WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: The Oneida Utopia 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:05.720 Happy Saturday, everybody. We recently got an email from listener 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:07.920 Ellen who asked us to do a show about the 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:11.440 onidat Utopia, and that's one that's already in our archive 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:15.160 from back in tleven from our previous hosts Sarah and Babuina. 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:18.279 One of the things that's really strongly associated with the 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.640 Anida community was free love and complex marriages. And that 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:23.919 means that there is a little more sex talk, in 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.520 a little more candid sex talk in today's show than 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:29.840 you might typically associate with us. It might even be 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:36.199 a lot more so Happy listening, Welcome to Stuff you 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:46.519 missed in history Class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.120 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.280 Deblina Chuckerboarding, and today we're gonna talk a little bit 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.280 more about free love. I mean, hopefully that makes you 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:58.280 keep on listening right away. But I was thinking about 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:00.200 it because we did a podcast a couple of weeks 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.680 ago on Victoria wood Hall, who was the first female 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.360 presidential candidate. And I don't know if you want to 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:10.160 give a quick recap of her beliefs on free love. Yeah, 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:13.000 she basically didn't believe free in free love in the 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:15.920 sense that everyone should be having sex with each other. 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:18.760 But she did believe that people should have the choice 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:21.959 whether or not to be together. So that was just 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:23.520 a little bit about it. You didn't have to be 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.480 stuck in a marriage if you didn't want to be. Now, 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:29.240 So we we had her on our minds. And then 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:33.280 also I co edited an article recently that Molly Edmonds 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:36.040 wrote one of the hosts of Stuff Mom Never Told 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:39.440 You on polyamory, and so it came up again, and 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:43.160 she actually even mentioned the Oneida Community in her article. 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:48.320 So both of those examples got me thinking about this community, 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.960 which is probably the most famous example of organized free 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.720 love in American history, and it is, of course the 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:59.480 Oneida Commune or Oneida Community in New York State. Yeah, 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:01.960 when I first started researching this with you, it seemed 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:05.000 almost too crazy to be real. I don't know, Maybe 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:07.400 I've just lived too sheltered a life. Maybe I'm alone 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:09.720 in this, but I don't know. Can you tell us 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:11.799 a little bit about some of these things? It does 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:15.280 sound too crazy to be real, And that's partly because 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.680 the people that made up this large Victorian community shared 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:22.200 not only property and labor, but of course sexual partners, 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:27.040 and they surprisingly earned boatloads of money through these really 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:29.799 successful marketing schemes. I think that's sort of the first 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.040 loop in this In this episode, they were actually quite 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:40.160 successful financially. Another potentially strange fact about them they regarded 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.760 the genders equally and they shared labor, so pretty surprising. 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.600 The ladies even more pantaloons. You can look up pictures 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.520 of them. They have short skirts and little pantaloons underneath. 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.839 And um. Then, maybe the strangest thing of all. Their 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:59.840 eventual undoing came about when this eugenics inspired breeding pro 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.959 Graham left the younger members yearning for good old fashioned 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:08.560 courtly love and and monogamous marriage. And for those of 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.200 you who own some fine Oneida silver, you might know 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:13.800 where it goes from there. The commune doesn't last forever, 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:16.920 much like a lot of other communes, even those that 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.200 are often considered to be the most successful in American history, 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:24.240 like Oneida. So who was behind this Oneida community in 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:28.560 the first place. This guy named John Humphrey. Noise and 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:31.640 it's not doesn't look like noise. It's n O y 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:33.600 E s. In case you want to look up this 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.960 guy a little more. But yeah, the commune and the 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.400 ideas behind it came from his ideas and preaching. And 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.400 he was born in eighteen eleven in Vermont. He was 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:45.840 a wealthy kid. He went to Dartmouth and then to 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:48.720 law school. Really seemed to be on the right track 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:52.160 to being a well off New England lawyer until he 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:56.120 attends a revival of evangelist Charles Finney in eighteen thirty one, 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.320 and at that point he decides to become a minister instead, 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:02.920 so big career change. But but even then he seems 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:05.600 like he was possibly on the track to becoming just 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.600 a well off New England minister instead of a lawyer. 