1
00:00:02,320 --> 00:00:05,720
Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody. We recently got an email from listener

2
00:00:05,800 --> 00:00:07,920
Speaker 1: Ellen who asked us to do a show about the

3
00:00:07,920 --> 00:00:11,440
Speaker 1: onidat Utopia, and that's one that's already in our archive

4
00:00:11,560 --> 00:00:15,160
Speaker 1: from back in tleven from our previous hosts Sarah and Babuina.

5
00:00:15,720 --> 00:00:18,279
Speaker 1: One of the things that's really strongly associated with the

6
00:00:18,280 --> 00:00:21,640
Speaker 1: Anida community was free love and complex marriages. And that

7
00:00:21,720 --> 00:00:23,919
Speaker 1: means that there is a little more sex talk, in

8
00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:26,520
Speaker 1: a little more candid sex talk in today's show than

9
00:00:26,600 --> 00:00:29,840
Speaker 1: you might typically associate with us. It might even be

10
00:00:29,920 --> 00:00:36,199
Speaker 1: a lot more so Happy listening, Welcome to Stuff you

11
00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:46,519
Speaker 1: missed in history Class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello,

12
00:00:46,560 --> 00:00:49,120
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm

13
00:00:49,159 --> 00:00:52,280
Speaker 1: Deblina Chuckerboarding, and today we're gonna talk a little bit

14
00:00:52,280 --> 00:00:55,280
Speaker 1: more about free love. I mean, hopefully that makes you

15
00:00:55,360 --> 00:00:58,280
Speaker 1: keep on listening right away. But I was thinking about

16
00:00:58,320 --> 00:01:00,200
Speaker 1: it because we did a podcast a couple of weeks

17
00:01:00,200 --> 00:01:03,680
Speaker 1: ago on Victoria wood Hall, who was the first female

18
00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:06,360
Speaker 1: presidential candidate. And I don't know if you want to

19
00:01:06,400 --> 00:01:10,160
Speaker 1: give a quick recap of her beliefs on free love. Yeah,

20
00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:13,000
Speaker 1: she basically didn't believe free in free love in the

21
00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:15,920
Speaker 1: sense that everyone should be having sex with each other.

22
00:01:15,959 --> 00:01:18,760
Speaker 1: But she did believe that people should have the choice

23
00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:21,959
Speaker 1: whether or not to be together. So that was just

24
00:01:22,040 --> 00:01:23,520
Speaker 1: a little bit about it. You didn't have to be

25
00:01:23,560 --> 00:01:26,480
Speaker 1: stuck in a marriage if you didn't want to be. Now,

26
00:01:26,600 --> 00:01:29,240
Speaker 1: So we we had her on our minds. And then

27
00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:33,280
Speaker 1: also I co edited an article recently that Molly Edmonds

28
00:01:33,319 --> 00:01:36,040
Speaker 1: wrote one of the hosts of Stuff Mom Never Told

29
00:01:36,080 --> 00:01:39,440
Speaker 1: You on polyamory, and so it came up again, and

30
00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:43,160
Speaker 1: she actually even mentioned the Oneida Community in her article.

31
00:01:43,360 --> 00:01:48,320
Speaker 1: So both of those examples got me thinking about this community,

32
00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:51,960
Speaker 1: which is probably the most famous example of organized free

33
00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:54,720
Speaker 1: love in American history, and it is, of course the

34
00:01:54,800 --> 00:01:59,480
Speaker 1: Oneida Commune or Oneida Community in New York State. Yeah,

35
00:01:59,480 --> 00:02:01,960
Speaker 1: when I first started researching this with you, it seemed

36
00:02:01,960 --> 00:02:05,000
Speaker 1: almost too crazy to be real. I don't know, Maybe

37
00:02:05,080 --> 00:02:07,400
Speaker 1: I've just lived too sheltered a life. Maybe I'm alone

38
00:02:07,440 --> 00:02:09,720
Speaker 1: in this, but I don't know. Can you tell us

39
00:02:09,720 --> 00:02:11,799
Speaker 1: a little bit about some of these things? It does

40
00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:15,280
Speaker 1: sound too crazy to be real, And that's partly because

41
00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:18,680
Speaker 1: the people that made up this large Victorian community shared

42
00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:22,200
Speaker 1: not only property and labor, but of course sexual partners,

43
00:02:22,639 --> 00:02:27,040
Speaker 1: and they surprisingly earned boatloads of money through these really

44
00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:29,799
Speaker 1: successful marketing schemes. I think that's sort of the first

45
00:02:30,280 --> 00:02:33,040
Speaker 1: loop in this In this episode, they were actually quite

46
00:02:33,080 --> 00:02:40,160
Speaker 1: successful financially. Another potentially strange fact about them they regarded

47
00:02:40,160 --> 00:02:43,760
Speaker 1: the genders equally and they shared labor, so pretty surprising.

48
00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:47,600
Speaker 1: The ladies even more pantaloons. You can look up pictures

49
00:02:47,639 --> 00:02:51,520
Speaker 1: of them. They have short skirts and little pantaloons underneath.

