How many utopian communities were established in the previous decades before the Civil War?

Abstract

This essay examines the relationship between communitarian and cooperative labor reform and antislavery and argues that the reformist projects of radical labor activists overlapped with those of abolitionists in significant and overlooked ways. From Frances Wright's Nashoba experiment in the 1820s to the Fourierist communities of the 1840s, communitarian reformers shared important assumptions with abolitionists about the superiority of free labor, the illegitimacy of property in man, and the role of market forces in the commodification of wage labor and human beings. In the 1840s, labor activists associated with Fourierist reform engaged in a critical but ultimately constructive dialogue with abolitionists over these same issues. As the goals of communitarian reformers intersected with free soil antislavery in the 1840s and 1850s, a handful of key figures associated with labor reform helped to broker a political alliance that contributed to the development of the brand of antislavery politics represented by the Republican Party.

Journal Information

The Journal of the Civil War Era is published by UNC Press in association with the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center. The journal publishes the most creative new work on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the country’s signal conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century. The journal offers a unique space where scholars across the many subfields that animate nineteenth-century history can enter into conversation with each other. Besides offering fresh perspectives on the military, political, and legal history of the era, the journal covers such disparate subjects as slavery and antislavery, labor and capitalism, popular culture and intellectual history, expansionism and empire, and African American and women’s history. Moreover, The Journal of the Civil War Era is a venue where scholars engaged in race, gender, transnational, and the full range of theoretical perspectives that animate historical practice can find a home.

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The University of North Carolina Press is the oldest university press in the South and one of the oldest in the country. Founded in 1922, the Press is the creation of that same distinguished group of educators and civic leaders who were instrumental in transforming the University of North Carolina from a struggling college with a few associated professional schools into a major university. The purpose of the Press, as stated in its charter, is "to promote generally, by publishing deserving works, the advancement of the arts and sciences and the development of literature." The Press achieved this goal early on, and the excellence of its publishing program has been recognized for more than eight decades by scholars throughout the world. UNC Press is also the proud publisher for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg, Virginia.  More information can be found about the Omohundro Institute and its books at the Institute's website.  For a full listing of Institute books on Books@JSTOR, click here. UNC Press publishes journals in a variety of fields including Early American Literature, education, southern studies, and more.  Many of our journal issues are also available as ebooks.  UNC Press publishes over 100 new books annually, in a variety of disciplines, in a variety of formats, both print and electronic. To learn more about our books and journals programs, please visit us at our website.

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journal article

Irish Journal of American Studies

Vol. 4 (1995)

, pp. 1-22 (22 pages)

Published By: Irish Association for American Studies

//www.jstor.org/stable/30003328

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The Irish Association for American Studies is an all-island association for the support and promotion of American Studies in Ireland. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in the study of American literature, history, politics, film, art and culture. Subscriptions help to fund bursaries and awards, as well as the hosting of annual conferences. The IAAS also administers the Irish Journal of American Studies, which until 2008 was produced as a print journal. It was relaunched in 2009 as an online journal and can be found here: www.ijas.iaas.ie. The official website for the IAAS is www.iaas.ie.

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Irish Journal of American Studies © 1995 Irish Association for American Studies
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How many reform communities were established prior to the Civil War?

Did common schools exist in every northern state by the time of the Civil War?

Were the most successful of the religious utopian communities?

Were the most successful of the religious utopian communities though they accumulation of private property they were able to support their community through the sale of?