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:12.480 He went to Andover Theological Seminary. From there he transferred 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:17.320 to Yale. But after that his ideas started to get 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.440 kind of out there, and definitely two out there. For Yale, 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.679 he believed in something called perfectionism, which was the idea 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:29.440 that after conversion we are free from sin, which obviously 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.240 that idea didn't sit very well with the Calvinist faculty 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:37.279 at Yale and they denied his ordination. Yeah, so just 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:39.000 to give you a little background on the beliefs that 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:42.240 he had. They extend from the central idea of Perfectionism, 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.760 and they're pretty controversial. He, for one thing, thinks the 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:49.279 Second Coming has come and gone already. In fact, he 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.080 thinks that happened in a d seventy at the destruction 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.200 of the Temple in Jerusalem. This meant that man didn't 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.880 have to wait for heaven to be one with God. 0:04:57.960 --> 0:04:59.840 You could do it here on earth as well. But 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:02.159 to do so you had to leave the world and 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:05.080 live according to the laws of heaven, like maybe in 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.920 a commune run by noise. So he gets kicked out 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:13.280 of Yale, and he starts kind of meeting with other perfectionists, 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.160 learning the drill, talking to people going on the circuit, 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.640 and he decides, well, I'm going to start my own 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:24.840 group here, and he organizes the Bible Communists in Putney, Vermont, 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.760 in eighteen thirty six and preaches love and harmony to them. 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:31.400 And it's interesting to sort of get a look at 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.120 what type of people were joining this group, the Bible Communists. 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:38.520 They were mostly small town folks. They came from all 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:43.000 sorts of occupation, something that probably proved useful down the line, 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.120 and you know, maybe if it had stayed at this level, 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.600 it would have been pretty under the radar. You know, 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:53.560 a religious group that's too radical for Gale, but not 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:55.839 so radical that it doesn't fit in in some way 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.040 with all of the revivals sweeping the United States at 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:03.239 this time, then Noise shakes things up a little bit. Yeah, 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:05.440 he doesn't just keep it at that level. Just a 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:09.320 year after starting that group, Noise writes the so called 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.680 battle Axe Letter. And this letter it really gets the 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:15.880 public riled up. It stirs up a lot of controversy 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:20.880 because it advocates free love. Specifically, it says, quote, when 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:22.760 the will of God is done on earth as it 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.400 is in heaven, there will be no marriage. And his 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:29.440 rationale came from scripture. It came from Matthew, which says 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:32.960 for in the Resurrection, they neither marry nor are given 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:36.000 in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.200 So Noise took this to mean that marriage should not 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.120 be exclusive. All men should be married to all women 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:46.120 and it's something called complex marriage. So this is definitely 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:48.960 an example of free love that's different from the one 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:52.600 we talked about in the Victoria Woodhole episode. Quite different 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:56.960 in fact, but the idea, just like Victoria Woodhell made 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:01.520 Noise in his followers incredibly in its corious and when 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:05.559 they actually start practicing complex marriage by eighteen forty six, 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:07.960 which is a little bit after they decide that they're 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:10.440 going to share all their property and all their belongings, 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:13.960 it does not sit well with their neighbors in Putney, Vermont, 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:17.600 not at all. And Noise is arrested for adultery because 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:21.400 he is married legally, and he jumps bail, and by 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:25.160 eighteen forty eight he and most of his followers DeCamp 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.840 for Oneida, New York. And there are a few other 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:33.080 satellite communities, but the main Oneada community is set up 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:35.480 there in New York and it lasts for another thirty years. 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:38.640 So we're gonna talk more about free love and that 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:42.680 aspect of the community later, but first, it's interesting to 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:49.040 figure out how these perfectionists Biblical communists actually made a living. Yeah, well, 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.960 at first they don't write the two hundred people that 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:56.520 live in this community. They try farming and logging. It's 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.280 a situation where men and women are sharing the same 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:01.680 rights and lay bur but the community isn't doing well 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.280 enough to support itself for the long term. So then 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:10.000 things start picking up eventually, though when they start manufacturing 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.040 things again into manufacturing work a little more reliable. Yeah, 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.240 So what sorts of things were they manufacturing. They were 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:20.240 canning and jarring veggies and fruit, also processing silk and printing. 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:25.240 They were milling grist mills and sawmills both and making 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:29.280 small goods like traveling bags. Yeah, and there. That was 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:31.520 all pretty successful for them. But the big win, the 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:35.840 thing that really made them sustainable, was the invention of 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.720 one of the community's members, a guy named Suel new House, 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.400 and he came up with a new kind of lightweight 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:47.079 animal trap for for animals, and the trap market at 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.080 the time was not so crowded that you couldn't have 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:53.079 a new a new trap birth through and so by 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:56.199 the mid eighteen fifties, they were making so many of 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.480 these traps, and they were selling them so well that 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.760 they had to hire on wade workers, which was kind 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:03.920 of at odds with their belief because they were not 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:07.920 only against slavery, they were also against wage labor, and 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:12.000 especially seasonal wage labor, because at this point people would work, 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.200 they'd have jobs during the summer, and then they'd get 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:16.760 laid off in the winter, especially in a place like 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:21.680 New York where there were pretty heavy winters, so here 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.720 they were doing it themselves, you know, hiring seasonally to 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:29.120 make these traps. But they did create many things. I mean, 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.440 I think we all know some of the results of 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:35.760 their inventiveness, for example, the Victor mouse trap and the 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.440 Lazy Susan. I was so excited to learn that they 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:40.800 were responsible for this. It's made such a difference in 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.600 my life. Excellent piece of trivia, I think. Well, And 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.600 the interesting thing about the Lazy season Um, one of 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:51.600 the important things in the community was that mediocracy was key. 