This book explores the intersections between nineteenth-century social reform movements in the United States. Delving into the little-known history of women who joined income-sharing communities during the 1840s, this book uses four community case studies to examine social activism within communal environments. In a period when women faced legal and social restrictions ranging from coverture to slavery, the emergence of residential communities designed by French utopian writer, Charles Fourier, introduced spaces where female leadership and social organization became possible. Communitarian women helped shape the ideological underpinnings of some of the United States’ most enduring and successful reform efforts, including the women’s rights movement, the abolition movement, and the creation of the Republican Party. Dr. Hart argues that these movements were intertwined, with activists influencing multiple organizations within unexpected settings.
Author(s): Amy Hart
Series: Palgrave Studies in Utopianism
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 261
City: Cham
Acknowledgments
About the Book
Praise for Fourierist Communities of Reform
Contents
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction to Intentional Communities and Social Change
Utopias, Communes, and Intentional Communities
The Life and Worldview of Charles Fourier
Understanding the Long-Term Impacts of the Fourierist Communal Experiments
Accessing the History of Intentional Communities
Understanding Communitarians: The Challenges Facing Historians
Finding a Shared Language: A Note on Terms
Chapter 2: Reverberations of Reform Activism: The Lasting Impact of Trumbull Phalanx
Fourier’s American Followers
Forming a Community: The Founding of Trumbull Phalanx
Opposing Approaches to Community: Angelique Le Petit Martin and Nathaniel Meeker
Gender and Race in the Nineteenth Century
Angelique Martin’s Feminism
The Language of Reform
Life After Community: Social Reformers
The Next Generation: Lilly Martin Spencer’s Social Activism Through Art
Chapter 3: Demonstrating Racial Diversity Within Community: The Northampton Association of Education and Industry
A New Type of Communal Experiment
Life at the Northampton Association: Experiences Filtered Through the Lens of Gender and Race
Rituals and Religions
Truth’s Sojourn
Reformers Meet
The End of a Community, Continuation of a Movement
The Outcomes of Community
Chapter 4: Contested Community: The Wisconsin Phalanx and the Western Frontier
Creating Group Identity Within Community
Founding a Community on Another’s Land
A More Perfect Community: The Ideological Underpinnings of the Wisconsin Phalanx
Religion, Ritual, and Community Cohesion at the Wisconsin Phalanx
Reforming Society by Rejuvenating the Body and Soul
Gendered Perspectives on the Wisconsin Frontier
Reformers and the State: Participating in Wisconsin Statehood
Life in Ripon and Beyond: The Lasting Impacts of the Wisconsin Phalanx
Chapter 5: Brook Farm: Two Diverging Paths After Community
From Anti-sectarian to Christian Socialism
The Transcendentalists of Brook Farm
Georgiana Bruce
Anna Blackwell
A Fiery Beginning
Chapter 6: Fourierist Futures: The Lasting Impact of the Fourierist Communities in the 1850s and Beyond
The Founding of the Republican Party
Social Movements
Religious Reform
Health Reform
Conclusion: The Webs of Reform
Appendix 1: Timeline of Northampton Association Abolitionists
Bibliography
Archival Collections
Primary Sources
Newspapers
Books/Collections
Secondary Sources
Index
