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Trying Home: The Rise and Fall of an Anarchist Utopia on Puget Sound
The true story of an anarchist colony on a remote Puget Sound peninsula, Trying Home traces the history of Home, Washington, from its founding in 1896 to its dissolution amid bitter infighting in 1921.
As a practical experiment in anarchism, Home offered its participants a rare degree of freedom and tolerance in the Gilded Age, but the community also became notorious to the outside world for its open rejection of contemporary values. Using a series of linked narratives, Trying Home reveals the stories of the iconoclastic individuals who lived in Home, among them Lois Waisbrooker, an advocate of women’s rights and free love, who was arrested for her writings after the assassination of President McKinley; Jay Fox, editor of The Agitator, who defended his right to free speech all the way to the Supreme Court; and Donald Vose, a young man who grew up in Home and turned spy for a detective agency.
Justin Wadland weaves his own discovery of Home—and his own reflections on the concept of home—into the story, setting the book apart from a conventional history. After discovering the newspapers published in the colony, Wadland ventures beyond the documents to explore the landscape, travelling by boat along the steamer route most visitors once took to the settlement. He visits Home to talk with people who live there now.
Meticulously researched and engagingly written, Trying Home will fascinate scholars and general readers alike, especially those interested in the history of the Pacific Northwest, utopian communities, and anarchism.
As a practical experiment in anarchism, Home offered its participants a rare degree of freedom and tolerance in the Gilded Age, but the community also became notorious to the outside world for its open rejection of contemporary values. Using a series of linked narratives, Trying Home reveals the stories of the iconoclastic individuals who lived in Home, among them Lois Waisbrooker, an advocate of women’s rights and free love, who was arrested for her writings after the assassination of President McKinley; Jay Fox, editor of The Agitator, who defended his right to free speech all the way to the Supreme Court; and Donald Vose, a young man who grew up in Home and turned spy for a detective agency.
Justin Wadland weaves his own discovery of Home—and his own reflections on the concept of home—into the story, setting the book apart from a conventional history. After discovering the newspapers published in the colony, Wadland ventures beyond the documents to explore the landscape, travelling by boat along the steamer route most visitors once took to the settlement. He visits Home to talk with people who live there now.
Meticulously researched and engagingly written, Trying Home will fascinate scholars and general readers alike, especially those interested in the history of the Pacific Northwest, utopian communities, and anarchism.
192 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2014
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170 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 12, 2015
If, like me ("like I", but that just sounds silly), you're interested in anarchist theory and prefigurative movements, or just the notion of utopian experiments in general, you will enjoy this read. It won't give you a blueprint (except maybe what not to put in your blueprint), but it will bring to life in a gentle and caring fashion the anarchist collective experiment known as "Home", on the Key Peninsula in Washington State. The author uses his own newly developing sense of home (he's just become a father) as part of his journey of discovery (Home according to the historical record; Home as he explores it in present time). You may be somewhat disappointed that there isn't even more detail about how Home began and, more importantly, why it ended (as an anarchist experiment), but Wadland has clearly done the necessary work to uncover what knowledge exists. Ultimately, Wadland argues that the failure of Home was due to the decision to abandon the communal landholding scheme combined with its attempt to privilege individual freedom above all else: "The anarchist colony at Home was born in contradiction: it was a collective of individuals seeking absolute freedom. When its members chose to own the land outright, rather than in common, they unwittingly abandoned the very principle that held together the Mutual Home Association." Reading this account underscores the fact that anarchism is not one thing—there have been and are different approaches, with different emphases—and it may be that the emphasis on the libertarian individualist strain in the Home, Washington experiment was, in combination with its founding at the time of the assassination of President McKinley (think hyper-nationalist hate mongering against all things anarchist), constituted a fatal weakness.
February 25, 2018
Interesting story about the settlement of an anarchist colony on Key Peninsula in Washington state. I enjoyed learning about the people that settled the colony and their role in American history, but was distracted by Wadland's musings about his own life.
