The Utopian Experiments
of Western Europe and America
in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries
American ExperimentsShaker designed washing machine. Shaker community members embraced technology and the benefits it could offer without allowing the negatives of industrialization to corrupt their society. (Figure 10)
Among these American Utopian pioneers were the Shakers, a religious community in New England that isolated itself in 1787 from “the hostility and corrupting influences of non-Shakers” (Streissguth 24). The Shaker community, led by Joseph Meacham expanded, and persisted in isolation learning “a variety of tasks” (Streissguth 26) and maintained self-sufficiency until the collapse of the community in the 1990s. While the Shakers were the most successful Utopian community in longevity, other American Utopias influenced Utopian theory heavily as well.
The Harmonists of the Middle Colonies integrated “business success and religious vision” (Streissguth 49) to promote sustainable Utopias in America. George Rapp's vision for his Harmonist community involved strict moral living and an agrarian-style communitarianism with the efficiency and planning benefits of industry and technology. Future American Utopian movements would focus on the integration of technology, business, and morality in society. These concepts were not in opposition in American and English Utopian theories as they were on the continent.
In the select observations of these two American Utopian communities, we find again that the results of Meacham and George Rapp’s endeavors, however differently structured and practiced, were the same. The sought after result is the harmonious, sustainable society wherein there is inherent pleasure, comfort, and access to necessities. These results mirror the results that Plato and Aristotle sought to attain through reasoned contemplation and the results that Bacon and More hoped to see realized through social critique and prescription. |
European ExperimentsOwen's New Lanark Complex. (Figure 12)
Robert Owen, a Welsh businessman in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, married the concepts of business production and Utopian communities in his New Lanark settlement in Scotland. There, Owen propagated his theories of how to structure a business community that encouraged its participants to engage in reasoned intellectual endeavors, harmonious communal living. In 1817, Owen published his institutional methods with the understanding that his ideas, if implemented, would foster “unity and mutual co-operation” and that these practices would become “the common practice of all” (Streissguth 54).
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