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:55.600 You were never supposed to be lazy, but you weren't 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:59.000 supposed to try to strive above all the others. And 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.400 I think it's maybe a little funny that the Lazy 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:06.720 Susan is the result of that, a convenience product at least. 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.040 But even though some inventions did stand out and some 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.840 adventures did stand out in this community community, that word 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.360 was still definitely the key. Even labor was social. They 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.760 would hold these bees to complete tasks in a timely 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.679 manner um. And maybe you can talk about the bees 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.280 a little more, Sarah, Yeah, I mean probably most people 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:36.040 are maybe familiar with quilting bees, that kind of thing 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:40.880 where everybody gets together and you make all the quilts. 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.800 You know, you have the tops piece together already, but 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:45.760 you go ahead and do the more boring work, which 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.600 is is attaching it to the bottom and putting in 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.560 the padding and everything. But they wouldn't do this just 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:53.400 for quilts. They would do it for any kind of 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:57.400 task that needed to be accomplished quickly. So for instance, 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:59.440 like bringing in the hay it's something you better do 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.000 before it rains heavily, or making these bags. You know, 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:05.920 they'd all get together. And the interesting thing about it is, 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.920 like you mentioned earlier, they really did emphasize the community aspect. 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:12.760 It was something that was supposed to be fun, not 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.320 just boring work if you're doing it yourself. And there's 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:20.319 even a quote from their second annual report where they 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:22.720 wrote that the task could be done quote at a 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.720 single stroke with all the enthusiastic, sportive feeling of a 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:30.040 game of ball. That does sound rather exciting, but it 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.079 does beg the question also, if a hayin bee is 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.360 as fun as a game of ball, then what is 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.120 downtime like in this community? And again we see that 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:42.160 it's really communal. The adults live in what is called 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.200 the mansion house, which was a three story modern home 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.760 complete with shared dining and living spaces. It's a pretty 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.600 handsome home actually still stands. Yeah, and it's interesting. One 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:55.600 of the perks of living in Oneida meant that because 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:58.160 of scale, the community could afford some things that other 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:03.080 people couldn't. They could afford luxuries like um furnaces and 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:05.880 heated drawing rooms, things that only wealthy people could afford 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.440 at the time. Yeah, because it is a mansion house, 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:10.640 it just has a lot of people living in it. 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:12.600 So we're going to take you on a little tour 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.600 of the home. Um, starting in the dining room, which 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:18.959 could hold the entire community. And I think this is 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:22.000 a really interesting thing they did to to ensure that 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:24.800 clicks wouldn't pop up in the dining room as they 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:29.679 always do, right, Yeah, the typical Yeah, you would take 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:32.200 your seat by your place in the serving line, so 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:33.960 I guess you could maybe jump the line to be 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:37.360 with your friend, but you would essentially be seated at random, 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:41.760 so so no favorites. After dinner. After dinner with with 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.040 any of your random community members, you would move on 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:47.480 to the big hall and have a meeting. And the 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:51.040 hall is sort of the center of the religious aspect 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:53.400 of this community too, But it doesn't look at all 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.880 like a church. It had paintings of justice and music 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:01.440 and astronomy and history, allegorical paintings, and it's also where 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:06.000 members would discuss their spiritual concerns and talk about community 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.600 concerns and then maybe relax a little too and enjoy 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:12.720 a concert. I think the community kept a band among 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:16.079 its members or some other kind of entertainment, and it's 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:18.880 quite the program. And if that program on any given 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:23.000 night was promising enough, maybe some tourists would stop by 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:27.199 pay about twenty five cents for an evening of grand entertainment. 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.960 So they build it. Yeah, but the gatherings in the 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.320 big hall, they weren't always that fun. So, for instance, 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:36.400 you wouldn't want to show up on a night where 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:40.280 they were doing quote mutual criticism, and on those nights 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:44.160 that's when everyone could basically air their grievances with everyone else. 