Fourierism in New Jersey: The North American Phalanx (NAP) and Raritan Bay Union

Central issue, problem, or question: How did economic conditions associated with the early phases of industrialization make French reformer Charles Fourier’s ideas for reorganizing society so appealing to many Americans?

Significance: This lesson examines the market revolution’s effect on workers’ lives by exploring the appeal of utopian communities, like the North American Phalanx (NAP) in Colts Neck, New Jersey.

Objectives: After learning about associationist communities like the NAP and reading primary source documents, students will be able to: • Describe how an associationist community, like the NAP, was organized. • Analyze why Fourier’s theories and associationist phalanxes were so popular in the United States during the 1840s. • Explain why the model communities failed.

Background: The inequities and insecurities of the early stages of industrialization in the United States sparked interest in utopian socialist alternatives, like Robert Owen’s model villages and Charles Fourier’s phalanxes. Fourier’s premiere American apostle, Albert Brisbane, simplified, expurgated, and popularized the French socialist’s theories in a series of articles published in Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune beginning in March 1842. Blaming economic competition for the miseries of rich and poor alike, Brisbane advocated a system of cooperative labor, pooled capital, and associated living that would render productive labor more attractive, profitable, and equitable. He proposed the creation of model communities as joint stock companies whose residents would both labor for and hold stock in the company. By demonstrating the superiority of cooperative labor and associated property, these communities would serve as models for the peaceful transformation of American society.

Brisbane’s critique of industrial capitalism resonated with readers still suffering the effects of the Panic of 1837, and his promise of a solution to the nation’s economic and social woes drew an eager audience. In 1843, his call to found a NAP in New Jersey was quickly answered by a group of interested readers who, months later, established a model township near Red Bank, New Jersey. Though not as famous as Brook Farm (whose members converted to Fourierism or Associationism in 1843/1844), the NAP was one of the first Associationist communities founded in the United States and would prove to be one of the longest lasting.

NAP residents came from all walks of life. They were merchants, mechanics, carpenters, seamstresses, printers, shoemakers, teachers, and housewives. Some were wealthy men able to purchase large amounts of stock; others could contribute only good health and hard work to the community. All residents, rich and poor, lived in the main edifice of the community, the Phalanstery, where they could rent rooms or suites according to their needs and tastes. Every resident member, including women and children, performed labor in the NAP’s kitchen, workshops, fields, garden, and laundry room and were remunerated according to hours, task, and skill. They worked as members of teams and generally performed several different tasks each day. This switching from task to task was intended to eradicate tedium and to allow phalanx members to cultivate all aspects of their bodies and minds.

Mary Paul, formerly a domestic servant, textile mill worker, and seamstress, became a resident of the NAP in 1854. Her letters to her father, Bela, reveal her reasons for joining the NAP and her enthusiasm for associative living. Although upon first arrival, the customs, especially the communal meals, seemed strange, Paul quickly adjusted to her new community. Like most female members of the NAP, she performed primarily domestic labor, but Paul seems to have enjoyed the variety of tasks—sewing, cleaning, ironing, and waiting tables in the dining room—and her ability to decide how many hours per day she would work. Furthermore, as she wrote to her father, “a woman gets much better pay [in the NAP] than elsewhere."

Most of the work performed by NAP members was agricultural or domestic in nature—hoeing, planting, harvesting, milking, cultivating orchards, tending chickens, sewing, cooking, cleaning, etc. Residents worked in teams on varying tasks based on skill, inclination, season, and community needs. Although some preferred just one line of work, most belonged to several work groups. Members controlled admission to the group and elected their own leaders. Leaders were responsible for ensuring that hours were properly reported and for establishing rates of pay on the advice of group members and in committee with other group leaders.