50
00:02:51,919 --> 00:02:54,839
Speaker 1: And um. Then, maybe the strangest thing of all. Their

51
00:02:54,880 --> 00:02:59,840
Speaker 1: eventual undoing came about when this eugenics inspired breeding pro

52
00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:03,959
Speaker 1: Graham left the younger members yearning for good old fashioned

53
00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:08,560
Speaker 1: courtly love and and monogamous marriage. And for those of

54
00:03:08,600 --> 00:03:11,200
Speaker 1: you who own some fine Oneida silver, you might know

55
00:03:11,240 --> 00:03:13,800
Speaker 1: where it goes from there. The commune doesn't last forever,

56
00:03:14,080 --> 00:03:16,920
Speaker 1: much like a lot of other communes, even those that

57
00:03:16,960 --> 00:03:20,200
Speaker 1: are often considered to be the most successful in American history,

58
00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:24,240
Speaker 1: like Oneida. So who was behind this Oneida community in

59
00:03:24,280 --> 00:03:28,560
Speaker 1: the first place. This guy named John Humphrey. Noise and

60
00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:31,640
Speaker 1: it's not doesn't look like noise. It's n O y

61
00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:33,600
Speaker 1: E s. In case you want to look up this

62
00:03:33,639 --> 00:03:36,960
Speaker 1: guy a little more. But yeah, the commune and the

63
00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:40,400
Speaker 1: ideas behind it came from his ideas and preaching. And

64
00:03:40,480 --> 00:03:43,400
Speaker 1: he was born in eighteen eleven in Vermont. He was

65
00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:45,840
Speaker 1: a wealthy kid. He went to Dartmouth and then to

66
00:03:45,920 --> 00:03:48,720
Speaker 1: law school. Really seemed to be on the right track

67
00:03:48,800 --> 00:03:52,160
Speaker 1: to being a well off New England lawyer until he

68
00:03:52,200 --> 00:03:56,120
Speaker 1: attends a revival of evangelist Charles Finney in eighteen thirty one,

69
00:03:56,440 --> 00:03:59,320
Speaker 1: and at that point he decides to become a minister instead,

70
00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:02,920
Speaker 1: so big career change. But but even then he seems

71
00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:05,600
Speaker 1: like he was possibly on the track to becoming just

72
00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:08,600
Speaker 1: a well off New England minister instead of a lawyer.

73
00:04:08,720 --> 00:04:12,480
Speaker 1: He went to Andover Theological Seminary. From there he transferred

74
00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:17,320
Speaker 1: to Yale. But after that his ideas started to get

75
00:04:17,640 --> 00:04:20,440
Speaker 1: kind of out there, and definitely two out there. For Yale,

76
00:04:20,600 --> 00:04:24,679
Speaker 1: he believed in something called perfectionism, which was the idea

77
00:04:24,839 --> 00:04:29,440
Speaker 1: that after conversion we are free from sin, which obviously

78
00:04:30,120 --> 00:04:33,240
Speaker 1: that idea didn't sit very well with the Calvinist faculty

79
00:04:33,360 --> 00:04:37,279
Speaker 1: at Yale and they denied his ordination. Yeah, so just

80
00:04:37,279 --> 00:04:39,000
Speaker 1: to give you a little background on the beliefs that

81
00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:42,240
Speaker 1: he had. They extend from the central idea of Perfectionism,

82
00:04:42,320 --> 00:04:45,760
Speaker 1: and they're pretty controversial. He, for one thing, thinks the

83
00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:49,279
Speaker 1: Second Coming has come and gone already. In fact, he

84
00:04:49,320 --> 00:04:52,080
Speaker 1: thinks that happened in a d seventy at the destruction

85
00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:55,200
Speaker 1: of the Temple in Jerusalem. This meant that man didn't

86
00:04:55,240 --> 00:04:57,880
Speaker 1: have to wait for heaven to be one with God.

87
00:04:57,960 --> 00:04:59,840
Speaker 1: You could do it here on earth as well. But

88
00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:02,159
Speaker 1: to do so you had to leave the world and

89
00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:05,080
Speaker 1: live according to the laws of heaven, like maybe in

90
00:05:05,120 --> 00:05:08,920
Speaker 1: a commune run by noise. So he gets kicked out

91
00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:13,280
Speaker 1: of Yale, and he starts kind of meeting with other perfectionists,

92
00:05:13,680 --> 00:05:16,160
Speaker 1: learning the drill, talking to people going on the circuit,

93
00:05:16,560 --> 00:05:19,640
Speaker 1: and he decides, well, I'm going to start my own

94
00:05:19,720 --> 00:05:24,840
Speaker 1: group here, and he organizes the Bible Communists in Putney, Vermont,

95
00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:28,760
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty six and preaches love and harmony to them.

96
00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:31,400
Speaker 1: And it's interesting to sort of get a look at

97
00:05:31,720 --> 00:05:35,120
Speaker 1: what type of people were joining this group, the Bible Communists.