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.760 Reminds me kind of a festivus, not to make a 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:51.760 comparison with a fake religion, but um, the mutual criticism 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.120 part is one of the strangest aspects of this to me, 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:58.040 that you would go face to face with these people 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:02.000 who you lived with and worked with every day, and 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.600 tell them what was wrong, which could be not only 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.560 you're not working hard enough to support the community, but 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.480 you're working too hard. You're going above and beyond, and 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.120 it's it's not you don't fit in. Yeah. It goes 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:17.760 back to that goal of mediocrity that you mentioned before. 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:22.080 So after getting some of these neighborly criticisms off your chest, 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:24.320 you might go on up to the upper sitting Room, 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:28.400 which was a well appointed salon where you could page 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.920 through some books like Charles Dickens The Mystery of Edwin Drewd, 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.040 which I think you read recently. I read the spin off. 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:39.080 You read the spin off. Sorry, my mistake. They wouldn't 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:41.720 have read the spin off, probably not quite, but they 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.040 might have also read some bound copies of magazines like 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:48.240 Atlantic Monthly. Anyway, just your basic chill out space, take 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:51.520 some time off after the hanging, Yeah, and then it's 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:55.000 off to bed in your private room with a twin bed. Yeah. 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.760 And here's the kicker there. You would definitely be by 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:02.760 yourself when you we're going off to bed. And this 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:07.080 brings us to the complex marriage which he knew we 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:08.960 were going to have to talk about. Eventually, it's what 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:14.400 made the Onida community so infamous, and Noise believed that 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.920 for the community to live without sin, they would need 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:21.840 to quote mail marriage to the cross. So he was 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:26.240 against monogamous marriage, but he wasn't against sex. He was 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.080 actually quite in favor of it as long as it 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:33.760 took place between multiple partners. But he knew that there 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.280 was a potential problem with that, and that was that 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.080 complex marriage would soon produce a whole lot of kids, 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:44.320 more kids than the community could support. So he instituted 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:48.400 this practice that he himself had begun after his wife 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.360 had suffered from four premature births and death, and it 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.360 was he called it male continents, and it was basically 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:59.080 male birth control UM. He decided to do it himself 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:04.000 after her after her premature births UM. She was quite 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:08.520 understandably distraught over the death of those four kids, and 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.440 he decided that she shouldn't have to go through it again. 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.000 But he actually turns it into part of his philosophy 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.440 after that. It's not just something that happened personally to him. 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:18.480 He takes it and makes it part of the community. 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.880 So he separates sex into two components. Essentially, the pleasurable 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.800 aspect of it and the reproductive aspect and treats them 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:30.400 into entirely different ways. So, since Adam and Eveson, the 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:34.680 reproductive part had been dominant, but by taking the reproductive 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:37.720 aspect out of the picture, people would be free to 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:41.520 indulge in the more pleasurable part. So this is how 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:44.760 he saw it. Yeah, and this male continence idea that 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:47.920 he comes up with really does work pretty well for 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.840 the community as far as limiting the number of children born, 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.160 because between eighteen forty eight and eighteen sixty nine only 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:56.960 thirty one kids are born. And we're going to talk 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:59.600 a little bit more about kids in the community later, 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.040 But after they were weaned, they were raised communally in 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:07.440 this children's house by guardians. But there aren't just rules 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:12.680 about how people were supposed to have sex and not reproduced. 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:18.160 There were also rules about how the matchups even were made. Yeah, 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:19.840 And the main thing about these rules is that there 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.440 were no secrets, right. That was the essential component here. 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:25.720 For example, if you had sex with someone, it wasn't 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:28.879 even happening in a private room. Instead, you would go 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:32.440 to these small trysting rooms, is how they were known. 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.440 I think right off of the upper sitting room, and 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:37.600 you could essentially book a room for a few hours, 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.000 but everybody knew about it when you did. It seems 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:42.520 so awkward to they are right off the room. I 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:45.879 think one that is still in existence as a as 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:48.640 a show piece really is right off the sitting room 0:17:48.640 --> 0:18:00.320 where everyone is hanging out. But really everyone already knew 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:03.720 who was matched up anyways, because couples had to be 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:07.560 approved by the Central Guidance Committee, which was made of 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.640 course of Noise and his family and other elders. And 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:14.239 they not only approved the couples, but they kept an 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:17.399 eye out for anyone that was getting too exclusive, because 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:22.440 that was of course at odds with the community's ideals. Yeah, 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.119 and other couplings were enforced and created by the committee itself, 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:29.160 which is kind of a strange idea. This is where 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:33.840 it gets a little disturbing. Yeah, Noise would initiate teen girls, 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:36.760 while his wife and sister would do the same for boys. 