Procedures

For homework you read the sections of your textbook on utopian communities and on the social and economic effects of the market revolution. 1. We will begin this lesson with a short lecture (based on Ann Pfau’s online lecture, available in the “Fourierism” section of the New Jersey History Partnership Project website, http://nj-history.org) on the origins of the NAP. 2. You will split into three cooperative groups: Proponents, Critics, or Potential Members of the NAP. In groups, you will read and analyze four primary source documents:  J. MacDonald’s Account of His Visits to the NAP.  Kalikst Wolski’s Account of His 1852 Visit to the NAP.  Mary Paul’s Letters to her Father.  Alfred Cridge Diagnoses the Failure of the NAP. 3. Proponents and Critics will develop materials, based on evidence from the secondary and primary sources, to support their position and to answer objections. Your group has the option of developing a Titan Pad or a flyer promoting the group’s assigned point of view. 4. Meanwhile, each Potential Member must fill out a membership application that will require them to develop an identity as a nineteenth- century worker (e.g. as a farmer, factory hand, artisan, seamstress, housewife, etc.) and to describe what assets they could bring to the association.  Potential Members are also responsible for coming up with five or more thoughtful questions about Fourierism, capitalism/market revolution, and the NAP; questions must reflect knowledge of the primary source documents. 5. Once you have completed your preparations, I will assess the lesson with the following culminating activity. The Potential Members group will begin the activity by introducing themselves to the rest of the class. Then Proponents and Critics will present their perspectives and promotional materials. After the presentations, Potential Members will ask their key questions. Finally, the teacher will poll Potential Members, asking them whether they would prefer NAP membership or life outside the association. 6. As a closure activity, we will read the below end annotation:

By the end of the 1840s, the NAP was the most stable of the American phalanxes, but in 1853, the model community was rent by schism when Marcus and Rebecca Spring, major stockholders in the NAP, established a rival community, the Raritan Bay Union, near Perth Amboy. The new community's constitution asserted its commitment to Christianity and cooperation but not necessarily to Fourier's principles; it was, in the words of A. J. MacDonald, "a joint-stock concern, that undertook to hold an intermediate position between the North American [Phalanx] and ordinary society." The Springs, for example, lived in a private house on the estate; they employed servants and did not perform manual labor themselves. Instead of organizing work groups, the community leased fields, mills, and workshops to individual farmers and artisans. Neither community persisted past 1856; by that time, antislavery had come to overshadow all other reform movements. Mary Paul’s Letters to Her Father, 1853-1855.

Mary Paul had been self supporting since the age of fifteen and worked as a domestic servant, a seamstress, and a machine tender in the Lowell textile mills, before becoming a member of the NAP. In 1854, she decided to give associated living a chance and traveled there with her friend Carrie Livingston. Paul remained in residence at the Phalanx until it dissolved.

Brattleboro, Vermont, 27 November 1853.

. . . . I have a plan for myself which I am going to lay before you and see what you think of it. When I was at Manchester last spring my friend Carrie and her husband were talking of going to New Jersey to live and proposed that I should go with them. They have decided to go and are thinking of going in a few weeks, maybe as soon as Jan. though they may not go until April or May. I have been thinking of it all summer, and have told them that I will go if you do not object. I can hardly get my own consent to go any further away from you. . . . The name of the town is Atlantic is about 40 miles from New York City. The people among whom they are going are Associationists. The name will give you some idea of their principles. There [are] about 125 persons in all that live there, and the association is called the “North American Phalanx.” I presume that you may have heard of it. The editor [of the New York Tribune Horace Greeley] is an Associationist and a shareholder in the “Phalanx,” but he does not live there. The advantages that will arise from my going there will be that I can get better pay without working as hard as at any other place. The price for work there being 9 cents an hour, and the number of hours for a days work, ten besides I should not be confined to one kind of work but could do almost anything, could have the privilege of doing anything that is done there--Housework if I choose and that without degrading myself. That is, in the opinion of most people, a very foolish and wrong idea by the way, but one that has so much weight with girls, that they would live on 25 cents per week at sewing, or school teaching rather than work at housework. This all comes from the way servants are treated, and I cannot see why girls can be blamed after all, for not wishing to "work out" as it is called. At the Phalanx, it is different. All work there, and all are paid alike. Both men and women have the same pay for the same work. There is no such word as aristocracy unless there is real (not pretended) superiority, that will make itself felt, if not acknowledged, everywhere. The members can live as cheaply as they choose as they pay for what they eat, and no profit on that, most of the provisions being raised on the grounds. One can join them with or without funds, and leave at any time they choose. Frank has been there this Fall and was very much pleased with what he saw there and thought that it would be the best thing for Carrie and me to do with ourselves. A woman gets much better pay there than elsewhere, but it is not so with a man, though he is not meanly paid by any means. There is more equality in such things according to the work not the sex. You know that men often get more than double the pay for doing the same work that women do. . . .

