Mark S. Ferrara, American Community: Radical Experiments in Intentional Living (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2020). 234 pages, $24.95.
American Community provides an overview of communal societies in the United States, from the colonial period to the present day. Mark Ferrara, an associate professor of English at SUNY, lives in an intentional community. His book is based on travel to historical sites, archives, and secondary sources. It is a well-written illustrated introduction and might well lure readers to pursue the subject further.
Ferrara’s scope is much more diverse than his subtitle implies. His definition of an intentional community is one whose residents “seek to create an entire way of life. They embrace communalism as an ethical end in itself. . . and they emphasize economic sharing as a means of achieving collective goals” (2). The Foundation for Intentional Community defines it as “a group of people who have chosen to live together or share resources on the basis of common values.” (ic.org). Intention or choice seems to be essential to the concept of “intentional community,” yet Ferrara’s examples include company towns such as Pullman, in Illinois, government established resettlement communities such as Arthurdale, West Virginia, architect-created Arcosanti, in Arizona, and co-housing projects that lack economic sharing.
Furthermore, the more successful communities had members who had not chosen that way of life; they were born there or adopted as children. Those with radical dispositions—those most like the founders—were most likely to leave. This suggests one reason why communities found it difficult to survive or to retain the original idealism. It may also be a problem for any variety of socialism—the need to prevent generational decline.
Despite Ferrara’s very broad scope and small sample—he includes only the less well-known communities—his book is relevant to achieving socialism and democracy. “Even those societies that disbanded after a short time did not fail in their efforts to create a better world, since they left a record of what worked—and what did not—for those who followed” (180).
Ferrara begins his study with the short-lived attempt of the Pilgrims to operate on a community property basis (1620-1623). Others from the radical wing of the Protestant Reformation found refuge in the US, where communal societies were welcomed to “settle” the country, although by unsettling the non-Christian existing inhabitants.
Among the earlier communities, Ferrara describes Ephrata (1732-1813), Zoar (1813-1900), Modern Times (1851-1864), Hopedale (1843-1857), and the Icarians (1848-1898). Of the late 19th century communities, Ferrara discusses Pullman, the huge company town. It was influenced by Robert Owen’s paternalistic projects in Wales; he hoped to quell labor unrest and increase profits. Eventually many of the workers hitched up with Debs’s American Railway Union and political socialism.
A great diversity of interests embraced the communal form; a spiritualist Christian socialist group at Mountain Cove, CA; a Rugby (Christian socialist) Colony, TN; the Belton Woman’s Commonwealth, TX, for victims of domestic violence; a black industrial and agricultural community, Mound Bayou, MS.
Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward inspired not only the “Nationalist” clubs that gave rise to the Socialist Party, but also socialist communal experiments, such as Kaweah, CA, Wayland, TN, Llano del Rio, CA (whose leader became Debs’s vice presidential running mate in 1900) and Blavatsky’s theosophical commune, Lomaland, CA.
The 1930s depression brought the federal government into the provision of “subsistence homesteads,” new towns for migrants and the unemployed. They were created by the Resettlement Administration, Farm Security Administration, and other agencies, and included Liberty Homesteads, OH, Arthurdale, WV, Aberdeen Gardens, VA (for black residents, built by a black architect and black workers), and Greenbelt, MD.
The resettlement officials were often socialists, inspired by the communitarian tradition, Bellamy, and Ebenezer Howard, theorist of Garden Cities. Their promotion of handicrafts, subsistence farming, small cooperative industries, and folk dancing (but also socialized medicine) might be regarded by communists as reactionary, attempting to revive a rural way of life. However, socialist thought of the 19th century was in many ways reactionary. Even revolutionary socialists such as William Morris evoked a lost past.
Settlement residents had greatly improved living conditions: physical, social, and cultural. The communities might have become permanent and replicated, except that conservatives deemed them too communistic, and WWII drew people away to the war industries.
There were many privately founded communal developments during the Depression era. Ferrara mentions Arthur Morgan’s anti-war community, Celo, NC, the Catholic Worker farms and houses, and Sunrise Cooperative Farm, MI, a Jewish commune.