March 2, 2023
Fascinating and well researched account of the rise and fall of the anarchist town of Home located in present day Kitsap County. I enjoyed that he brought the story into the present time. As with all history we can only touch the remnants of what was and are left wonder what life was really like back in the days. This book does a good job of spanning that gulf of time.
May 13, 2024
I really, really wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, it reads like a loose collection of anecdotes. At least half the space is filled with the author's prosaic observations about the weather or his newborn, peppered with idiosyncratic turns of phrase that were awkward, clunky, and whose meaning was often opaque. I don't understand how so much of it was filler when it's already so short. I wanted to understand what anarchy meant to the residents of Home, an incisive analysis of why it failed, and a broader understanding that contextualized it in relation to other communal experiments in the South Sound.
When I saw Wadland is a librarian, I immediately trusted his scholarship. This is a failure of editing as much as writing. I believe the author gave his best effort here, and it pains me to have to write this. I appreciate that Wadland assembled what he could; his work offers tantalizing glimpses of answers to my questions, but we never get to know any of the Home residents with any meaningful depth, except for the miscreant Donald Vose, who brought the hammer down on Home out of pure spite and selfishness. In many ways, he is the least representative person of idealized anarchist principles, but he gets a full chapter in an already very short book.
Wadland does provide a few details of life in Home, but for the most part they are too superficial to provide any but the most shallow understandings. The author's voice is distracting each time it appears. I appreciate that he sympathizes with the misfit anarchists of Home, but his sympathy brings me no closer to understanding them. It's become a trend in nonfiction works for the author to insert themselves and their life into the narrative along with the subject they are trying to illuminate. Every time I've ever seen it, it doesn't work, even when the best writers do it. I do not expect perfect objectivity, but when I read a book about a subject I want to understand in depth, it's highly distracting to be presented with the author's personal reactions and life's details at every turn. It feels very self-indulgent and egotistical, and what's sad is that I do not think this author had any bad intentions whatsoever. I do not know if it was an editor or his writing groups and workshops that led him astray, but in any case, aspiring nonfiction writers should take note: leave yourself out of the narrative unless it is absolutely vital to an understanding of the subject at hand! And personal reactions to viewing old photographs, particularly when they result in stating the obvious, do no favors to the reader either.
I give Wadland an extra star because as I say, I can tell he had the best of intentions. In pointing out the book's flaws, my only agenda is to have other writers take heed, learn from them, and not replicate them elsewhere. ...And I thank Wadland for putting the image in my head of the Home anarchist baseball team playing a baseball team fielded by Western State Hospital. I can image the players stepping up to the diamond in their old timey, pinstriped uniforms...but with a big red anarchy symbol on the back. That's as all-American as it gets. Thank you for that, Mr. Wadland.
Sadly, it seems like from the scant information presented that an anarchist collective is a contradiction that was bound to fail. Even in its most ideal form, anarchy venerates individualism and individual freedom over any kind of compromise. All functioning forms of government entail compromise except the most free or the most totalitarian, and neither end of the spectrum is beneficial to people. It seems that most communitarian projects fail because they deny that rules exist or pretend no rules are needed to form a working social contract. That operational principle could only work if the better side of human nature was what people default to in times of crisis or under the press of external adversity. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. The anarchists of Home sought to prove to the world that people can be completely free and good simultaneously. We can point to their obvious failure and shake our heads, or we can point out that to fail in pursuit of an ideal is far better than to succeed by having low or no standards at all--which is how our present fake democracy operates.
The truth is that communes which are open to everyone become dumping grounds for drifters, fugitives, idlers and layabouts. Without carefully curating who is allowed to join the community and a framework for expelling those who refuse to follow its governing principles, without some instrument of accountability, no society could exist. Hunter gatherers did not need rules, but even in the liberated environment of a small tribe, informal rules exist, are understood by all (whether spoken of or not), and a failing member could be exiled.