North American Phalanx, N.J., Sunday morn May 7th 1854

. . . . Well [Carrie and I] arrived here a good deal wet & were kindly received, had been expected for a long time they told us. . . . So far we were comfortable. . . . We have been very busy all the week putting things to rights. Have not done much work beside our own. I have worked about two hours each day for the Phalanx, three quarters in sweeping, one and a quarter in the dining hall, clearing & laying the tables. Tomorrow I am going to begin sewing which will add three hours each day to my work. On ironing days I shall iron one, two or three hours just as I like. . . . The place is very pleasant and the people remarkably kind. Upon the whole I think that I may like very well after I get used to the strange ways. That which seems oddest is the manner in which the meals are conducted. . . . .There are a few here who work at one kind of business all the time but it is from choice. . . .

Phalanx, October 2nd 1854

. . . . I am getting along very well here, better than I should at sewing. I have averaged about 6 hours work per day through the month of Sept. I do not yet know how much I shall have for it but I find I can live here easier & work but half the time than away from here & work all the time. Besides I am convinced that the work I do is better for my health than sewing. . . .

Phalanx New Jersey March 3rd [18]55

. . . . I think I wrote you early in the winter that the loss of the mill involved the Association in difficulties from which it would be hard to extricate it. That fear seemed to pass away and many seemed to think the foundations were too firm to be shaken even by an enormous debt, but it seems these were wrong for this Association is most certainly in the very last stage. I am sorry to say it but there appears to be no hope and a year at the farthest will terminate the existence of the North American Phalanx, in all probability. I do not know how long I can stay here but I shall not leave until I am obliged to do. The life here has many attractions & advantages which no other life can have, and imperfect as it is I have already seen enough to convince me that Association is the true life. And although all the attempts that have ever yet been made towards it have been failures, inasmuch as they have passed away (but they have all left their mark) my faith in the principles are as strong as ever, stronger if possible. There is a better day coming for the world. . . . Dont be worried about me, father, for I am certainly more comfortable here than I could be anywhere else. I flattered myself that I had fairly escaped from the confinement of the needle, but I shall have to return to it after all. . . .

Phalanx, April 12th, 1855

. . . . From your last letter I perceive you have a very erroneous idea of affairs here. You say the place of interest seems to be in the hands of capitalists who have lost their courage when the hard times came. In this you are wrong. To be sure a good many of the stockholders are rich men, but the man who hold $2000 of stock has no more control than the one who has $100, but of course he is the greater loser if his stock does not pay. It is true that many have lost their courage in the hard times but it is no more the rich man than the poor one. There have been many false steps taken & in a life like this which is but an experiment of itself there must be many failures, since man is not perfect. I know many will exult in the downfall of this place, but each are shortsighted. Charles Fouriers doctrines, although they may contain many absurd ideas, have enough of truth in them to keep them alive until the world shall be ready for them. . . .

Oh there is one thing I intended to have spoken of when I was on the subject. I said, the man who had $100 of stock had as much control as one who had $2000. Perhaps you will ask if one who has no stock has as much. Yes in everything excepting choice of public officers, and I suppose you can see the justice of that, but then, I know of but one member who is not a stockholder, and I hardly think the privilege is denied him, for although he is poor he is very useful & probably that balances his deficiency in money. . . .

Source: Thomas Dublin, ed. Farm to Factory: Women's Letters, 1830-1860 (New York, 1981), 112-21.

A. J. MacDonald’s Account of His Visits to the NAP, October 1851 and July 1852.

A. J. MacDonald was a Scottish printer and admirer of Robert Owen who dedicated himself to collecting the history of the communitarian movements in the United States; his observations became the basis of John Humphrey Noyes’ History of American Socialisms.

October 1851

It was dark when I arrived at the Phalanstery. Lights shone through the trees from the windows of several large buildings, the sight of which sent a cheering glow through me, and as I approached, I inwardly fancied that what I saw was part of an early dream. The glancing lights, the sounds of voices, and the notes of music, while all nature around was dark and still, had a strange effect, and I almost believed that this was a Community where people were really happy.

