Oneida Community

Oneida Community, utopian society established at Oneida, New York, in 1848 and dissolved about 1880. The community was a religious and social experiment based on communistic principles. It was founded originally at Putney, Vermont, by the American religious leader John Humphrey Noyes in the late 1830s. The members of the community, who were called Perfectionists, believed that freedom from sin could be obtained on earth by communion with God, followed by a renunciation of personal property and of binding personal relationships, including marriage.

After being expelled from Putney, where the group's practices had aroused opposition, the members settled at Oneida and established several successful manufacturing enterprises there. All properties, including farms and industries, were held in common; the community government was conducted by committees that met weekly in public sessions. Women had equal rights with men in the society. Cohabitation was permitted, but conception was directed, theoretically, by the community leaders, who attempted to impose eugenic principles in order to produce healthy and intelligent offspring. Children were reared by the community, which in many cases provided them with professional and technical training.

Because of outside antagonism to the system of “complex marriage,” whereby all adults in the community were considered married to one another, the system was abandoned in 1879. Soon afterward, the members also abolished their communal property system, thus ending the utopian experiment. A joint-stock company, known as Oneida Community, Limited, was formed to carry on the various manufacturing establishments, which had become profitable endeavors. The company still exists; but it has gradually narrowed its activities from the manufacture of steel traps and silk and the canning of fruits and vegetables to the manufacture of fine plated and sterling silverware, for which it is now known.

See also Communal Living; Cooperatives.