The details of Home--even the photographs--show a small town waterside village that looks no different than any other village of the time. People played baseball, worked jobs, and aside from having intellectual discussions and publishing numerous newspapers, they do not appear to have lived much differently from other small town Americans at the time. This begs the question, was a real anarchist experiment even tried in Home? Yes, they held communal property, but beyond that they did not alter any fundamental aspect of the culture and society they claim to have split off of. People are products of the culture and society that produced them. It is difficult to imagine how a new society could thrive (or even be called "new") without understanding and acknowledging the influences that shaped its members, and the set of trade-off's people are leaving behind versus those they are entering in to. Call it "anthropological self-awareness" if the concept needs a name, but this awareness is absolutely necessary, for how can we embrace a new way if we are not even fully aware of how the old ways shaped our beliefs, values, and identities?
I suspect that for a communitarian project to succeed, it must have a strong set of codified principles, an unalterable article of confederation, a charter, a constitution, or, like Anabaptist groups, a religion. ALL persons must be strictly bound to follow these principles. They are only as good as the greediest, most ambitious or avaricious person's ability to usurp--or be checked--by them. A community should be guided by cherished and celebrated ideals representing the best aspects of human nature...but as above, so below. Even as a community rallies around its lofty ideals, it cannot rest upon them anymore than a house can rest upon a cloud. The foundation of any functional community cannot be the ideals that lead it forward, but the rules--the social contract--that safeguard it from the sociopaths and con artists who exist only for themselves, and work only to drag the community down. Even hunter gatherers understood this, and that is why, for 99.9% of our species' existence, hunting and gathering with no formal governance of any kind was not only possible, but the only tenable way of life.
When I saw Wadland is a librarian, I immediately trusted his scholarship. This is a failure of editing as much as writing. I believe the author gave his best effort here, and it pains me to have to write this. I appreciate that Wadland assembled what he could; his work offers tantalizing glimpses of answers to my questions, but we never get to know any of the Home residents with any meaningful depth, except for the miscreant Donald Vose, who brought the hammer down on Home out of pure spite and selfishness. In many ways, he is the least representative person of idealized anarchist principles, but he gets a full chapter in an already very short book.
Wadland does provide a few details of life in Home, but for the most part they are too superficial to provide any but the most shallow understandings. The author's voice is distracting each time it appears. I appreciate that he sympathizes with the misfit anarchists of Home, but his sympathy brings me no closer to understanding them. It's become a trend in nonfiction works for the author to insert themselves and their life into the narrative along with the subject they are trying to illuminate. Every time I've ever seen it, it doesn't work, even when the best writers do it. I do not expect perfect objectivity, but when I read a book about a subject I want to understand in depth, it's highly distracting to be presented with the author's personal reactions and life's details at every turn. It feels very self-indulgent and egotistical, and what's sad is that I do not think this author had any bad intentions whatsoever. I do not know if it was an editor or his writing groups and workshops that led him astray, but in any case, aspiring nonfiction writers should take note: leave yourself out of the narrative unless it is absolutely vital to an understanding of the subject at hand! And personal reactions to viewing old photographs, particularly when they result in stating the obvious, do no favors to the reader either.
I give Wadland an extra star because as I say, I can tell he had the best of intentions. In pointing out the book's flaws, my only agenda is to have other writers take heed, learn from them, and not replicate them elsewhere. ...And I thank Wadland for putting the image in my head of the Home anarchist baseball team playing a baseball team fielded by Western State Hospital. I can image the players stepping up to the diamond in their old timey, pinstriped uniforms...but with a big red anarchy symbol on the back. That's as all-American as it gets. Thank you for that, Mr. Wadland.
Sadly, it seems like from the scant information presented that an anarchist collective is a contradiction that was bound to fail. Even in its most ideal form, anarchy venerates individualism and individual freedom over any kind of compromise. All functioning forms of government entail compromise except the most free or the most totalitarian, and neither end of the spectrum is beneficial to people. It seems that most communitarian projects fail because they deny that rules exist or pretend no rules are needed to form a working social contract. That operational principle could only work if the better side of human nature was what people default to in times of crisis or under the press of external adversity. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. The anarchists of Home sought to prove to the world that people can be completely free and good simultaneously. We can point to their obvious failure and shake our heads, or we can point out that to fail in pursuit of an ideal is far better than to succeed by having low or no standards at all--which is how our present fake democracy operates.