I entered and inquired for Mr. Bucklin, whose name had been given me. At the end of a long hall I found a small reading-room, with four or five strange-looking beings sitting around a table reading newspapers. They all appeared eccentric, not alone because they were unshaven and unshorn, but from the peculiar look of their eyes and form of their faces. Mr. Bucklin, a kind man, came to me, glancing as if he anticipated something important. I explained my business, and he sat down beside me; but though I attempted conversation, he had very little to say. He inquired if I wished for supper, and on my assenting, he. . . led me out to another building. We passed through a passage and up a short flight of steps into a very handsome room, capable, I understood, of accommodating two hundred persons at dinner. . . . At one end of the room the chairs and tables had been removed, and several ladies and gentlemen were dancing cotillions to the music of a violin, played by an amateur in the gallery. At the other end of the room there was a doorway leading to the kitchen, and near this my supper was laid, very nice and tidy. Mr. Bucklin introduced me to Mr. Holmes, a gentleman who had lived in the Skaneateles and Trumbull experiments; and Mr. Holmes introduced me to Mr. Williston, who gave me some details of the early days of the North American Phalanx, during which he sometimes lived with high style, and sometimes was almost starved. He told of the tricks which the young members played upon the old members, many of whom had left. . . . .

Mr. Holmes shewed me to my bed, which was in the top of another building. It was a spacious garret with four cots in it, one in each corner. . . .The mattress I had was excellent, and I slept well; but the accommodations were rather rude, there being no chairs or pegs to hang the clothes upon. . . .

As the bell at the end of the building rang a second time for breakfast, I followed some of the members into the room, and on entering took my seat at the table

nearest the door. I afterward learned that this was the vegetarian table, and also that it was customary for each person always to occupy the same seat at his meals. The tables were well supplied with excellent, wholesome food. . . . Young men and women waited upon the tables, and seemed active and agreeable. An easy freedom and harmonious feeling seemed to prevail.

On leaving the room I was introduced to Mr. Sears, who, I ascertained, was what they called the “leading mind.” He was rather tall, of a nervous temperament, the sensitive predominating, and was easy and affable. On my informing him of the object of my visit, he very kindly led me to his office and showed me several papers, which gave me every information I required. He introduced me to Mr. Renshaw, a gentleman who had been in the Ohio Phalanx. Mr. Renshaw was engaged in the blacksmith-shop; looked quite a philosopher, so far as form of heard and length of beard and hair was concerned; but he had a little too much of the sanguine in his temperament to be cool at all times. He very rapidly asked me the object of my book: what good would it do? what was it for? and seemed disposed to knock down some imaginary wrong, before he had any clear idea of what it was. I explained, and together with Mr. Sears, had a short controversy with him, which had a softening tendency, though it did not lead to perfect agreement. Mr. Sears contended that Community experiments failed because the accounts were not clearly and faithfully kept; but Mr. Renshaw maintained that they all failed for want of means, and that the public impression that the members always disagreed was quite erroneous. . . .

I also made the acquaintance of Mr. John Gray, a[n English] gentleman who had lived five years among the Shakers, and who was still a Shaker in appearance. . . . Mr. Gray was very fluent of speech, and what he said to me would almost fill a volume. . . . He was a dyer by trade (on which account he was much valued by the Shakers), and was very useful in taking care of swine. He spoke forcibly of the evils of celibacy among the Shakers, and of their strict regulations. He preferred living in the North American Phalanx, feeling more freedom, and knowing that he could go away when he pleased without difficulty. He thought the wages too low. Reckoning, for instance, that he earned about 90 cts. per day for ten hours labor, he got in cash every two weeks three-fourths of it, the remaining fourth going to the Phalanx as capital. Out of these wages he had to pay $1.50 per week for board, and $12 a year rent, besides extras; but he had a very snug little room, and lived well. He thought single men and women could do better there than married ones; but either could do better, so far as making money was the object, in the outer world. . . .

I had a conversation with a lady who had lived two years at Hopedale. She was intelligent, but very sanguine; well-spoken and agreeable, but had too much enthusiasm. She described to me the early days of Hopedale and its present condition. She did not like it, but preferred the North American and its more unitary arrangements. She thought that the single-cottage system was wrong, and that woman would never attain her true position in such circumstances. She

had a great opinion of women’s abilities and capacities for improvement; was sorry that the Phalanx had such a bombastic name; had once been very sanguine, but was now chastened down; believed that the North American could not be called an experiment on Fourier’s plan; the necessary elements were not there, and never had been, and no experiment had ever been attempted with such material as Fourier proposed; until that is done, we can not say the system is false.

