WEBVTT - The Oneida Utopia 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.760 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:13.880 Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:17.000 I'm fair Dowdy and I'm doubling and chuckerboarding, and today 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.600 we're going to talk a little bit more about free love. 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:22.760 I mean, hopefully that makes you keep on listening right away. 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.040 But I was thinking about it because we did a 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:27.880 podcast a couple of weeks ago on Victoria wood Hall, 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.760 who was the first female presidential candidate, And I don't 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:33.760 know if you want to give a quick recap of 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:37.760 her beliefs on free love. Yeah, she basically didn't believe 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:40.840 free in free love in the sense that everyone should 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:43.120 be having sex with each other. But she did believe 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:45.680 that people should have the choice whether or not to 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:48.960 be together. So that was just a little bit about it. 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:50.639 You didn't have to be stuck in a marriage if 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:53.800 you didn't want to be. Yeah, So we we had 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.040 her on our minds. And then also I co edited 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.560 an article recently that Molly Edmonds wrote one of the 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:04.000 hosts of Stuff Mom Never Told You on polyamory, and 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:06.800 so it came up again, and she actually even mentioned 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:11.319 the Oneida community in her article. So both of those 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:15.039 examples got me thinking about this community, which is probably 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:19.279 the most famous example of organized free love in American history, 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:23.320 and it is, of course the Oneida Commune or Onada 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.440 community in New York State. Yeah, when I first started 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:29.880 researching this with you, it seemed almost too crazy to 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:32.039 be real. I don't know. Maybe I've just lived too 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.880 sheltered a life. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:36.479 don't know. Can you tell us a little bit about 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:38.959 some of these things? It does sound too crazy to 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.240 be real, And that's partly because the people that made 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:46.399 up this large Victorian community shared not only property and labor, 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:51.720 but of course sexual partners. And they surprisingly earned boatloads 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.920 of money through these really successful marketing schemes. I think 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:58.080 that's sort of the first loop in this In this episode, 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:04.360 they were actually quite successful financially. Another potentially strange fact 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:08.519 about them they regarded the genders equally and they shared labor, 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:12.880 so pretty surprising. The ladies even wore pantaloons. You can 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.200 look up pictures of them. They have short skirts and 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:20.280 little pantaloons underneath. And um. Then, maybe the strangest thing 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:24.519 of all. Their eventual undoing came about when this eugenics 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:29.280 inspired breeding program left the younger members yearning for good 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:34.320 old fashioned courtly love and and monogamous marriage. And for 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:36.959 those of you who own some fine Oneida silver, you 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:39.160 might know where it goes from there. The commune doesn't 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.560 last forever, much like a lot of other communes, even 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:45.160 those that are often considered to be the most successful 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.840 in American history, like Ohneida. So who is behind this 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.600 oi a community in the first place. This guy named 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.360 John Humphrey. Noise and it's not doesn't look like noise, 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:59.000 it's n O y e s in case you want 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:01.679 to look up this guy little more. But yeah, the 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.160 commune and the ideas behind it came from his ideas 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:09.040 and preaching. And he was born in eighteen eleven in Vermont. 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.600 He was a wealthy kid. He went to Dartmouth and 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:14.160 then to law school. Really seemed to be on the 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.000 right track to being a well off New England lawyer 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:21.079 until he attends a revival of evangelist Charles Finney in 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.080 eighteen thirty one, and at that point he decides to 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:28.000 become a minister instead, so big career change. But but 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.360 even then he seems like he was possibly on the 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:33.600 track to becoming just a well off New England minister 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.280 instead of a lawyer. He went to andover theological seminary. 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:41.760 From there he transferred to Yale. But after that his 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.280 ideas started to get kind of out there, and definitely 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:49.400 two out there. For Yale, he believed in something called perfectionism, 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:53.880 which was the idea that after conversion we are free 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:57.760 from sin. Which obviously that idea didn't sit very well 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:03.080 with the Calvinist faculty at Yale, and they denied his ordination. Yeah, 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:04.640 so just to give you a little background on the 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:06.960 beliefs that he had. They extend from the central idea 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:11.320 of perfectionism, and they're pretty controversial. He, for one thing, 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:15.160 thinks the Second Coming has come and gone already. In fact, 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:17.640 he thinks that happened in a d seventy at the 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.960 destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. This meant that man 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.960 didn't have to wait for heaven to be one with God. 