The truth is that communes which are open to everyone become dumping grounds for drifters, fugitives, idlers and layabouts. Without carefully curating who is allowed to join the community and a framework for expelling those who refuse to follow its governing principles, without some instrument of accountability, no society could exist. Hunter gatherers did not need rules, but even in the liberated environment of a small tribe, informal rules exist, are understood by all (whether spoken of or not), and a failing member could be exiled.
The details of Home--even the photographs--show a small town waterside village that looks no different than any other village of the time. People played baseball, worked jobs, and aside from having intellectual discussions and publishing numerous newspapers, they do not appear to have lived much differently from other small town Americans at the time. This begs the question, was a real anarchist experiment even tried in Home? Yes, they held communal property, but beyond that they did not alter any fundamental aspect of the culture and society they claim to have split off of. People are products of the culture and society that produced them. It is difficult to imagine how a new society could thrive (or even be called "new") without understanding and acknowledging the influences that shaped its members, and the set of trade-off's people are leaving behind versus those they are entering in to. Call it "anthropological self-awareness" if the concept needs a name, but this awareness is absolutely necessary, for how can we embrace a new way if we are not even fully aware of how the old ways shaped our beliefs, values, and identities?
I suspect that for a communitarian project to succeed, it must have a strong set of codified principles, an unalterable article of confederation, a charter, a constitution, or, like Anabaptist groups, a religion. ALL persons must be strictly bound to follow these principles. They are only as good as the greediest, most ambitious or avaricious person's ability to usurp--or be checked--by them. A community should be guided by cherished and celebrated ideals representing the best aspects of human nature...but as above, so below. Even as a community rallies around its lofty ideals, it cannot rest upon them anymore than a house can rest upon a cloud. The foundation of any functional community cannot be the ideals that lead it forward, but the rules--the social contract--that safeguard it from the sociopaths and con artists who exist only for themselves, and work only to drag the community down. Even hunter gatherers understood this, and that is why, for 99.9% of our species' existence, hunting and gathering with no formal governance of any kind was not only possible, but the only tenable way of life.
October 28, 2019
An anarchist community? If not an outright oxymoron, it is a concept that seems fraught from the outset. In fact the community, not far from where I live, described in this book flourished peacefully for more than a decade (1896 to 1906+) before beginning to fall apart. The author tells the story of this out of the way spot, but links it to the outside world, in particular the assassination of William McKinley. The author is to be commended for bringing this small bit of local history to life. We see clearly that the clash between the idealism of the original community and the outside world involves issues that very much remain with us today.
He brings us into the present now and then, and talks about his infant son, which is not relevant to this narrative. But this is my only complaint and it is a small one.
He brings us into the present now and then, and talks about his infant son, which is not relevant to this narrative. But this is my only complaint and it is a small one.
January 11, 2023
A really interesting local history, did a good job contextualuzing this anarchist colony within the larger social & historical context but didn't critique the contradictions apparent in their politics. I want a follow up that goes deeper into how white radical leftists were "good colonists" & a part of westward expansion with their hopes of building utopias & how that has led to the political culture of the west today, leaning to the left but with an often selfish & isolationist bent (Cascadia 👀) & still very white & full of problematic contradictions that ultimately thwart solidarity & there for meaningful change.
October 21, 2021
A fascinating exploration of new-to-me local history. While it's clear that the author was struggling to piece together the history of this anarchist community from wide-flung, disparate sources, and supplemented the text with his personal accounts in the research process, I felt this added a depth to the book, giving me an opportunity to reflect upon the present interweaving with the past through the tapestry of the Land that is still here. Makes me want to explore a part of my state I rarely venture to!
August 31, 2019
Great stories from our Anarchist / Socialist past. :-)
May 15, 2020
“The ambition for gold, with all its corrupting powers, may wear the imperial robes and crowns, but give me rapturous thrill of love, love for all natures charms.”
January 21, 2021
I bought it to learn the history of Home. I skimmed it to glean just that, skipping a lot of the irrelevant.