The counterculture era of 1960-75 produced thousands of communes, including Drop City, CO, Morning Star, CA, The Farm, TN, and Diggers in CA.
Ferrara believes the current co-housing movement, e.g., Muir Commons, CA, and ecovillages, e.g., Ithaca Ecovillage, NY, is signaling a new growth in communalism. However, today building or renovating costs are often prohibitive; in any case, these don’t have collective economies.
What do intentional communities have to do with socialism? For one thing, socialism before the late 19th century was associated with communalism. Robert Owen’s experimental communities and 1825 presentation to Congress were considered both socialist and acceptable options by mainstream politicians, intellectuals, and social reformers. The Fourier-inspired Associationist movement was a major development in US history, influencing secular and religious-based communes, political activism, and Bellamy’s Looking Backward, an inspiration for the Socialist Party. Fourier also influenced Marx and Engels and the left among Russian revolutionaries, for example, Alexandra Kollontai.
Ferrara emphasizes the close connection between religion and socialism in the 19th century. “The Oneida Community in New York, for instance, commenced in 1848 as an experiment in ‘Bible Communism,’ but by the time of its dissolution in 1881, it published a weekly periodical called the American Socialist” (91). Other religious societies, such as the Shaker communities and Hopedale, considered themselves part of the communist or socialist movement. This is evident in the title of Charles Nordhoff’s 1875 survey: The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and Observation. Ferrara also notes that “the term ‘socialism’ carried positive connotations from its coining in the early decades of the nineteenth century until the Great War” (177).
What do the experiences of intentional communities tell us about democracy? It was not prominent in their governing processes. They were more democratic in the sense of equality in dignity and living conditions, and sharing the burdens and pleasures of work. We learn from other sources that some were totalitarian (Shakers and Hutterites), and/or led by self-perpetuating boards of those deemed holiest or wisest. Especially in the Fourierist and Jewish “colonies,” non-resident investors exerted considerable control. Ferrara reports that where there were elections or consensus decision-making factionalism often led to the dissolution of the community; the libertarian societies were prone to chaos and early demise. For any socialist society, democracy is problematic, as policy is supposed to promote socialist values rather than whatever the majority wills.
Did the communities embody socialist values? They were mostly pacifist and had a higher standard of living and more economic equality than their “free enterprise” neighbors. Most work was to serve basic needs, including recreation and education.
The art and craft of Ephrata, PA, was outstanding: bookbinding, fine paper, ink, illuminated manuscripts, printed books, and musical composition. The Shakers, in addition to crafting, were technologically inventive despite the lack of a profit motive. Was celibacy a major stimulus in these communities, as the theory of sublimation suggests? Do monogamy and family conflict with socialist communalism?
Ferrara observes:
When communitarians held fast to a commonly accepted ideology, be it religious or secular, they were more likely to succeed. Clear standards for admission also improved the chances of success, as did a means to expel individuals who. . . did not prove a good fit with the community. Moreover, everyone must work—there is no utopia for shirkers! (181)
The sharing of burdensome work as well as creative and pleasant work may be a requirement for successful socialism (as Fourier maintained).
Communities often had more gender equality than the general population. Women sometimes shared leadership and enjoyed unusual levels of freedom and security. Hardly any were inclusive racially or ethnically, and they frequently intruded upon or displaced native American communalists.
Ferrara concludes that the failures of capitalism make the socialist alternative imperative. He states that “[W]e are on the cusp of a new wave of community building. . . Tomorrow’s communitarians will construct cooperative societies of ecological sanity, shared material abundance, and equality where social relations are premised on solidarity and production for public use” (183). I think Ferrara is being overly optimistic.
American Community is a useful introduction to what worked, what didn’t, and why, and should inspire further investigation by social scientists and socialists. A more complete study would include New Harmony, Brook Farm, the Oneida Community, the Shakers, the Hutterites, Twin Oaks, and foreign communal societies.
Joan Roelofs
Professor Emerita of Political Science Keene State College
Keene, New Hampshire
jroelofs@keene.edu