. . . . I might speculate on this strange mixture of minds, but prefer that the reader should take the facts and philosophize for himself. Here were persons who, for many years, had tried many schemes of social reorganization in various parts of the country, brought together not from a personal knowledge and attraction for each other, but through a common love of social principles, which like a pleasant dream attracted them to this, the last of the surviving of that extensive series of experiments which commenced in this country about the year 1843. . . .

July 1852

I visited the North American Phalanx again in July 1852. The visit was an interesting one to me; but I will only refer to the changes which have taken place since my last visit.

They had altered their eating and drinking arrangements, and adopted the eating-house system. At the table there is a bill of fare, and each individual calls for what he wants; on obtaining it the waiter gives him a check, with the price of the article marked thereon. After the meal is over, the waiters go round and enter the sum marked upon the check which each person has received, in a book belonging to that person; the total is added up at the end of each month and the payments are made. Each person finds his own sugar, which is kept upon the table. . . .

The wages of various occupations, agricultural, mechanical and professional, vary from six cents to ten cents an hour; the latter sum is the maximum. The wages are paid to each individual in full every month, and the profits are divided at the end of the year. Persons wishing to become members are invited to become visitors thirty days. At the end of that time it is sometimes necessary for them to continue another thirty days; then they may be admitted as probationers for one year, and if they are liked by the members at the end of that time, it is decided whether they shall become full members or not. . . .

The wages were all increased a little since my last visit, and there seemed to be more satisfaction prevailing, especially with the eating-house plan, which I understood had effected savings of about two-thirds in the expenditure. . . .

I gleaned the following: The Phalanx property could support one thousand people, yet they can not get them, and they have not accommodations for such a

number. Some doubt the advantage of taking more members until they are richer. All say they are doing well; yet some admit that individually they could do better, or that an individual with that property could have done better than they have done. They hire about sixteen Dutch laborers, and say they are better treated than they would be elsewhere. . . .

In conversation with one of the discontented members, who had been there five years, he said that after an existence of nine years, there were fewer members than at the commencement; there was something wrong in the system they were practicing; and if that was Association, then Association was wrong; thinks there are some persons who try to crush and oust those who differ from them in opinion, or who wish to change the system so as to increase their number.

There was more than enough work for all to do, mechanics especially. Carpenters were in demand. They had to hire the latter at $1.50 per day. They don’t get any to join them. Some thought the wages too low; yet the cost of living was not much over $2. per week, including washing and all else but clothing and luxuries.

My acquaintance John Gray, had been away from the Phalanx for some months, but had returned, having found that he could not live in “old society” again; sooner than that, he would return to the Shakers. He spoke much more favorably of the North American than before, and was particularly pleased with the eating arrangement; he wanted to see the individual system carried out still further among them; for in proportion as they adopted that, they were made free and happy; but in proportion as they progressed toward Communism, the result was the reverse. . . .

Source: John Humphrey Noyes, History of American Socialisms (1870; reprint, New York, 1961), 473-86. Kalikst Wolski’s Description of His Visit to the NAP, 1852.

Kalikst Wolski was born in Poland and educated in France where he became a disciple of Charles Fourier. In December 1851, Wolski traveled to the United States.

. . We were met by a coachman who was also one of the colony’s proprietors (as there are no servants there), and he introduced me to two Frenchmen, members of the North American Phalanx. . . . . Then he began guiding me all over the property, describing as he went the internal organization of the Association, the laws by which its members are governed, and the progress of the colony. . . .

Then we betook ourselves to the main building, wide and long, with a spire in the center on which a huge clock was to be seen. The interior of the building is a very large room in which are two pianos. . . . This room was a parlor or recreation room, where in the evening all those gather every day who wish to indulge in dancing, music, or some other form of pleasure in common. . . . At times also this room is used for theatrical productions, in which some of the colonists serve as actors, others as audience. From time to time some artist comes down from New York and gives a concert for the considerable audience that gathers here. In a word, this is a place for an evening’s pleasure for those of the colonists who, after a hard day’s work, have a desire for diversion. The most complete freedom of choice is permitted, whether in work or play, to all members of the Association, male or female without exception.

