Oneida community

The Oneida Community was a utopian commune founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 in the town of Oneida in Madison County, New York. Noyes, born in Vermont in 1811, attended Dartmouth College, Andover Theological Seminary, and Yale Theological College and received his license to preach in 1834. He formed his first utopian community in 1836 in Putney, Vermont, practicing "complex marriage" in which every male was considered married to every female. In 1847 pending arrests for adultery spurred Noyes and several other Putney members to move to Oneida, New York, where they established the Oneida Community.

The Oneida community practiced communal property and possessions and believed in a form of Perfectionism -- Christ's Second Coming had occurred in the year 70 CE thus making it possible for them to bring about Christ's millennial kingdom and be free of sin and perfect in this world. (Noyes' declaration in 1834 that he himself was "Perfected" had resulted in the revocation of his license to preach.) To help members overcome character defects, all members -- including Noyes himself -- were subject to formal constructive criticism by committee, or by the community as a whole, a practice known as "mutual criticism."

As in Putney, the community rejected monogamy and practiced complex marriage. Noyes believed that sex had social and spiritual elements; members were expected to improve themselves via sexual relations with those who were their spiritual superiors. Noyes frequently suggested or encouraged particular pairings, and beginning in 1869 members who wished to have children could do so only with the partner selected for them by a committee based on personal, spiritual, and moral qualities (such controlled reproduction is known as "stirpiculture").

The community was self-supporting, primarily through the sale of animal traps, silk thread, and vegetables. (Silverware, for which the Oneida name would become well-known, was not produced until 1877.) Men and women were expected to work equally and had equal voice in community governance. At its height in 1878 the community had 306 members, but the community faltered the next year when Noyes attempt to pass on leadership of the community to his son, Theodore Noyes. By 1880 some members had left, many had embarked upon traditional marriages, and the community itself had been reorganized as a joint-stock company named Oneida Community Ltd. The animal trap, silk thread, and canned vegetable enterprises were all abandoned or sold off by 1916 but Oneida Community Ltd. became well-known for its silver and cutlery, production of which continued until 2005.

From the guide to the Oneida Community Collection, 1811-1983, 1850-1900, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)