98
00:05:35,160 --> 00:05:38,520
Speaker 1: They were mostly small town folks. They came from all

99
00:05:38,560 --> 00:05:43,000
Speaker 1: sorts of occupation, something that probably proved useful down the line,

100
00:05:43,480 --> 00:05:46,120
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe if it had stayed at this level,

101
00:05:46,200 --> 00:05:48,600
Speaker 1: it would have been pretty under the radar. You know,

102
00:05:49,040 --> 00:05:53,560
Speaker 1: a religious group that's too radical for Gale, but not

103
00:05:53,640 --> 00:05:55,839
Speaker 1: so radical that it doesn't fit in in some way

104
00:05:55,880 --> 00:05:59,040
Speaker 1: with all of the revivals sweeping the United States at

105
00:05:59,040 --> 00:06:03,239
Speaker 1: this time, then Noise shakes things up a little bit. Yeah,

106
00:06:03,240 --> 00:06:05,440
Speaker 1: he doesn't just keep it at that level. Just a

107
00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:09,320
Speaker 1: year after starting that group, Noise writes the so called

108
00:06:09,520 --> 00:06:12,680
Speaker 1: battle Axe Letter. And this letter it really gets the

109
00:06:12,680 --> 00:06:15,880
Speaker 1: public riled up. It stirs up a lot of controversy

110
00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:20,880
Speaker 1: because it advocates free love. Specifically, it says, quote, when

111
00:06:20,880 --> 00:06:22,760
Speaker 1: the will of God is done on earth as it

112
00:06:22,800 --> 00:06:25,400
Speaker 1: is in heaven, there will be no marriage. And his

113
00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:29,440
Speaker 1: rationale came from scripture. It came from Matthew, which says

114
00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:32,960
Speaker 1: for in the Resurrection, they neither marry nor are given

115
00:06:32,960 --> 00:06:36,000
Speaker 1: in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

116
00:06:36,560 --> 00:06:39,200
Speaker 1: So Noise took this to mean that marriage should not

117
00:06:39,279 --> 00:06:42,120
Speaker 1: be exclusive. All men should be married to all women

118
00:06:42,360 --> 00:06:46,120
Speaker 1: and it's something called complex marriage. So this is definitely

119
00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:48,960
Speaker 1: an example of free love that's different from the one

120
00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:52,600
Speaker 1: we talked about in the Victoria Woodhole episode. Quite different

121
00:06:52,600 --> 00:06:56,960
Speaker 1: in fact, but the idea, just like Victoria Woodhell made

122
00:06:57,040 --> 00:07:01,520
Speaker 1: Noise in his followers incredibly in its corious and when

123
00:07:01,560 --> 00:07:05,559
Speaker 1: they actually start practicing complex marriage by eighteen forty six,

124
00:07:05,640 --> 00:07:07,960
Speaker 1: which is a little bit after they decide that they're

125
00:07:07,960 --> 00:07:10,440
Speaker 1: going to share all their property and all their belongings,

126
00:07:10,840 --> 00:07:13,960
Speaker 1: it does not sit well with their neighbors in Putney, Vermont,

127
00:07:14,080 --> 00:07:17,600
Speaker 1: not at all. And Noise is arrested for adultery because

128
00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:21,400
Speaker 1: he is married legally, and he jumps bail, and by

129
00:07:21,400 --> 00:07:25,160
Speaker 1: eighteen forty eight he and most of his followers DeCamp

130
00:07:25,280 --> 00:07:27,840
Speaker 1: for Oneida, New York. And there are a few other

131
00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:33,080
Speaker 1: satellite communities, but the main Oneada community is set up

132
00:07:33,080 --> 00:07:35,480
Speaker 1: there in New York and it lasts for another thirty years.

133
00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:38,640
Speaker 1: So we're gonna talk more about free love and that

134
00:07:38,720 --> 00:07:42,680
Speaker 1: aspect of the community later, but first, it's interesting to

135
00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:49,040
Speaker 1: figure out how these perfectionists Biblical communists actually made a living. Yeah, well,

136
00:07:49,080 --> 00:07:51,960
Speaker 1: at first they don't write the two hundred people that

137
00:07:52,160 --> 00:07:56,520
Speaker 1: live in this community. They try farming and logging. It's

138
00:07:56,560 --> 00:07:59,280
Speaker 1: a situation where men and women are sharing the same

139
00:07:59,400 --> 00:08:01,680
Speaker 1: rights and lay bur but the community isn't doing well

140
00:08:01,760 --> 00:08:05,280
Speaker 1: enough to support itself for the long term. So then

141
00:08:05,400 --> 00:08:10,000
Speaker 1: things start picking up eventually, though when they start manufacturing

142
00:08:10,080 --> 00:08:13,040
Speaker 1: things again into manufacturing work a little more reliable. Yeah,

143
00:08:13,080 --> 00:08:15,240
Speaker 1: So what sorts of things were they manufacturing. They were

144
00:08:15,640 --> 00:08:20,240
Speaker 1: canning and jarring veggies and fruit, also processing silk and printing.

145
00:08:20,880 --> 00:08:25,240
Speaker 1: They were milling grist mills and sawmills both and making

146
00:08:25,280 --> 00:08:29,280
Speaker 1: small goods like traveling bags. Yeah, and there. That was

147
00:08:29,320 --> 00:08:31,520
Speaker 1: all pretty successful for them. But the big win, the

148
00:08:31,560 --> 00:08:35,840
Speaker 1: thing that really made them sustainable, was the invention of

149
00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:38,720
Speaker 1: one of the community's members, a guy named Suel new House,

150
00:08:38,760 --> 00:08:41,400
Speaker 1: and he came up with a new kind of lightweight

151
00:08:41,520 --> 00:08:47,079
Speaker 1: animal trap for for animals, and the trap market at

152
00:08:47,080 --> 00:08:50,080
Speaker 1: the time was not so crowded that you couldn't have

153
00:08:50,120 --> 00:08:53,079
Speaker 1: a new a new trap birth through and so by

154
00:08:53,080 --> 00:08:56,199
Speaker 1: the mid eighteen fifties, they were making so many of

