Dolores Hayden t, The IdealCommunity: L Garden,Machine or Model Home? Now if we can' with a knowledge of true architectural principles, build one houseri$rtly, convenient- ly and elegantly, we can, by taking it for a model and building others like it, make a perfect and beau. tiful city: in the samemanner, if we can, with a knowledge of true social principles, organizeone township rightly, we call, by organizingothers like it, and by spreadingand rendering them universal, establisha true Social and political order. -Albert Brisbane,A ConciseExposition of the Doctine of Association, or Plan for a Reorganization of Society, 1843 2,1 "We are all a little wild here with numberless projectsof socialreform"; locationsof United States communitariansettlements by type and decadeof founding, to 1860, are shown here and on followine pages"Present state lines are drawn to aid identifical tion; seeAppendix B for exactlocations, keyed to numberson maD. , i i l 1663- 1780 I ilon-sctaria; io.rlgn taadeA a Non-!.ataris; Aaaia l@E l S€ct.rian; forrign lad66 0 Saclaaian: Amriceh badard from: Dolores Hayden, Seven American Utopias: The Archltecture if Communitarian Socialism, 1790-1975. Cambridge: MfT press. 1976. a Ameri' idealism which characlerized numberless nological i1d'here with land and life' In the rg/s 0r€ttt . Emer- ?rntOts toward Tt:t:^I"it,, n"rnnwaldo "u* the ideal com' of soctal:tHilerlyte rq*UV powerful symbol of projects in 1840. hoPed to fuse ;;; as model home, theY son cornmentt_o-t: draft of a new in ;;; a family and society displayed iNot a readtns.'1,:;;;;;o.k.t."' Emerson idealism about facade,hearth, and Plan' comrn'nitY of-*r,,rr, several phases of "'t]Jul,.ondt" were precedentsfor c31- wasreferring swept the Althougir there f; lT^,:;;;;exclt establishedin cornmunitarian munitarian strategy-monasteries durinsthe nineteen:n Christian sodety' U"itu t*es 't:yl Europe as models for a new founded in and Puritan covenant communities ,.'',;;'';""i; 1 Y1":il.lTi::Jl"#:llut period-wide' :l idealistic citizens *.* t,Ufu"cl in the colonial these idealist:-::"t co1- '"."rr#"tt' Although and religious acceptanceof . intense ,pr.ua s.lulu, as dreamers'their first time in ,' tactics occurred for the H;;;;;lismissed designdemon- munitarian , with environmental first half of the ir""i"r*rnt the United States during the -j behind their move' practical enersv Settlers were pushing the ,l ;;;;;; pro' *r*"n,n century' advocateddiverse and ,ir* Tt"t frontier westward very rapidly' " "fot*ers to anarchy' line of the 'unging from absolutism reformers that a mobile' .. ;;;; devel- it seemed to many speculativeland easily be spiritualism to ailrersm' society existed which could but they ageed e-xpanding r: to collective industry' concepts of community spmglt change influenced by new All believedthat social ;:il ,u"ttry' Considdrant' a French socialist the organiza' ;e.s.ign'Victor be-stimulated ttuough expressedthe ;ffi; disciple of CharlesFourier' of a single iileal com' and"a ii*-"na construction view of America's development be duPlicated communitarian model which could the new soci' ;;;-. quii, ptuinty: "If the nucleus of throughout the countrY' soils' to'day a Ut implanted upon these of model communities' some .1, int creators "iV which to'morrow will be as "Social *rld".nrrr,- and *ritnun.ra, described themselves sf analo' flooded with population' thousan6s. .ti'.' redesigtingsociety' They proposed arrtit"rts" will rapidly arise without of city and country in gous organizations a complete restructuring enchantment around the created Itsta.te ana as if by ,.rponr. to the environmentalproblems incor' firstsPecimens''''"2-- Industrial Revolution' Their goals i" bv the thinking was most p:l:tij and physical desigr' They Communitarian porated both social 1820 and 1850 (Fig' philoso- the United Statesbetween iri.a ,o equal the visionary scope of labor of agitation for abolition' to define human nature i.t;, A.r.O.s . ,. phers who attempted distribution policies' ' equitable land and describeprograms for its finest expression' ffi*, .ducational reform' and penal ' promotional *"o.n"n', rights, *U they wanted to match the various pet- Citizens and reformers of entrepreneurswho reform. ,' successesof inventors and experiments to suasions chose communitarian had influenced Americanland developmentand about social changebecause ' the encompass- expresstheir ideas , Americanindustry. By adopting dissent' revo' alternative strategiesof individual ineffectual' lution, or gradualist reform seemed non' reform was novel' It was . synthesizemany aspectsof pastoral and tech' Communitarian The Ideal Community 2.1,continued 1781-1790 The IdealCommunity l80l-1810 rSll - 1820 The ldeal CommunttY ,: 2.1,continued llt r83l-l840 The Ideal Community l84l -1850 r85l-1860 13 The ldeal CommunitY appeal of communistic slcieties was no! yet total in scope' Thus it offered hope The violent, or tourrng violent conflict restricted to American reformers to those Americans,skeptical of The ideal community became a the wars of 1775 and 1812' who were Europeans. after be institutions symbol of broad persuasivepower' It could committed to developing new by presentedas "garden," in terms of horticultural througtr reasonedchoice. It was supported new com- and agicultural productivity and its placement those conservativeswho believedthat as a in an idealizedlandscape. It could be presented munities founded in the West would serve generated as "machine," in terms of its efficient design, safety valve to preclude classconflict time industrial productivity, and its relationship to by urban workers in the East' At the same social an American tradition of political inventiveness; it appealedto activists who felt that the could be presented as "model home," in and environmental problems created by indus- or it or of its desigr and life style. Sectarian trialization were beyond individual effort terms tended to emphasize pastoral gradual reform. The stratery gained adherents communities nonsectarian ones, technological L tirn., of economicdistress-after depressions themes; experimentsunited . of 1837, 1854, 1857, 1873, and 1893- themes;but most successful and technological symbolism in sup' when desperationmotivated farmers and work- pastoral of the larger goal of an ideal home' If they ers to call for complete social reorganization' port joined design practice to theory, their ideals Middle-class citizens were more curious than surprisingly real. desperate.Two Presidentsand variousmembers sometimesbecame ' of the SupremeCourt, the Cabinet,and Con' gress attended addressesby Robert Owen in 1825; business leaders and intellectuals fol' lowed Fourierist propagandaon the front page of the New Yo rk T?ibunein the I 84Os' Not only Americans felt encouraged to launch communal ventures. Although most American communards were native born, a substantial minority were emigrants from England, Ftance, Germany, Scandinavia,and eastern Europe, whose leaders considered the United Statesthe best location for their experi' ments. Frequent encouragem€nt came from European tourists like James Silk Buckingham and Harriet Martineau. Although the seaboard cities offered educatedEuropeans limited enter' tainment, experimental communities provided them with lively anecdotesand the occasional profound insight. Journalists' firsthand reports of successfulventures then encouraged other Europeangroups to follow theseexamples' The Ideal CommunitY The CommunitY as Garden or European against the vices of the American continent waq often conceivedof The American of the communitarian settlement or rediscovered city. tmages as heaven on earth, a new by the as a pastoral retreat were introduced C. W' Dana, for example' in an essay paradise' contrast to the "great and wicked o'The of the World' or Shakers in if f gSOentitled Garden in cities" of the world, and by the Fourierists Great West," described the area between o'unnatural The the life of our crowded the Pacific Ocean contrast to the Allegheny Mountains and in cities."6 Yet settlementswere alsodescribed of homise' and the Cannanof u'lfr" to"d of the Sermon on the fertile than the religious tradition tlme.. - . with a soil more our the light of the world' A city yet with a climate Mount: "Ye are human agriculture has tilled; upon a hill cannot be hid'"? The such as no other land in that is set balmy and healthful, city Shakers deaQ with the conflict between dy neatly, by giving each of their century this was a land scarcely and country nineteenth corresponding to trails cut by settlements two names, one . known, mapped along a few the rural village where it was located, and the and explorers, a spatial vacuum on traDpers of the imaginary other, a "spiritual name" suggestive which hopeful idealists imposed an HeavenlyJerusalem, such as "City of Peace,"or geographj of fecundity, equality' and self' "City of Love." A similar uncertainty existed' sufficiencY. of and but was not resolved,among the members Such idealism could be rather literal the anarchist Kaweah colony, who built inhibiting to communal groups' Some German and "Progrpss" side by side' ' were anxious to locate their experi' "Arcady" ' , pietist sects groups of With the exception of a few religious ;.. ments on the site, of the original Garden eschewedindustry as worldly or corrupt' Eden. The spiritualistswho founded a com- which communards wished to establishself' 'munity at Mountain Cove, West Virginia, in ing, rnost settlernents,based on both industry 5l also claimed that their site was Eden's sufficient