UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES

CAUSE FOR CHANGE

• Achieve a culture unique from Europe's
• Saw a need for individual improvement
• Wanted to impose capitalization and immigration
• Regenerate and perfect society
• People were struggling under the pressures of industrialization

CHANGES SOUGHT

• Social perfectibility over religious purity
• Social and economic equality
• Self reliance and optimism
• Man is naturally "good"
• Model communities for all of society

LEADERS

• Robert Owen: founded New Harmony, IN. Believed in political and economic equality.
• George Rapp: founded the Rappies, an extremely religious community.
• Mother Ann Lee: founded the Shakers, 20 communities lived a simple way of life and made furniture.
• John Humphrey Noyes: founder of Oneida Community in NY, a very unique society.

HISTORIC EVENTS

• Self-sufficient Fruitlands in Harvard, MA (housed Louisa May Alcott).
• New Harmony, IN established the first center of science in the West.
• The Shaker community, known for furniture design and the success of their furniture businesses.

REASONS TO REFORM

• Promote self-sufficiency
• Possible personal enlightenment
• Force people to come together as a society
• However, utopian communities usually fail within a few years.