155
00:08:56,240 --> 00:08:58,480
Speaker 1: these traps, and they were selling them so well that

156
00:08:58,559 --> 00:09:01,760
Speaker 1: they had to hire on wade workers, which was kind

157
00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:03,920
Speaker 1: of at odds with their belief because they were not

158
00:09:04,040 --> 00:09:07,920
Speaker 1: only against slavery, they were also against wage labor, and

159
00:09:08,120 --> 00:09:12,000
Speaker 1: especially seasonal wage labor, because at this point people would work,

160
00:09:12,240 --> 00:09:14,200
Speaker 1: they'd have jobs during the summer, and then they'd get

161
00:09:14,280 --> 00:09:16,760
Speaker 1: laid off in the winter, especially in a place like

162
00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:21,680
Speaker 1: New York where there were pretty heavy winters, so here

163
00:09:21,720 --> 00:09:24,720
Speaker 1: they were doing it themselves, you know, hiring seasonally to

164
00:09:24,760 --> 00:09:29,120
Speaker 1: make these traps. But they did create many things. I mean,

165
00:09:29,160 --> 00:09:31,440
Speaker 1: I think we all know some of the results of

166
00:09:31,480 --> 00:09:35,760
Speaker 1: their inventiveness, for example, the Victor mouse trap and the

167
00:09:35,840 --> 00:09:38,440
Speaker 1: Lazy Susan. I was so excited to learn that they

168
00:09:38,440 --> 00:09:40,800
Speaker 1: were responsible for this. It's made such a difference in

169
00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:44,600
Speaker 1: my life. Excellent piece of trivia, I think. Well, And

170
00:09:44,720 --> 00:09:47,600
Speaker 1: the interesting thing about the Lazy season Um, one of

171
00:09:47,640 --> 00:09:51,600
Speaker 1: the important things in the community was that mediocracy was key.

172
00:09:51,760 --> 00:09:55,600
Speaker 1: You were never supposed to be lazy, but you weren't

173
00:09:55,600 --> 00:09:59,000
Speaker 1: supposed to try to strive above all the others. And

174
00:09:59,040 --> 00:10:01,400
Speaker 1: I think it's maybe a little funny that the Lazy

175
00:10:01,520 --> 00:10:06,720
Speaker 1: Susan is the result of that, a convenience product at least.

176
00:10:14,640 --> 00:10:17,040
Speaker 1: But even though some inventions did stand out and some

177
00:10:17,120 --> 00:10:20,840
Speaker 1: adventures did stand out in this community community, that word

178
00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:24,360
Speaker 1: was still definitely the key. Even labor was social. They

179
00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:27,760
Speaker 1: would hold these bees to complete tasks in a timely

180
00:10:27,800 --> 00:10:30,679
Speaker 1: manner um. And maybe you can talk about the bees

181
00:10:30,679 --> 00:10:33,280
Speaker 1: a little more, Sarah, Yeah, I mean probably most people

182
00:10:33,280 --> 00:10:36,040
Speaker 1: are maybe familiar with quilting bees, that kind of thing

183
00:10:36,040 --> 00:10:40,880
Speaker 1: where everybody gets together and you make all the quilts.

184
00:10:40,920 --> 00:10:43,800
Speaker 1: You know, you have the tops piece together already, but

185
00:10:43,840 --> 00:10:45,760
Speaker 1: you go ahead and do the more boring work, which

186
00:10:45,800 --> 00:10:48,600
Speaker 1: is is attaching it to the bottom and putting in

187
00:10:48,600 --> 00:10:51,560
Speaker 1: the padding and everything. But they wouldn't do this just

188
00:10:51,679 --> 00:10:53,400
Speaker 1: for quilts. They would do it for any kind of

189
00:10:53,400 --> 00:10:57,400
Speaker 1: task that needed to be accomplished quickly. So for instance,

190
00:10:57,440 --> 00:10:59,440
Speaker 1: like bringing in the hay it's something you better do

191
00:10:59,559 --> 00:11:03,000
Speaker 1: before it rains heavily, or making these bags. You know,

192
00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:05,920
Speaker 1: they'd all get together. And the interesting thing about it is,

193
00:11:06,360 --> 00:11:09,920
Speaker 1: like you mentioned earlier, they really did emphasize the community aspect.

194
00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:12,760
Speaker 1: It was something that was supposed to be fun, not

195
00:11:12,880 --> 00:11:16,320
Speaker 1: just boring work if you're doing it yourself. And there's

196
00:11:16,400 --> 00:11:20,319
Speaker 1: even a quote from their second annual report where they

197
00:11:20,360 --> 00:11:22,720
Speaker 1: wrote that the task could be done quote at a

198
00:11:22,800 --> 00:11:26,720
Speaker 1: single stroke with all the enthusiastic, sportive feeling of a

199
00:11:26,800 --> 00:11:30,040
Speaker 1: game of ball. That does sound rather exciting, but it

200
00:11:30,080 --> 00:11:33,079
Speaker 1: does beg the question also, if a hayin bee is

201
00:11:33,120 --> 00:11:35,360
Speaker 1: as fun as a game of ball, then what is

202
00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:39,120
Speaker 1: downtime like in this community? And again we see that

203
00:11:39,200 --> 00:11:42,160
Speaker 1: it's really communal. The adults live in what is called