February 16, 2024
Incredible book and surprising history that I learned about so close to where I live in Tacoma Washington. It is so well written.
February 28, 2015
Although everything about Home and its people could have been rendered in 40 pages or less, Wadland drags it out with first person musings about his firstborn, descriptions of his pilgrimages to the place, and speculation.
Still worth the read, however, because few are the anarchist communities that are written about, the time period is fascinating*, and reading a sympathetic contemporary take on historical anarchism is rare enough.
I disliked the structure of the book. Themes like work, education, etc. that could have been integrated into the narrative history are separated into their own chapters. I could have done without the first-person trips out there as well.
My biggest problem, though, was Wadland speculating about how people were feeling without any sources. A lot of "may have" and "might have" in a history means the sources are minimal--for personal information in this case.
Anyway, still a lot to enjoy here. Did you know that Emma Goldman not only visited Home, but stayed a night in Scio, OR? I didn't and there were plenty more tidbits like that.
*The concentration of wealth at the turn of the century is almost exactly as it is now: 1% of the people owning nearly 50% of the wealth.
Still worth the read, however, because few are the anarchist communities that are written about, the time period is fascinating*, and reading a sympathetic contemporary take on historical anarchism is rare enough.
I disliked the structure of the book. Themes like work, education, etc. that could have been integrated into the narrative history are separated into their own chapters. I could have done without the first-person trips out there as well.
My biggest problem, though, was Wadland speculating about how people were feeling without any sources. A lot of "may have" and "might have" in a history means the sources are minimal--for personal information in this case.
Anyway, still a lot to enjoy here. Did you know that Emma Goldman not only visited Home, but stayed a night in Scio, OR? I didn't and there were plenty more tidbits like that.
*The concentration of wealth at the turn of the century is almost exactly as it is now: 1% of the people owning nearly 50% of the wealth.
November 4, 2014
I had to read this book in two sessions with a 6-week separation between them. After half the book I was frustrated by the style of the author -- I had been expecting a narrative history of the Home Colony. Thus the break. I picked it up a few days ago and found that the time between reading sessions had allowed me to accept the author's jumping around in time style with personal stories to be acceptable and quite chariming. Thus my review went from 2 stars to 4 stars.
There are other histories of Home that probably should be read first so that one is not distracted by this book's organization and coverage.
There are other histories of Home that probably should be read first so that one is not distracted by this book's organization and coverage.
July 28, 2014
With detailed research and skilled prose Justin Wadland constructs a vivid retelling of life in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century anarchist colony of Home, Washington. The book, divided into six chapters, discusses the various aspects of life in this settlement on the Key Peninsula and tracks the evolution of this short-lived utopian experiment. Wadland’s narrative regarding the residents of Home, weaved in with his personal story, is thoroughly engaging. Through his words you feel a connection with the settlers—a sense that you are, in fact, home.
August 22, 2014
My corollary to an axiomatic statement by George Santayana is thus:
"It is the Doom of mankind to forget the lessons of history."
In this excellent short history of the attempt to build a community using a non-coercive social model, we have a microcosm of humanity's failure to live up to it's ideals and difficulty in passing on to the next generation the dream of how much better it could be.
"It is the Doom of mankind to forget the lessons of history."
In this excellent short history of the attempt to build a community using a non-coercive social model, we have a microcosm of humanity's failure to live up to it's ideals and difficulty in passing on to the next generation the dream of how much better it could be.
December 6, 2015
This is an interesting slice of western Washington history, and on a larger scale, a history of the anarchist movement at the turn of the century. The author weaves his writing and research process into the history, exploring how his journey as a new parent dovetails with the early settlers of Home, Washington, who are looking for a place to build a community without the restriction imposed by conventional Victorian society.
December 11, 2016
If you have ever wondered about anarchy and if it could succeed, you may want to read this book. If you have an interest in mob mentality, media influence, and politics, you may want to read this book. The current political climate and media shenanigans will resonate even if you cannot relate with the author's personal musings and homages. The most interesting revelations on anarchy involve the consequences of free will and democracy...within an anarchy.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews