Comunidades Utopias

Utopian Communities
Cristina Rosario-Mejía 10-0039
Term Paper
Professor Winley
December 10, 2009

Outline
I. Introduction
Thesis: The idea behind the making of Utopian communities was to create a better social order in which there was a better way of organizing family life, work, and property ownership.
II. The Shakers Community
a) Founder
Editor: Sue Miller. Boyer’s TheAmerican Nation. Orlando, Florida: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1998.
b) Customs
Gay, Kathlyn. Communes and Cults. Brookfield, Connecticut: Twenty-First Century Books, 1997.
c) Education
Andrews, Faith, and Edward Deming Andrews. Work and Worship: The Economic Order of the
Shakers. Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Graphic Society Ltd., 1974.
d) Recognition in HistoryMorse, Flo. The Shakers and the World’s People. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1980.
About the Shakers. http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/shakers/shakers/.
III. The Oneida Community
a) Economic Position
Brinton, Howard H. Friends for 300 Years. Lebanon, Pennsylvania: Sowers Printing Company,
1980.
b) Mating and Children
Editor: Richard M. Ketchum. TheAmerican Heritage Book of the Pioneer Spirit. New York:
American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1959.
Editor: Sue Miller. Boyer’s The American Nation. Orlando, Florida: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1998.
c) Dissolving the Community
Gay, Kathlyn. Communes and Cults. Brookfield, Connecticut:Twenty-First Century Books, 1997.
IV. Conclusion

The idea behind the making of Utopian communities was to create a better social order in which there was a better way of organizing family life, work, and property ownership. Some of them would be considered today a hippie community while there were others very conservative. These groups date back to the end of the 1700’s and made it into the late1800’s. Both extremes of communities can be encountered within the Shakers and Oneidas.
The Shakers, or United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, were led by an illiterate working woman named “Mother Ann” Lee. Such a thing back in those days was unheard of as women were seen as mother and housewives and nothing else. She believed that God was both sexes and that she was sent toearth to create the first society that did not commit sins. Their first commune was located in New Lebanon, New York, in 1792. Afterwards, around eighty more where established all over the United States. They did not procreate and they formed their own communal families that ranged anywhere from thirty to ninety members. Discrimination was not something practiced in this community, yet a persondid work in accordance to his/her sex and age. People from all over an all religions where attracted to the Shakers because of their strong belief of following a healthy diet and a healthy life. It was one of the most rigid communes of the most known.
They believed boys should be schooled throughout the winter and the girls throughout the summer; a joined school was out of the question. Thechildren were not to get familiar with each other, just sociable enough to coexist in peace. The reading of the Bible was mandatory, along with possessing the knowledge of who founded the community and which where their main believes. Special people were appointed to deal with the raising of the children and nobody else was to give instruction. As for the courses they took they had to learn all thebasics, yet nothing mythological or anything that could for one second make them doubt their religion was allowed to be read by them or even by adults as long as they belonged to the Shaker community. Another school requirement consisted of knowing how to sing.
The Shakers are known for being a community that lasted more than two hundred years living in simplicity and unity as Christian brothers and...