avoided it.
This created a problem of
providing food, leaving
members malnourished
thereby driving members
away from the
community.
•The community
collapsed in January
of 1844.
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11. Oneida
•The founder of Oneida,
John Humphrey Noyes,
believed that there was
sweetness in human
nature, and that it was
possible to have a perfect
Christian community.
•His principles were based
off of unselfishness and
included ‘complex
marriage.’
•Noyles believed that
emotional and physical
relationships should not
be exclusive because
they caused jealousy,
quarreling, and
altercations. The idea of
complex marriage was
that the community
should be free to love one
another, and marriage
should not be
monogamous.
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12. Oneida
•When the steel trap was
invented, the
manufacturing of the trap
and other products
ensured the stability of
the Oneida economy.
•Sharing equality in all
community tasks, there
were about 300 men and
women.
•Everyone in the
community lived in one
mansion, which had
heating, a central dining
hall, and well-stocked
library.
•At the age of 3, the
children were removed
from their parental care
and placed into the
community children’s
home. At 13 or 14 they
got jobs.
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13. Oneida
•Due to tourists and
frightful neighbors, the
Oneida community gave
up complex marriages
in 1839.
•In 1888, they gave up
communism and began
manufacturing
silverware when they
became a joint-stock
company. By the 1990s,
they were making half a
billion dollars a year
manufacturing stainless
steel tableware.
•The Mansion House
still stands in New
York, but is now a
museum.
•What was supposed
to be Noyles religious
vision, became a
mighty capitalistic
corporation.
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14. Sources
•
1.
The Amana Colonies Convention and Visitors Bureau. “Utopias in
America.” The Amana Colonies. 13 June 2011. <http://www.nps.gov/
nr/travel/amana/utopia.htm> (30 October 2011).
•
2.
utopia. Dictionary.com. © Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc..
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc..
<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/utopia> (October 30, 2011).
•
3.
David M. Kennedy, Lizabeth Cohen, and Thomas A. Bailey. The
American Pageant: Thirteenth Ed. Wadsworth, MA: Boston. 2006.
•
4.
Alex Santoso. “Four Utopian Communities that Bombed Miserably.”
17 August 2011. <http://www.neatorama.com/2007/08/17/4-utopian-
communities-that-bombed-miserably/> (30 October 2011).