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Experimental Communities in 19th Century America

Experimental Communities in the 19th Century

The Century Past 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.

You’ll find the works at the pages shown, listed alphabetically by author.

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)

See our Ohio History page

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)

See our Books about Utopias & Experimental Communities

Michigan Social History page

Barber, Edward W., “The Vermontville Colony: Its Genesis and History, with Personal Sketches of the Colonists” (1900)

See our Pioneer Guidebooks for the Great Lakes States

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)

See our Britannica Encyclopedia pdf free download

Experimental Communities

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)

See our Books and Articles about Cities & other Places in Illinois

Indiana Fiction page

Snedeker, Caroline D., Seth Way (1917)

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