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:26.000 You could do it here on earth as well. But 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:28.200 to do so you had to leave the world and 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.120 live according to the laws of heaven, like maybe in 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.960 a commune run by noise. So he gets kicked out 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:39.240 of Yale and he starts kind of meeting with other perfectionists, 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.239 learning the drill, talking to people going on the circuit, 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:45.680 and he decides, well, I'm going to start my own 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:50.440 group here, and he organizes the Bible Communists in Putney, 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:54.800 Vermont in eighty six and preaches love and harmony to them. 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:57.480 And it's interesting to sort of get a look at 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:01.200 what type of people were joining this, the Bible Communists. 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.600 They were mostly small town folks. They came from all 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:09.039 sorts of occupation, something that probably proved useful down the line. 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:12.159 And you know, maybe if it had stayed at this level, 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:14.640 it would have been pretty under the radar. You know, 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:19.600 a religious group that's too radical for Gail, but not 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:21.920 so radical that it doesn't fit in in some way 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:25.120 with all of the revivals sweeping the United States at 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:29.280 this time. Then Noise shakes things up a little bit. Yeah, 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:31.520 he doesn't just keep it at that level. Just a 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.360 year after starting that group, Noise writes the so called 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.720 battle Axe Letter. And this letter it really gets the 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:41.920 public riled up. It stirs up a lot of controversy 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:46.920 because it advocates free love. Specifically, it says, quote, when 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:48.800 the will of God is done on earth as it 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.440 is in heaven, there will be no marriage, and his 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.480 rationale came from scripture. It came from Matthew, which says 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:59.000 for in the Resurrection, they neither marry nor are given 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:02.080 in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.280 So Noise took this to mean that marriage should not 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.200 be exclusive. All men should be married to all women, 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:12.000 and it's something called complex marriage. So this is definitely 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.000 an example of free love that's different from the one 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.640 we talked about in the Victoria Woodhole episode. Quite different 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:23.040 in fact, but the idea, just like Victoria Woodell, made 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:28.200 Noise and his followers incredibly notorious. And when they actually 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:32.080 start practicing complex marriage by eighteen forty six, which is 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:34.200 a little bit after they decide that they're going to 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.240 share all their property and all their belongings, it does 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.240 not sit well with their neighbors in Putney, Vermont, not 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.760 at all. And Noise is arrested for adultery because he 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:47.840 is married legally, and he jumps bail, and by eighteen 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:52.000 forty eight, he and most of his followers DeCamp for Oneida, 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:55.400 New York. And there are a few other satellite communities, 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:59.359 but the main Onada community is set up there in 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.320 New York. It last for another thirty years. So we're 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.440 gonna talk more about free love in that aspect of 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:09.279 the community later, But first, it's interesting to figure out 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:15.120 how these perfectionists Biblical communists actually made a living. Yeah, well, 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.080 at first they don't write the two hundred people that 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:22.600 live in this community. They try farming and logging. It's 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.360 a situation where men and women are sharing the same 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.000 rights and labor, but the community isn't doing well enough 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.680 to support itself for the long term. So then things 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:36.440 start picking up eventually, though, when they start manufacturing things, 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.240 they get into manufacturing work a little more reliable. So 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.080 what sorts of things were they manufacturing. They were canning 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:46.320 and jarring veggies and fruit, also processing silk and printing. 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:51.320 They were milling gristmills and sawmills both and uh, making 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.320 small goods like traveling bags. Yeah, and there. That was 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:57.560 all pretty successful for them. But the big win, the 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:01.880 thing that really made them sustainable, was the invention of 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:04.760 one of the community's members, a guy named Suel new House, 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.480 and he came up with a new kind of lightweight 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:13.120 animal trap for for animals, and the trap market at 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.120 the time was not so crowded that you couldn't have 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.120 a new a new trap burst through. And so by 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.240 the mid eighteen fifties, they were making so many of 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:24.520 these traps, and they were selling them so well that 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.800 they had to hire on wage workers, which was kind 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:30.000 of at odds with their belief because they were not 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:33.960 only against slavery, they were also against wage