204
00:11:42,160 --> 00:11:45,200
Speaker 1: the mansion house, which was a three story modern home

205
00:11:45,360 --> 00:11:48,760
Speaker 1: complete with shared dining and living spaces. It's a pretty

206
00:11:48,800 --> 00:11:52,600
Speaker 1: handsome home actually still stands. Yeah, and it's interesting. One

207
00:11:52,600 --> 00:11:55,600
Speaker 1: of the perks of living in Oneida meant that because

208
00:11:55,640 --> 00:11:58,160
Speaker 1: of scale, the community could afford some things that other

209
00:11:58,200 --> 00:12:03,080
Speaker 1: people couldn't. They could afford luxuries like um furnaces and

210
00:12:03,160 --> 00:12:05,880
Speaker 1: heated drawing rooms, things that only wealthy people could afford

211
00:12:05,880 --> 00:12:08,440
Speaker 1: at the time. Yeah, because it is a mansion house,

212
00:12:08,600 --> 00:12:10,640
Speaker 1: it just has a lot of people living in it.

213
00:12:10,720 --> 00:12:12,600
Speaker 1: So we're going to take you on a little tour

214
00:12:12,760 --> 00:12:15,600
Speaker 1: of the home. Um, starting in the dining room, which

215
00:12:15,640 --> 00:12:18,959
Speaker 1: could hold the entire community. And I think this is

216
00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:22,000
Speaker 1: a really interesting thing they did to to ensure that

217
00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:24,800
Speaker 1: clicks wouldn't pop up in the dining room as they

218
00:12:24,800 --> 00:12:29,679
Speaker 1: always do, right, Yeah, the typical Yeah, you would take

219
00:12:29,720 --> 00:12:32,200
Speaker 1: your seat by your place in the serving line, so

220
00:12:32,240 --> 00:12:33,960
Speaker 1: I guess you could maybe jump the line to be

221
00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:37,360
Speaker 1: with your friend, but you would essentially be seated at random,

222
00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:41,760
Speaker 1: so so no favorites. After dinner. After dinner with with

223
00:12:42,080 --> 00:12:45,040
Speaker 1: any of your random community members, you would move on

224
00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:47,480
Speaker 1: to the big hall and have a meeting. And the

225
00:12:47,520 --> 00:12:51,040
Speaker 1: hall is sort of the center of the religious aspect

226
00:12:51,080 --> 00:12:53,400
Speaker 1: of this community too, But it doesn't look at all

227
00:12:53,440 --> 00:12:56,880
Speaker 1: like a church. It had paintings of justice and music

228
00:12:56,960 --> 00:13:01,440
Speaker 1: and astronomy and history, allegorical paintings, and it's also where

229
00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:06,000
Speaker 1: members would discuss their spiritual concerns and talk about community

230
00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:09,600
Speaker 1: concerns and then maybe relax a little too and enjoy

231
00:13:09,640 --> 00:13:12,720
Speaker 1: a concert. I think the community kept a band among

232
00:13:12,760 --> 00:13:16,079
Speaker 1: its members or some other kind of entertainment, and it's

233
00:13:16,160 --> 00:13:18,880
Speaker 1: quite the program. And if that program on any given

234
00:13:18,960 --> 00:13:23,000
Speaker 1: night was promising enough, maybe some tourists would stop by

235
00:13:23,160 --> 00:13:27,199
Speaker 1: pay about twenty five cents for an evening of grand entertainment.

236
00:13:27,480 --> 00:13:30,960
Speaker 1: So they build it. Yeah, but the gatherings in the

237
00:13:30,960 --> 00:13:34,320
Speaker 1: big hall, they weren't always that fun. So, for instance,

238
00:13:34,360 --> 00:13:36,400
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to show up on a night where

239
00:13:36,400 --> 00:13:40,280
Speaker 1: they were doing quote mutual criticism, and on those nights

240
00:13:40,320 --> 00:13:44,160
Speaker 1: that's when everyone could basically air their grievances with everyone else.

241
00:13:44,400 --> 00:13:47,760
Speaker 1: Reminds me kind of a festivus, not to make a

242
00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:51,760
Speaker 1: comparison with a fake religion, but um, the mutual criticism

243
00:13:51,880 --> 00:13:55,120
Speaker 1: part is one of the strangest aspects of this to me,

244
00:13:55,280 --> 00:13:58,040
Speaker 1: that you would go face to face with these people

245
00:13:58,120 --> 00:14:02,000
Speaker 1: who you lived with and worked with every day, and

246
00:14:02,520 --> 00:14:05,600
Speaker 1: tell them what was wrong, which could be not only

247
00:14:05,640 --> 00:14:08,560
Speaker 1: you're not working hard enough to support the community, but

248
00:14:08,600 --> 00:14:11,480
Speaker 1: you're working too hard. You're going above and beyond, and

249
00:14:12,080 --> 00:14:15,120
Speaker 1: it's it's not you don't fit in. Yeah. It goes

250
00:14:15,160 --> 00:14:17,760
Speaker 1: back to that goal of mediocrity that you mentioned before.

251
00:14:18,679 --> 00:14:22,080
Speaker 1: So after getting some of these neighborly criticisms off your chest,

252
00:14:22,160 --> 00:14:24,320
Speaker 1: you might go on up to the upper sitting Room,

253
00:14:24,360 --> 00:14:28,400
Speaker 1: which was a well appointed salon where you could page

254
00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:31,920
Speaker 1: through some books like Charles Dickens The Mystery of Edwin Drewd,

255
00:14:32,040 --> 00:14:35,040
Speaker 1: which I think you read recently. I read the spin off.

