The History of the Great Lakes States website has a number of books and articles about experimental communities. Most were based on community property rather than private property. Some were religious; some secular.
Click on the page name to open it in a new tab, and you’ll find the recommended works there. They are listed alphabetically, by author.
For tips on reading online and downloading, see the note at the bottom of this page.
Ohio Social History page
Baillie, William, Josiah Warren, The First American Anarchist; A Sociological Study (1906)
McKinley, Kenneth William, “A Guide to Communistic Communities of Ohio” (1937)
Randall, E. O., “The Separatist Society of Zoar: An Experiment in Communism – From its Commencement to its Conclusion” (1899)
Indiana Social History page
Bakken, Dawn E., ““A Full Supply of the Necessaries and Comforts of Life”: The Owenite Community of Blue Spring, Indiana” (2011)
Bestor, Arthur E., Education and Reform at New Harmony: Correspondence of William Maclure and Marie Duclos Fretageot, 1820-1833 (1948)
Denehie, Elizabeth Smith, “The Harmonist Movement in Indiana” (1923)
Elliot, Helen, “Frances Wright’s Experiment with Negro Emancipation” (1939)
Lockwood, George B., The New Harmony Movement (1905)
Michigan Social History page
Barber, Edward W., “The Vermontville Colony: Its Genesis and History, with Personal Sketches of the Colonists” (1900)
Wisconsin Social History page
McIntosh, Montgomery Eduard, “Cooperative Communities in Wisconsin” (1904)
Ohio Religion page
MacLean, J. P., “Origin, Rise, Progress and Decline of the Whitewater Community of Shakers, Located in Hamilton County, Ohio” (1904)
Youngs, Benjamin Seth, “An Expedition against the Shakers” (1912)
Illinois Local History page
Flower, George, History of the English Settlement in Edwards County, Illinois founded in 1817 and 1818 by Morris Birkbeck and George Flower (1909)
Indiana Fiction page
Snedeker, Caroline D., Seth Way (1917)