To the right of the parlor is the reading room, where the weekly newspaper published in the colony is to be found, as well as the New York dailies, those of the principal cities of the United States, one paper from London, and one from Paris. Then to the left is a huge room, completely empty, without furniture, without chairs, that is set aside as the Accounting Room. Here, on a great table, are shown the results of the financial sessions that take place in the room every Saturday. In the same room also are held the public gatherings of the Association that take place every three months, and whose purpose is to listen to the report of the Governing Council, which announces the standing of the Association for the quarter past.

Farther along, on the left, is a large dining hall, long and wide, adjoining the kitchen, which occupies the rear of the large building. The hall serves as the colony’s restaurant. In it all the colonists take their meals three times a day. . . The colonists gather here to eat whatever suits their taste, choosing from a list that is printed daily and that gives the dishes that the kitchen has prepared for the day. . . .

To the right and left of these public rooms. . . which serve for the use of all equally, there are long halls, wide and light, leading to the individual private apartments of members. These apartments in the main building consist of two, three and four rooms, and are for use of members of the Association who are married and have children.

At each end of the large main building are passageways leading to out-buildings where single rooms have been set aside for the unmarried members of the colony. All the living quarters, whether in the main building or in the out- buildings, are furnished neatly and comfortably. In a separate building. . . is a room set aside for a small school, for children of both sexes. Of course you know that in all American, boys and girls study together up to the age of eight or nine. . . .

In the kitchen adjoining the dining hall is a steam machine, of two-horse power, which turns several spits with various roasts. It also cuts up carrots, beets, and other vegetables and serves to turn the large wheel which is to be found in the laundry adjoining the kitchen. Into this wheel, every Monday, is collected the laundry of all members of the colony, each piece being carefully marked. In a small quantity of hot, soapy water, which is frequently changed, for two days the wheel, constantly turning, tosses the laundry from one place to another and cleanses it so that when it is taken from the wheel it is necessary only to rinse it in order to make it a hundred per cent clean. In this way the very hard, mole-like word of doing the weekly laundry is minimized, and it can be done with the work of far less hands. The other days of the week are devoted to drying, starching, and ironing the laundry, so that on Saturday, before evening, it is all finished. . . . .

Some distance away is a steam mill, and there are stables, cow-sheds, and wagon-sheds, in which stand, always in readiness, two fire engines filled with water, ready in case of fire. On the opposite side are forges, carpenter shops, cooperage establishments, wheelwrights’ shops, etc. . . .

The members of the North American Phalanx are farmers, gardeners, laundresses, blacksmiths, millers, locksmiths, carpenters, tailors, etc., who by day labor in the fields, garden, and the workshops, and who at night, after going to their apartments, change the clothes they have worn for work, and put on others of a more seemly nature, always fashioned according to the latest style, and then betake themselves, if they are not tired and wish to retire, to the handsomely furnished salon, where in lively evening conversations or other activities they carry on discussions, refreshing themselves mentally, while the bored rich, gathered in European clubs, spent their times at cards. . . .

Every year, they told us, at a public session all members without distinction of sex choose from among their number an administrative-governing council. This

council. . . has the responsibility of administering the colony, selling its products and manufactured articles, buying what it considers to be necessary, keeping accounts, and at the end of the year making a report as to how things stand. After conducting the affairs of the colony for a year, the same officials cannot be re-elected, and the administration of the colony has to pass to other hands. This arrangement was decided upon in order to prevent the consolidation of an aristocracy in the colony, as might happen if the same officials were chosen year after year. . . .

All members of the colony, men and women alike, work for six days a week from six in the morning until noon, and from one to six in the evening. For this work they are paid by the month out of funds obtained from the sale of the colony’s products. Even the children, when their lessons are over, are put to work in the evening to gather fruits, shell peas, or perform other light tasks, for which, like their elders, they are also paid.

Every Saturday, there is held in the meeting hall, a so-called Accounting Session, or Exchange. On that day the governing council posts on a table a list of all the tasks to be performed the week following. The tasks are plowing, harrowing, harvesting the grain, taking it to the barn, cutting hay, working in the vegetable or flower garden, in the laundry, kitchen, at table, sweeping and cleaning the rooms, making beds, etc. Also posted is the number of men or women needed for each task.

The members first examine the lists, noting where and to what tasks they have been assigned, then write their assignment in a large book, designated for the purpose. Then for the whole next week they conscientiously perform the tasks which in accordance with their strength and tastes they have been given, knowing that all the time they are working in their own interest.