256
00:14:35,200 --> 00:14:39,080
Speaker 1: You read the spin off. Sorry, my mistake. They wouldn't

257
00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:41,720
Speaker 1: have read the spin off, probably not quite, but they

258
00:14:41,800 --> 00:14:44,040
Speaker 1: might have also read some bound copies of magazines like

259
00:14:44,080 --> 00:14:48,240
Speaker 1: Atlantic Monthly. Anyway, just your basic chill out space, take

260
00:14:48,320 --> 00:14:51,520
Speaker 1: some time off after the hanging, Yeah, and then it's

261
00:14:51,520 --> 00:14:55,000
Speaker 1: off to bed in your private room with a twin bed. Yeah.

262
00:14:55,080 --> 00:14:58,760
Speaker 1: And here's the kicker there. You would definitely be by

263
00:14:58,800 --> 00:15:02,760
Speaker 1: yourself when you we're going off to bed. And this

264
00:15:02,880 --> 00:15:07,080
Speaker 1: brings us to the complex marriage which he knew we

265
00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:08,960
Speaker 1: were going to have to talk about. Eventually, it's what

266
00:15:09,200 --> 00:15:14,400
Speaker 1: made the Onida community so infamous, and Noise believed that

267
00:15:14,840 --> 00:15:17,920
Speaker 1: for the community to live without sin, they would need

268
00:15:17,960 --> 00:15:21,840
Speaker 1: to quote mail marriage to the cross. So he was

269
00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:26,240
Speaker 1: against monogamous marriage, but he wasn't against sex. He was

270
00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:29,080
Speaker 1: actually quite in favor of it as long as it

271
00:15:29,160 --> 00:15:33,760
Speaker 1: took place between multiple partners. But he knew that there

272
00:15:33,880 --> 00:15:36,280
Speaker 1: was a potential problem with that, and that was that

273
00:15:36,760 --> 00:15:40,080
Speaker 1: complex marriage would soon produce a whole lot of kids,

274
00:15:40,120 --> 00:15:44,320
Speaker 1: more kids than the community could support. So he instituted

275
00:15:44,320 --> 00:15:48,400
Speaker 1: this practice that he himself had begun after his wife

276
00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:51,360
Speaker 1: had suffered from four premature births and death, and it

277
00:15:51,440 --> 00:15:54,360
Speaker 1: was he called it male continents, and it was basically

278
00:15:54,440 --> 00:15:59,080
Speaker 1: male birth control UM. He decided to do it himself

279
00:15:59,120 --> 00:16:04,000
Speaker 1: after her after her premature births UM. She was quite

280
00:16:04,720 --> 00:16:08,520
Speaker 1: understandably distraught over the death of those four kids, and

281
00:16:08,560 --> 00:16:11,440
Speaker 1: he decided that she shouldn't have to go through it again.

282
00:16:11,560 --> 00:16:14,000
Speaker 1: But he actually turns it into part of his philosophy

283
00:16:14,040 --> 00:16:16,440
Speaker 1: after that. It's not just something that happened personally to him.

284
00:16:16,440 --> 00:16:18,480
Speaker 1: He takes it and makes it part of the community.

285
00:16:18,560 --> 00:16:22,880
Speaker 1: So he separates sex into two components. Essentially, the pleasurable

286
00:16:22,920 --> 00:16:26,800
Speaker 1: aspect of it and the reproductive aspect and treats them

287
00:16:26,800 --> 00:16:30,400
Speaker 1: into entirely different ways. So, since Adam and Eveson, the

288
00:16:30,520 --> 00:16:34,680
Speaker 1: reproductive part had been dominant, but by taking the reproductive

289
00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:37,720
Speaker 1: aspect out of the picture, people would be free to

290
00:16:37,960 --> 00:16:41,520
Speaker 1: indulge in the more pleasurable part. So this is how

291
00:16:41,560 --> 00:16:44,760
Speaker 1: he saw it. Yeah, and this male continence idea that

292
00:16:44,920 --> 00:16:47,920
Speaker 1: he comes up with really does work pretty well for

293
00:16:47,960 --> 00:16:50,840
Speaker 1: the community as far as limiting the number of children born,

294
00:16:50,920 --> 00:16:54,160
Speaker 1: because between eighteen forty eight and eighteen sixty nine only

295
00:16:54,200 --> 00:16:56,960
Speaker 1: thirty one kids are born. And we're going to talk

296
00:16:56,960 --> 00:16:59,600
Speaker 1: a little bit more about kids in the community later,

297
00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:03,040
Speaker 1: But after they were weaned, they were raised communally in

298
00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:07,440
Speaker 1: this children's house by guardians. But there aren't just rules

299
00:17:07,600 --> 00:17:12,680
Speaker 1: about how people were supposed to have sex and not reproduced.

300
00:17:12,720 --> 00:17:18,160
Speaker 1: There were also rules about how the matchups even were made. Yeah,

301
00:17:18,160 --> 00:17:19,840
Speaker 1: And the main thing about these rules is that there

302
00:17:19,840 --> 00:17:22,440
Speaker 1: were no secrets, right. That was the essential component here.

