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A postcard from 1907, depicting the Oneida Community Mansion. The mansion is the main source of historic material form the community. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965 and preserves and interprets the material saved from the time of the Oneida.

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The Oneidas functioned according to their values and goals for many years, however, once the leader, John Noyes, attempted to pass leadership down to his son, the community began to divide and collapse. Members were split because some wanted Communitarian John Tower to take over power instead of Noyes’s son. Splits also began to rise over the general values of the community. As time went on and founding members became deceased or very old, the younger members began to questions many of the values that structured the community.

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While the goals of the community were obtained through the duration of the Oneida’s existence, they could only be maintained for a relatively short period of time as the new generation began to question the values of the community and detach themselves. The value of complex marriage was abandoned in 1879 and the community fully disbanded soon after. While it can be said that the values of the Oneida were maintained throughout its existence, the community failed to last for an extensive period of time and did not generate a very large following.

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The cover imagine from David Flusfeder’s The Pagan House. This novel was largely inspired by the Oneida Community and their morals, traditions and culture.

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Following the split, some members reorganized to maintain the various businesses the company  had. All but the silverware company, now known as Oneida Community Limited, sold or were shut down. The obscure concepts of the Oneidas inspired books such as The Pagan House by David Flusfelder, however, that was generally the extent of the Oneida’s cultural impact. While the community did not create a large impact on American history, the story of the Oneidas can be viewed as a reflection upon the difficulty in creating an efficient community that is perfectly Utopian.

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John Humphrey Noyes, the founder of the Oneida Community, played a major role in the creation and success of this movement. Born into a successful family, Noyes graduated from Dartmouth College and had a plan to become involved with a legal career but was fascinated with the revival of Charles Finney who was focused on getting others to convert to Christianity.

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He believed that the perfection that God demanded could be attained by an inner sense of salvation and also believed that there would be no marriage in Heaven. His belief furthermore meant that man and woman should be married on earth but that the men and women should be sexually involved with other members of their society (which he called complex marriage.)

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Noyes enforced the the idea of complex marriage and thought it was vital to improving the love and loyalty shared within the community. Along with complex marriage, Noyes set forth rules such as the form of birth control he used because of the fact that the society could not afford the women to become pregnant in the first few years. Although the strict rule of not permitting children to be born was set in place, through the years 1849 and 1867 thirty-five unexpected children were born. Another rule that Noyes put in place was "mutual criticism" which ensured that incorrect attitudes would be recognized and solved before any problems within the society developed to cause division.

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This movement was created in order to develop a religious, perfect society in a place that revolved around the idea of complex marriage, mutual criticism, and ascending fellowship. These ideas came from the religious belief that Jesus gave them a perfect world where he would accept their sins. Creating a community in which they built upon one another's spiritual beliefs, this utopian society spread their ideas to as many as 100,000 individuals.

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The goal of this movement was for this community to spread their religious beliefs and dedicate their lives to living as one family in the same property and work. Their main tasks in this movement were to follow their standards and take the opportunity to “sin” when they wish. Any member was free to have sex with anyone they wished, even if it wasn’t a husband or wife. Children were raised communally and didn’t live with their parents. The goal of mutual criticism was to eliminate undesirable character traits. All of these expectations that they followed were requirements in their community and were to be followed by anyone that joined in their society.

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How the Movement Tried to Attain their Goals

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How the Movement Tried to Attain their Goals

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This movement attempted to gain more followers by reaching out and making their society sound “perfect”. With all of their rules and expectations, this utopian group persuaded others to join by making the appearance of their lifestyle seem like a harmonious society. After years of success, the creator of this society passed on the leadership to his son, where it then became unsuccessful and divided the community. Everyone decided to abandon their beliefs and left the mansion house in New York. Failing to reach their goals and maintain popularity, the society deteriorated and was no longer existent by 1880.

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This is a photograph of the Oneida Mansion. This mansion was home to the Oneida Community located

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19th Century Utopism: The Oneida Community