For the harder and more exacting tasks, the daily rate of pay is higher; for the easier, it is naturally lower. As to other fields of labor and callings, such as doctors, professors in the little school, accountants, engineers, master craftsmen, and artisans, here the rater are in proportion higher.

Women have charge of the laundry work, which, because of the wheel we have mentioned, is not hard at all. They also do the ironing, sewing, gathering of the fruit, etc., and care for the flower gardens and trees. . . .

Men who have no special training in any craft, and who cannot perform the harder work in the fields, take upon themselves such chores as waiting on table, helping in the kitchen, tidying up the rooms, making beds, etc. In farming and in running the household there are a great many tasks that, with good will, can be done by those without any particular specialty, and since the North American Phalanx knows no such thing as work that demeans a man, no activity of any

sort draws upon itself scorn, and none is regarded by the members as either better or worse. . . .

The last day of the month the Council pays each member as much as he has earned during the month. The member who has not wished to work very much, who has preferred to take walks or to read books in his room or in the reading room or garden, and so has but a mere fifteen days of work to his credit, will be paid for exactly those fifteen days. Another, who for some reason has been obliged to journey to New York or some other place, and who. . . was able to give but a single week’s work to the colony, collects pay for just those six days. A third, who has not missed a single day, but has worked hard every day. . . he too is paid what is owed him, which in this case is quite a sum. After paying out of this the cost of his room and board, he will have left more than half he has received, and so will have the wherewithal to buy whatever clothes he needs, or to take a trip if he wishes, or to put the balance in his pocket so that he may labor next month with no less diligence, but at, perhaps, an easier type of work, for which he will receive, of course, a lower rate of pay. . . .

As we have said above, the day on which every one is paid for his work in the colony is the last of the month, in the evening. . . . On the following day, that is the first day of each month, the colonists have their turn at paying. They pay the cashier for lodging, board, baths, laundry, and other services which they have had. . . .

Source: Kalikst Wolski, “A Visit to the North American Phalanx,” Marion Moore Coleman, trans., Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 83 (July 1965): 149-60. Alfred Cridge Diagnoses the Failure of the NAP, Social Revolutionist, January 1856.

Alfred Cridge was a journalist, socialist, spiritualist, and labor activist who throughout his life would be a vocal advocate of a wide range of reforms, including woman’s rights, proportional representation, and Henry George’s single tax.

The North American Phalanx has decided to dissolve. When I visited it two years since it seemed to be managed by practical men, and was in many respects thriving. The domain was well cultivated, labor well paid, and the domestic department well organized. With the exception of the single men’s apartments being overcrowded, comfort reigned supreme. The following were some of the defects:

A. The capital was nearly all owned by non-residents, who invested it, however, without expectation of profit, as the stock was always below par. . . . Probably the majority of the community were hard workers, many of them to the extent of neglecting mental culture. I was informed that they generally lived from hand to mouth, saving nothing, though living was cheap, rent not high, and the par rate of wages ninety cents for ten hours, but varying from sixty cents to $1.20, according to skill, efficiency, unpleasantness, etc. Nearly all those who did save, invested in more profitable stock, leaving the absentees to keep up an Association in which they had no particular interest. As the generality of those on the ground gave no tangible indications of any particular interest in the movement, it is no matter of surprise that, notwithstanding the zeal of a few disinterested philanthropists engaged in it, the institution failed to meet the sanguine expectations of its proprietors. B. They neglected the intellectual and aesthetic element. Some residents there attributed the failure of the Brook Farm Association to undue predominance of these, and so ran into the opposite error. A well-known engraver in Philadelphia wished to reside at the Phalanx and practice his profession; but no; he must work on the farm; if allowed to join, he would not be permitted to follow his attractions. So he did not come. C. The immediate causes of the dissolution of both Associations were disastrous fires, and no way attributable to the principles on which they were based. D. The formation of Victor Considerant’s colony in Texas probably hastened the dissolution of the Phalanx, as many of the members preferred establishing themselves in a more genial latitude, to work hard one year or two for nothing, which they must have done, to regain the loss of $20,000 by fire, to say nothing of the indirect loss occasioned by the want of buildings. . . .

Source: John Humphrey Noyes, History of American Socialisms (1870; reprint, New York, 1961), 497-99. Fourierism Worksheet

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