303
00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:25,720
Speaker 1: For example, if you had sex with someone, it wasn't

304
00:17:25,760 --> 00:17:28,879
Speaker 1: even happening in a private room. Instead, you would go

305
00:17:29,040 --> 00:17:32,440
Speaker 1: to these small trysting rooms, is how they were known.

306
00:17:32,520 --> 00:17:35,440
Speaker 1: I think right off of the upper sitting room, and

307
00:17:35,520 --> 00:17:37,600
Speaker 1: you could essentially book a room for a few hours,

308
00:17:37,640 --> 00:17:40,000
Speaker 1: but everybody knew about it when you did. It seems

309
00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:42,520
Speaker 1: so awkward to they are right off the room. I

310
00:17:42,560 --> 00:17:45,879
Speaker 1: think one that is still in existence as a as

311
00:17:45,920 --> 00:17:48,640
Speaker 1: a show piece really is right off the sitting room

312
00:17:48,640 --> 00:18:00,320
Speaker 1: where everyone is hanging out. But really everyone already knew

313
00:18:00,520 --> 00:18:03,720
Speaker 1: who was matched up anyways, because couples had to be

314
00:18:03,800 --> 00:18:07,560
Speaker 1: approved by the Central Guidance Committee, which was made of

315
00:18:07,560 --> 00:18:10,640
Speaker 1: course of Noise and his family and other elders. And

316
00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:14,239
Speaker 1: they not only approved the couples, but they kept an

317
00:18:14,240 --> 00:18:17,399
Speaker 1: eye out for anyone that was getting too exclusive, because

318
00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:22,440
Speaker 1: that was of course at odds with the community's ideals. Yeah,

319
00:18:22,480 --> 00:18:26,119
Speaker 1: and other couplings were enforced and created by the committee itself,

320
00:18:26,600 --> 00:18:29,160
Speaker 1: which is kind of a strange idea. This is where

321
00:18:29,160 --> 00:18:33,840
Speaker 1: it gets a little disturbing. Yeah, Noise would initiate teen girls,

322
00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:36,760
Speaker 1: while his wife and sister would do the same for boys.

323
00:18:36,800 --> 00:18:39,080
Speaker 1: So this is one type of arrangement that was made

324
00:18:39,119 --> 00:18:43,440
Speaker 1: to sort of introduce these younger people into the system. Yeah,

325
00:18:43,560 --> 00:18:46,760
Speaker 1: and these these couples that were formed by the committee

326
00:18:46,800 --> 00:18:50,199
Speaker 1: not because of some other attraction. After the members hit

327
00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:53,760
Speaker 1: their twenties, they were usually allowed to choose have a

328
00:18:53,760 --> 00:18:55,960
Speaker 1: little more choice in who their partners were going to be.

329
00:18:56,560 --> 00:19:01,200
Speaker 1: But interestingly, it is this regulation surround ding not just sex,

330
00:19:01,240 --> 00:19:04,840
Speaker 1: but eventually child bearing that eventually signaled the beginning of

331
00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:08,879
Speaker 1: the end for the community. So Noise decided that it

332
00:19:08,920 --> 00:19:12,240
Speaker 1: seemed like the Kingdom of Heaven wasn't immediately on hand,

333
00:19:12,359 --> 00:19:15,720
Speaker 1: and he started thinking that maybe they should start having

334
00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:18,320
Speaker 1: more children and and beef up the numbers a little

335
00:19:18,320 --> 00:19:22,320
Speaker 1: bit and have the community grow. So he started to

336
00:19:22,520 --> 00:19:27,960
Speaker 1: approve natural reproduction, no longer using male continents. But there's

337
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:31,960
Speaker 1: a catch, only the reproduction between partners that seemed to

338
00:19:32,040 --> 00:19:35,439
Speaker 1: be a good spiritual match with each other. Yeah, he

339
00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:38,000
Speaker 1: calls it Sturp culture. That's the name that he gave it,

340
00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:42,240
Speaker 1: and it basically says that only those with the highest

341
00:19:42,240 --> 00:19:45,800
Speaker 1: spiritual development will be allowed to reproduce. So couples would

342
00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:49,240
Speaker 1: have to apply to the committee and either be accepted, rejected,

343
00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:53,520
Speaker 1: or rematched with another person. And it was pretty successful.

344
00:19:53,720 --> 00:19:57,200
Speaker 1: Forty eight kids or fifty eight, depending on which you read,

345
00:19:57,280 --> 00:20:00,400
Speaker 1: were born between eighteen sixty nine and eighteen sevent nine.

346
00:20:01,080 --> 00:20:04,359
Speaker 1: Nine of those were Noise kids. Because of course, he

347
00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:07,880
Speaker 1: has the highest level of spiritual development. And one of

348
00:20:07,920 --> 00:20:10,760
Speaker 1: the strange things about this is, of course it is

349
00:20:11,400 --> 00:20:17,160
Speaker 1: very much inspired by eugenics. It's spiritual, but it is eugenics,

350
00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:20,080
Speaker 1: and he had read quite a bit about it and

351
00:20:20,480 --> 00:20:23,919
Speaker 1: was trying to emulate that. But obviously it read a

352
00:20:23,960 --> 00:20:27,800
Speaker 1: lot of hard feelings. In addition to children, there were

353
00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:32,439
Speaker 1: couples who were rejected, who felt jealous of the people