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.080 So this is one type of arrangement that was made 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:43.440 to sort of introduce these younger people into the system. Yeah, 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.760 and these these couples that were formed by the committee 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:50.199 not because of some other attraction. After the members hit 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.760 their twenties, they were usually allowed to choose have a 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:55.960 little more choice in who their partners were going to be. 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:01.200 But interestingly, it is this regulation surround ding not just sex, 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:04.840 but eventually child bearing that eventually signaled the beginning of 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:08.879 the end for the community. So Noise decided that it 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.240 seemed like the Kingdom of Heaven wasn't immediately on hand, 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:15.720 and he started thinking that maybe they should start having 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:18.320 more children and and beef up the numbers a little 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:22.320 bit and have the community grow. So he started to 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:27.960 approve natural reproduction, no longer using male continents. But there's 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:31.960 a catch, only the reproduction between partners that seemed to 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:35.439 be a good spiritual match with each other. Yeah, he 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:38.000 calls it Sturp culture. That's the name that he gave it, 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:42.240 and it basically says that only those with the highest 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:45.800 spiritual development will be allowed to reproduce. So couples would 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:49.240 have to apply to the committee and either be accepted, rejected, 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:53.520 or rematched with another person. And it was pretty successful. 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:57.200 Forty eight kids or fifty eight, depending on which you read, 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.400 were born between eighteen sixty nine and eighteen sevent nine. 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.359 Nine of those were Noise kids. Because of course, he 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.880 has the highest level of spiritual development. And one of 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:10.760 the strange things about this is, of course it is 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:17.160 very much inspired by eugenics. It's spiritual, but it is eugenics, 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.080 and he had read quite a bit about it and 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.919 was trying to emulate that. But obviously it read a 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:27.800 lot of hard feelings. In addition to children, there were 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:32.439 couples who were rejected, who felt jealous of the people 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:36.040 who did get to have children. Some of the new 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:38.960 parents were sad because they're forced to turn their kids 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:43.280 over to this communal upbringing. And so by eighteen seventy eight, 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:46.520 some of the younger community members were getting really tired 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:48.760 of it. They were getting fed up with being rejected 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:52.200 or matched with the people they didn't want, or having 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:55.560 to give up their kids, and they wanted romance and 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:59.400 monogamous marriage and family, and so some of them started 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:03.280 to pull up and leave the community, often when they 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:07.520 were rejected by the committee. And trouble was compounded by 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:11.680 noise passing on administration more and more to his son Theodore, 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:16.520 who was not very competent, and in eighteen seventy nine 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:18.920 he fled to Canada because he was faced with this 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:23.159 moral lawsuit, and it only took two months for the 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:27.960 community to end the practice of complex marriage and mutual criticism. 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.760 Can imagine maybe people are a little bit tired of that, 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:35.480 but it's interesting to see how how quickly it crumbles 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:39.760 with without him, it dissolved quickly. But it didn't end there, right, 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:43.920 not exactly after the community dissolved in a couple of months. 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:48.240 Within a year, they became a corporation, which is a 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:50.679 total surprise. Which was as a total shock, but I 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:52.280 mean when you look at it, they already had the 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:55.520 foundations for this and this share all things group. They 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:58.920 got together and decided that instead of property and partners, 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.320 they would share talk in business. Yeah, So they formed 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:06.440 the Oneida Community Limited, which was a joint stock company 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:10.600 that made silver plate. Because they were quite successful and 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:15.160 good in this manufacturing realm, and probably they were also 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:18.680 thinking they had invested their life's work into a community, 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:21.000 you want to get some kind of return on it, 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:24.080 even if it's in the form of stock. That sort 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:28.240 of goes against their their original community ideals. But Onida 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:31.920 Silver is of course still one of the most famous 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:36.200 American silver companies today. Of their motto. Interestingly, like I 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:38.439 checked out their website to see what they were what 0:22:38.520 --> 0:22:41.200 they were offering these days, and their motto is bring 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:45.160 life to the table, which I'm probably reading too much 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:49.840 into that. And the mansion house is also still intact. 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:52.440 You can tour it, stay the night, and some people 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:56.120 even rent apartments there. Only one trusting room is still 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:58.719 left for show, however, the one I mentioned that is 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:02.960 really right off of the upper sitting room. And um, 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:06.040 I think maybe we could close out with this quote 0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:10.640 from an Oneida expert. He's a historian, Robert S. Fogerty, 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:13.800 and he wrote quote, there's some who think Noise is 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:17.240 just a lecture, pure and simple. There are others who 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:20.679 believe that he was a great forward thinking individual who 0:23:20.800 --> 0:23:23.800