Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities in America, 1680-1880

by Mark Holloway

Fascinating accounts of the history of the most important & typical American utopian communities include surveys of Shaker, New Harmony & Brook Farm; Fourieristic phalanxes; & Oneida settlements. Details of human interest & daily life, often quoted directly from the writings of residents & visitors, describe community constitutions, revelations & beliefs.
Preface to the Dover Edition
Introduction
The immigrants arrive
Mother Ann & the universal friend
Shaker societies
Revolutions, revivals & a dream
Rappites & Zoarites
New harmony
Excitements & institutions
Fourier & Fourierism
Racial & religious communism
Oneida
Icaria
Utopia in decline
Was it worth while?
Epilogue-The idea persists
Bibliography
Index

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American, Utopia

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a most engaging history of utopian communal experiments in the United States of America--much better than Frederick Engel's earlier work on the same subject. All of it was entertaining. Some of it pertaining to the beliefs of the utopianists was actually quite thought provoking.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit hard to read at times because some groups, I should say MOST such groups, lasted a very short period -- sometimes only a few months to a couple of years. So the material covering them seems to have very little to say. Hard to draw any conclusions about the short-lived groups although many of them dissolved sooner or later after the death of the founder.
Then there are the groups that functioned pretty well for decades. Examples of those include the Shakers, and some German sects like the Rappites, Zoarites and Inspirationists of Amana. The common bond is that the members were very tightly knit by the dedication to a religious ideal and way of life. Often services were held daily, but some groups held weekly services and one held them every two weeks.
Unlike the religious righties of today, they were not interested in political issues. They turned to communal life as a way to stretch the limited resources at the beginning of their existence, inspired too by the translations of books by the ancient Greeks such as Plato's Republic and tales of Sparta and Crete (plus Thomas More's Utopia).
They sought a way to live simply, close to the land, with meals usually eaten in common halls and everyone in their own apartment or house. As long as the community did well enough to pay its bills, and members had enough to eat, everyone was pretty content. It was kind of surprising that one sect broke up over dissension on how to spend their profits once they unexpectedly started to do quite well financially!!
Buried at the end is the brief account of a group that was doing pretty well in France at the time the book was written, called the Communities of Work. Founded in 1941 by Marcel Barbu, they numbered about a dozen communities. I can't find anything about them now.
The Kibuttzim of Israel are pretty well known tho.
I am sure the hippie communes of the 1960's and 70's aimed to follow in the footsteps of these earlier experiments. They failed because the members mostly had no practical skills to keep the projects going -- this is what happened to several of the older groups detailed in the book, too. You can't just run an ad saying, Members Wanted, Come One Come All, y'know. Organizers need to sift through applicants not only for practical work skills, but a willingness to put in long hours to ensure the success of the group enterprise.
The book is a 1966 reprint of a 1951 original. Dover Publications still lists this book in the catalog.

[Teresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

it started out rather fun, but I got bogged down in this academic book. I slogged through it and I'm glad I did, but thanks to the archive called Goodreads, if I ever need to research this I'll have the information waiting for me.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apparently I’m in my 19th Century Utopian Communities period. This book provides an overview of about 20 such communities. The first edition was written 60 years ago, so I had to keep reminding myself that the “current” information on some of the longer-lived groups really isn’t. The author posits that the increase in U.S. population and improved mobility factored into the diminished popularity of this trend in the second half of the 1800s: there was no longer a need to rely on an exclusive group of people. I noticed in the footnotes that an early 1900s biography of one of the community leaders was authored by someone with the same name as a few of my ancestors. Maybe this little obsession is in my DNA.

[Shaun Appleby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read this charming, little book decades ago it now stands out as having indelibly altered my perception of American culture and history in myriad ways. The author seeks to cheerfully reanimate through history and narrative the optimistic and ingenious social experiments of early American settlers; successfully weaving the threads of their aspirations into the broader conventional history with which we are already familiar.

Poignantly, one is also reminded of the distance between America society of the 21st century and the author's of over fifty years ago.

[Alexandros Soultos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Be prepared for exactly 0 thrills here. Still, its a very efficient review of utopian experiments in the early centuries of north america's settling. Informative and neat, i would suggest reading it along with either utopian/dystopian novels, or meta-analytical works of said -topias.