354
00:20:32,520 --> 00:20:36,040
Speaker 1: who did get to have children. Some of the new

355
00:20:36,119 --> 00:20:38,960
Speaker 1: parents were sad because they're forced to turn their kids

356
00:20:38,960 --> 00:20:43,280
Speaker 1: over to this communal upbringing. And so by eighteen seventy eight,

357
00:20:43,359 --> 00:20:46,520
Speaker 1: some of the younger community members were getting really tired

358
00:20:46,560 --> 00:20:48,760
Speaker 1: of it. They were getting fed up with being rejected

359
00:20:48,920 --> 00:20:52,200
Speaker 1: or matched with the people they didn't want, or having

360
00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:55,560
Speaker 1: to give up their kids, and they wanted romance and

361
00:20:55,840 --> 00:20:59,400
Speaker 1: monogamous marriage and family, and so some of them started

362
00:20:59,440 --> 00:21:03,280
Speaker 1: to pull up and leave the community, often when they

363
00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:07,520
Speaker 1: were rejected by the committee. And trouble was compounded by

364
00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:11,680
Speaker 1: noise passing on administration more and more to his son Theodore,

365
00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:16,520
Speaker 1: who was not very competent, and in eighteen seventy nine

366
00:21:16,560 --> 00:21:18,920
Speaker 1: he fled to Canada because he was faced with this

367
00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:23,159
Speaker 1: moral lawsuit, and it only took two months for the

368
00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:27,960
Speaker 1: community to end the practice of complex marriage and mutual criticism.

369
00:21:28,119 --> 00:21:30,760
Speaker 1: Can imagine maybe people are a little bit tired of that,

370
00:21:31,680 --> 00:21:35,480
Speaker 1: but it's interesting to see how how quickly it crumbles

371
00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:39,760
Speaker 1: with without him, it dissolved quickly. But it didn't end there, right,

372
00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:43,920
Speaker 1: not exactly after the community dissolved in a couple of months.

373
00:21:43,960 --> 00:21:48,240
Speaker 1: Within a year, they became a corporation, which is a

374
00:21:48,280 --> 00:21:50,679
Speaker 1: total surprise. Which was as a total shock, but I

375
00:21:50,680 --> 00:21:52,280
Speaker 1: mean when you look at it, they already had the

376
00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:55,520
Speaker 1: foundations for this and this share all things group. They

377
00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:58,920
Speaker 1: got together and decided that instead of property and partners,

378
00:21:58,960 --> 00:22:02,320
Speaker 1: they would share talk in business. Yeah, So they formed

379
00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:06,440
Speaker 1: the Oneida Community Limited, which was a joint stock company

380
00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:10,600
Speaker 1: that made silver plate. Because they were quite successful and

381
00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:15,160
Speaker 1: good in this manufacturing realm, and probably they were also

382
00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:18,680
Speaker 1: thinking they had invested their life's work into a community,

383
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:21,000
Speaker 1: you want to get some kind of return on it,

384
00:22:21,080 --> 00:22:24,080
Speaker 1: even if it's in the form of stock. That sort

385
00:22:24,119 --> 00:22:28,240
Speaker 1: of goes against their their original community ideals. But Onida

386
00:22:28,359 --> 00:22:31,920
Speaker 1: Silver is of course still one of the most famous

387
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:36,200
Speaker 1: American silver companies today. Of their motto. Interestingly, like I

388
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:38,439
Speaker 1: checked out their website to see what they were what

389
00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:41,200
Speaker 1: they were offering these days, and their motto is bring

390
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:45,160
Speaker 1: life to the table, which I'm probably reading too much

391
00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:49,840
Speaker 1: into that. And the mansion house is also still intact.

392
00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:52,440
Speaker 1: You can tour it, stay the night, and some people

393
00:22:52,480 --> 00:22:56,120
Speaker 1: even rent apartments there. Only one trusting room is still

394
00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:58,719
Speaker 1: left for show, however, the one I mentioned that is

395
00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:02,960
Speaker 1: really right off of the upper sitting room. And um,

396
00:23:03,320 --> 00:23:06,040
Speaker 1: I think maybe we could close out with this quote

397
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:10,640
Speaker 1: from an Oneida expert. He's a historian, Robert S. Fogerty,

398
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:13,800
Speaker 1: and he wrote quote, there's some who think Noise is

399
00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:17,240
Speaker 1: just a lecture, pure and simple. There are others who

400
00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:20,679
Speaker 1: believe that he was a great forward thinking individual who

401
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:23,800
Speaker 1: is a great religious figure. I think it's fifty fifty

402
00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:29,400
Speaker 1: to be honest. Thank you so much for joining us

403
00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:32,719
Speaker 1: for this Saturday Classic SyncE. This is out of the archive.

404
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:35,280
Speaker 1: If you heard an email address or a Facebook U

405
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:38,080
Speaker 1: r L or something similar during the course of the show,

406
00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:40,959
Speaker 1: that may be obsolete. Now. So here is our current

407
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:44,560
Speaker 1: contact information. We are at History Podcast at how Stuff

408
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:46,800
Speaker 1: Works dot com, and then we're at Missed in the

409
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:52,280
Speaker 1: History all over social media. That is our name on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Pinterest,

410
00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:56,639
Speaker 1: and Instagram. Thanks again for listening for more on this

411
00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:59,320
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works?

412
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:05,680
Speaker 1: Dot com