Utopian Societies

New Harmony was one of the first utopian communities established in the Antebellum Era. This community was founded by Johann Georg Rapp. He was also the spiritual leader of this historical community. Two years later A Scottish industrialist bought New Harmony by Robert Owen. He came to America looking to start a utopian society. Robert Owen formed a secular utopian society at New Harmony and it failed. His vision of the utopian society was that an individual’s character is shaped by his or her society. Although New Harmony failed in just a few years it spurred the creation of others. Charles Fourier was a French man who began a similar experiment in the Midwest of the United States. Out of all of the other pioneers during the Antebellum Era I would have to say that Charles was the most utopian. He completely despised industrialism even though he saw how well it worked in England. Charles had many unreal visions. A few of them were that there would be a copulation of androgynous plants, the earth would be surrounded by six moons , the oceans would lose their salt and become lemonade, and every woman would have at least four lovers simultaneously.

In 1841 the brook farm was established by George and Sophia Ripley in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. The Brook Farm became one of the most famous attempts at Utopian living. It was closely affiliated with the Transcendentalist movement, these farmer-intellectuals tried to hew a modest living out of the wilderness. This community also collapsed within a few years, just as New Harmony did. Unlike the other attempts at a Utopian society such as New Harmony and the Brook Farm the Oneida Community actually had some long-term success. This community actually had some realistic ideas such as marriage, birth control, and eugenics. John Humphrey Noyes founded the Oneida Community in 1848 in Oneida, New York. Ann Lee’s main focus of a Utopian Society was to have equality of the sexes. So she founded the shakers in the 1840’s. Just as the majority of the other utopian societies this society died out. The reason why this society did not last long is because the believers were forbidden to marry or have sex.