Oneida Utopia

Oneida Utopia is a fresh and holistic treatment of a long-standing social experiment born of revival fervor and communitarian enthusiasm. The Oneida Community of upstate New York was dedicated to living as one family and to the sharing of all property, work, and love. Anthony Wonderley is a sensitive guide to the things and settings of Oneida life from its basis in John H. Noyes's complicated theology, through experiments in free love and gender equality, to the moment when the commune transformed itself into an industrial enterprise based on the production of silverware. Rather than drawing a sharp boundary between spiritual concerns and worldly matters, Wonderley argues that commune and company together comprise a century-long narrative of economic success, innovative thinking, and abiding concern for the welfare of others.

Oneida Utopia seamlessly combines the evidence of social life and intellectual endeavor with the testimony of built environment and material culture. Wonderley shares with readers his intimate knowledge of evidence from the Oneida Community: maps and photographs, quilts and furniture, domestic objects and industrial products, and the biggest artifact of all, their communal home. Wonderley also takes a novel approach to the thought of the commune's founder, examining individually and in context Noyes's reactions to interests and passions of the day, including revivalism, millennialism, utopianism, and spiritualism.

Anthony Wonderley is the former Curator of Collections and Interpretation at the Oneida Community Mansion House. He is the author of Oneida Iroquois Folklore, Myth, and History and At the Font of the Marvelous and editor of The Days of My Youth and John Humphrey Noyes on Sexual Relations in the Oneida Community.

Anthony Wonderley re-tells the [Oneida] community's history, stressing the collective dynamics of the group over its leader and effectively contextualizing it in nineteenth-century American culture.

Why do readers need another book on the Oneida Community when so many have already been published? Wonderley quickly addresses this question, arguing convincingly for his distinctive contribution, with evidence provided in carefully written and well-documented chapters followed by an extensive bibliography.... Because Wonderley is the former curator of the Oneida Community's historical collections, he is in a unique position to provide such an account. Fascinating reading!

The most thoroughly researched and insightful study yet published about the development of the controversial Oneida Community.... Striking new insights abound.... Oneida Utopia is a remarkable scholarly achievement, a model community study.... Wonderley genuinely breaks new ground in this skillfully written and broad-ranging study. It is now the first book I would recommend to anyone seeking to gain a nuanced understanding of how the Oneida Community functioned and how it changed over time.