Oneida Community
The Oneida Community was a Christian perfectionist communal society founded by John Humphrey Noyes and his followers in 1848 near Oneida, New York. The community believed that Jesus had already returned in 70 CE, making it possible for them to bring about Jesus's millennial kingdom themselves, and be perfect and free of sin in this world, not just in Heaven, a belief called perfectionism. The Oneida Community practiced communalism - in the sense of communal property and possessions - group marriage, male sexual continence, Oneida stirpiculture, and mutual criticism.
The community site originally covered more than 160 acres of land surrounding Oneida Creek in Madison County, New York and Oneida County, New York. The community's original 87 members grew to 172 by February 1850, 208 by 1852, and 306 by 1878. Other Noyesian communities were founded in Wallingford, Connecticut; Newark, New Jersey; Putney and Cambridge, Vermont. The branches were closed in 1854 except for the Wallingford branch, which operated until its destruction by tornado in 1878.
The Oneida Community dissolved in 1881, converting itself to a joint-stock company. This eventually became the silverware company Oneida Limited, one of the largest in the world.
History
The land the Oneida Community settled on was made available for purchase by Euro-American settlers after its acquisition by the State of New York in a series of agreements with the Oneida Indian Nation in 1840 and 1842. The initial farmstead of the Oneida Community was purchased by Jonathan Burt, an early convert to the religious doctrine of Christian perfectionism. In 1847, Burt invited John Humphrey Noyes and his associates in Putney, Vermont to come to Oneida and establish a Perfectionist community.At the time, Noyes and his followers were living in Putney, Vermont in a group known as the Putney Association. The group lived communally, as one family sharing property and work, in a system they called "Bible communism." Controversially, the community also practiced free love, complex marriage, and polyamory. Noyes was charged with committing adultery, and to escape the charges, the group moved to Oneida in March 1848, to found the Oneida Community.
Structure
Even though the community only reached a maximum population of about 300, it had a complex bureaucracy of 27 standing committees and 48 administrative sections.All community members were expected to work, each according to their abilities. Women tended to do many of the domestic duties. Although more skilled jobs tended to remain with an individual member, community members rotated through the more unskilled jobs, working in the house, the fields, or the various industries. As Oneida thrived, it hired outsiders. The community was a major employer in the area and had approximately 200 employees by 1870.
Secondary industries included manufacturing leather travel bags, weaving palm frond hats, construction of rustic garden furniture, and tourism. A community member, Canadian Sewell Newhouse, invented and patented the Oneida trap, which was popular among trappers at the time. Silverware manufacturing began in 1877, relatively late in the community's life, and still exists.
Complex marriage
The Oneida Community practiced complex marriage or free love – a term that Noyes is credited with coining. Any member was free to have sex with any other who consented. The community frowned upon possessiveness and exclusive relationships.Noyes developed a distinction between amative and propagative love.
Women over 40 were to act as sexual "mentors" to adolescent boys because these relationships had a minimal chance of conceiving. Furthermore, these women became religious role models for the young men. Likewise, older men often introduced young women to sex. Noyes often used his judgment in determining the partnerships that would form, and he would often encourage relationships between the non-devout and the devout in the community in the hope that the attitudes and behaviors of the devout would influence the attitudes of the non-devout.
In 1993, the community archives were made available to scholars for the first time. Contained within the archives was the journal of Tirzah Miller, Noyes' niece, who wrote extensively about her romantic and sexual relations with other members of Oneida.
Mutual criticism
Every member of the community was subject to criticism by a committee or the community as a whole during a general meeting. The goal was to eliminate undesirable character traits. Various contemporary sources contend that Noyes himself was the subject of criticism, although less often and of probably less severe criticism than the rest of the community. Charles Nordhoff said he had witnessed the criticism of a member he referred to as "Charles", writing the following account of the incident:Male continence
The Oneida Community enacted a system of male continence or coitus reservatus to control reproduction within it. John Humphrey Noyes decided that sexual intercourse served two distinct purposes. In Male Continence, Noyes argues that the method simply "proposes the subordination of the flesh to the spirit, teaching men to seek principally the elevated spiritual pleasures of sexual connection". The primary purpose of male continence was social satisfaction, "to allow the sexes to communicate and express affection for one another". The second purpose was procreation. Of around two hundred adults using male continence as birth control, there were twelve unplanned births within Oneida between 1848 and 1868, indicating that it was a highly effective form of birth control. Young men were introduced to male continence by post-menopausal women, and experienced, older males introduced young women.Noyes believed that ejaculation "drained men's vitality and led to disease" and pregnancy and childbirth "levied a heavy tax on the vitality of women". Noyes founded male continence to spare his wife, Harriet, from more difficult childbirths after five traumatizing births of which four led to the death of the child. They favored this method of male continence over other methods of birth control because they found it to be natural, healthy, and favorable for the development of intimate relationships. Women found increased sexual satisfaction in the practice, and Oneida is regarded as highly unusual in the value they placed on women's sexual satisfaction. If a male failed, he faced public disapproval or private rejection.
It is unclear whether the practice of male continence led to significant problems. Sociologist Lawrence Foster sees hints in Noyes' letters indicating that masturbation and anti-social withdrawal from community life may have been issues. Oneida's practice of male continence did not lead to impotence.
Stirpiculture
Stirpiculture was a proto-eugenics program of selective controlled reproduction within the community devised by Noyes and implemented in 1869. It was designed to create more spiritually and physically perfect children. Community members who wished to be parents would go before a committee to be approved and matched based on their spiritual and moral qualities. 53 women and 38 men participated in this program, which necessitated the construction of a new wing of the Oneida Community Mansion House. The experiment yielded 58 children, nine of whom were fathered by Noyes.Once children were weaned, they were raised communally in the Children's Wing, or South Wing. Their parents were allowed to visit, but the children's department held jurisdiction over raising the offspring. If the department suspected a parent and child were bonding too closely, the community would enforce a period of separation because the group wanted to stop the affection between parents and children. The Children's department had a male and female supervisor to look after children between ages two and twelve. The supervisors made sure the children followed the routine. Dressing, prayers, breakfast, work, school, lunch, work, playtime, supper, prayers, and study, which were "adjusted according to 'age and ability'."
Stirpiculture was the first positive eugenics experiment in the United States, although it was not recognized as such because of the religious framework from which it emerged.
Role of women
Oneida embodied one of the most radical institutional efforts to change women's roles and improve female status in 19th-century America. Women had freedoms in the commune that they could not get outside of it. Some of these privileges included not having to care for their own children, as Oneida had a communal child care system, and freedom from unwanted pregnancies due to Oneida's male continence practice. In addition, they were able to wear functional, Bloomer-style clothing and maintain short haircuts. Women could participate in practically all types of community work. While domestic duties remained a primarily female responsibility, women were free to explore positions in business and sales, or as artisans or craftspersons, and many did so, particularly in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Finally, women actively shaped commune policy, participating in daily religious and business meetings.The complex marriage and free love systems practiced at Oneida further acknowledged female status. Through the complex marriage arrangement, women and men had equal freedom in sexual expression and commitment. Indeed, sexual practices at Oneida accepted female sexuality. A woman's right to satisfying sexual experiences was recognized, and women were encouraged to have orgasms. However, a woman's right to refuse a sexual overture was limited depending on the status of the man who made the advance.
Ellen Wayland-Smith, wrote in "The Status and Self-Perception of Women in the Oneida Community" that men and women had roughly equal status in the community. She points out that while both sexes were ultimately subject to Noyes' vision and will, women did not suffer undue oppression.