labor, and 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:38.040 especially seasonal wage labor, because at this point people would work, 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.280 they'd have jobs during the summer, and then they'd get 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:42.800 laid off in the winter, especially in a place like 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:47.720 New York where there were pretty heavy winters. So here 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:50.760 they were doing it themselves, you know, hiring seasonally to 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:55.160 make these traps. But they did create many things. I mean, 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:57.480 I think we all know some of the results of 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.800 their inventiveness, for example the Victor mouse trap and the 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:04.520 Lazy Susan who was so excited to learn that they 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:06.880 were responsible for this. It's made such a difference in 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:10.640 my life. Excellent piece of trivia, I think. Well. And 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:13.640 the interesting thing about the Lazy Susan Um one of 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.680 the important things in the community was that mediocracy was key. 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:21.640 You were never supposed to be lazy, but you weren't 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:25.040 supposed to try to strive above all the others. And 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:27.480 I think it's maybe a little funny that the lazy 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:33.120 Susan is the result of that a convenience product. But 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.000 even though some inventions did stand out and some inventus 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:39.440 did stand out, in this community community, that word was 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.960 still definitely the key. Even labor was social. They would 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:47.640 hold these bees to complete tasks in a timely manner um. 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.200 And maybe you can talk about the bees a little more, Sarah, Yeah, 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:53.600 I mean probably most people are maybe familiar with quilting bees, 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:57.480 that kind of thing where everybody gets together and you 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.960 make all the quilts. You know, you have the tops 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:03.040 piece together already, but you go ahead and do the 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:05.920 more boring work, which is is um attaching it to 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.520 the bottom and putting in the padding and everything. But 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:10.920 they wouldn't do this just for quotes. They would do 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:13.160 it for any kind of task that needed to be 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:16.760 accomplished quickly. So for instance like bringing in the hay 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.880 it's something you better do before it rains heavily, or 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:22.760 making these bags. You know, they'd all get together. And 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.800 the interesting thing about it is, like you mentioned earlier, 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:28.920 they really did emphasize the community aspect. It was something 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.439 that was supposed to be fun, not just boring work 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:35.720 if you're doing it yourself. And there's even a quote 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.280 from their second annual report where they wrote that the 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.280 task could be done quote at a single stroke with 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:46.000 all the enthusiastic, sportive feeling of a game of ball. 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.079 That does sound rather exciting, but it does beg the 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.040 question also, if a hayin bee is as fun as 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:54.960 a game of ball, then what is downtime like in 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:58.680 this community? And again we see that it's really communal. 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.440 The adults live in what is called the mansion House, 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.680 which was a three story modern home complete with shared 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.440 dining and living spaces. It's a pretty handsome home actually 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.640 still stand. Yeah, and it's interesting. One of the perks 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:14.760 of living in Oneida meant that because of scale, the 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:17.320 community could afford some things that other people couldn't. They 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:22.520 could afford luxuries like um furnaces and heated drawing rooms, 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.080 things that only wealthy people could afford at the time. Yeah, 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:27.800 because it is a mansion house, it just has a 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:30.040 lot of people living in it. So we're gonna take 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:32.960 you on a little tour of the home. Um, starting 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:35.840 in the dining room, which would hold the entire community, 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.679 and I think this is a really interesting thing they 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:42.160 did to to ensure that clicks wouldn't pop up in 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:44.480 the dining room as they always do, right, Yeah, the 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:49.360 typical Yeah, you would take your seat by your place 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:51.440 in the serving line, so I guess you could maybe 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:53.679 jump the line to be with your friend, but you 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:57.280 would essentially be seated at random, so so no favorites. 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.640 After dinner. After dinner with with any of your random 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.240 community members, you would move on to the big Hall 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:06.880 and have a meeting. And the hall is sort of 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:10.480 the center of the religious aspect of this community too, 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:12.720 but it doesn't look at all like a church. It 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:16.640 had paintings of justice and music and astronomy and history, 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:21.480 allegorical painting, and it's also where members would discuss their 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:26.400 spiritual concerns and talk about community concerns and then maybe 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.120 relax a little too and enjoy a concert. I think 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.440 the community kept a band among its members or some 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.520 other kind of entertainment, and it's quite the program. And 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:38.559 if that program on any given night was promising enough, 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.760 maybe some tourists would stop by pay about twenty five 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:47.640 cents for an evening of Grand entertainment, so they build it. Yeah, 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:50.720 but the gatherings in the big hall, they weren't always 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.600 that fun. So for instance, you wouldn't want to show 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:57.400 up on a night where they were doing quote mutual criticism, 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.520 and on those nights that's when everyone could basely air 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.720 their grievances with everyone else. Her minds me kind of 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:07.720 a festivus, not to make a comparison with a fake religion, 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:11.679 but um, the mutual criticism part is one of the 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.920 strangest aspects of this to me, that you would go 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:18.480 face to face with these people who you lived with 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:22.280 and worked with every day and tell them what was wrong, 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.360 which could be not only you're not working hard enough 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:28.360 to support the community, but you're working too hard, you're 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:32.320 going above and beyond, and it's it's not you don't 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:34.440 fit in. Yeah, it goes back to that goal of 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:38.160 mediocrity that you mentioned before. So after getting some of 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.200 these neighborly criticisms off your chest, you might go on 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:43.560 up to the upper sitting room, which was a well 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:48.040 appointed salon where you could page through some books like 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:50.880 Charles Dickens The Mystery of Edwin Drewd, which I think 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:53.839 you read recently. I read the spin off. You read 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:57.679 the spin off. Sorry, my mistake. They wouldn't have read 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:00.480 the spin off, probably not quite, but they might have 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.880 also read some bound copies of magazines like Atlantic Monthly. Anyway, 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:07.480 just your basic chill out space. Take some time to 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.160 n off after the hanging, and then it's off to 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:13.400 bed in your private room with a twin bed. Yeah, 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:17.160 and here's the kicker there. You would definitely be by 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:21.160 yourself when you were going off to bed. And this 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:25.480 brings us to the complex marriage, which you knew we 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:27.360 were going to have to talk about eventually. It's what 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:32.760 made the Onanta community so infamous, and Noise believed that 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.280 for the community to live without sin, they would need 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:40.200 to quote nail marriage to the cross. So he was 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:44.640 against monogamous marriage, but he wasn't against sex. He was 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.480 actually quite in favor of it as long as it 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:52.160 took place between multiple partners. But he knew that there 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:54.680 was a potential problem with that, and that was that 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:58.480 complex marriage would soon produce a whole lot of kids, 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.840 more kids than the community support. So he instituted this 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:06.920 practice that he himself had begun after his wife had 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.880 suffered from four premature births and death, and it was 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.080 He called it male continents, and it was basically male 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:17.840 birth control. Um. He decided to do it himself after 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:23.920 her after her premature birth UM. She was quite understandably 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:27.000 distraught over the death of those four kids, and he 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:29.840 decided that she shouldn't have to go through it again. 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.400 But he actually turns it into part of his philosophy 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.840 after that. It's not just something that happened personally to him. 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:36.880 He takes it and makes it part of the community. 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:41.280 So he separates sex into two components, essentially the pleasurable 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:45.160 aspect of it and the reproductive aspect, and treats them 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:48.800 into entirely different ways. So, since Adam and Eveson, the 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:53.080 reproductive part had been dominant, but by taking the reproductive 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.120 aspect out of the picture, people would be free to 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.880 indulge in the more pleasurable part. So this is how 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:03.160 he saw it. Yeah, and this male continence idea that 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:06.320 he comes up with really does work pretty well for 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.240 the community as far as limiting the number of children born, 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.560 because between eighteen forty eight in eighteen sixty nine, only 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.400 thirty one kids they're born. And we're gonna talk a 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:18.320 little bit more about kids in the community later, but 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.560 after they were weaned, they were raised communally in this 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:26.440 children's house by guardians. But there aren't just rules about 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:31.080 how people were supposed to have sex and not reproduced. 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:36.520 There were also rules about how the matchups even were made. Yeah, 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:38.240 and the main thing about these rules is that there 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:40.840 were no secrets, right. That was the essential component here. 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.120 For example, if you had sex with someone, it wasn't 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.280 even happening in a private room. Instead, you would go 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.840 to these small Trystane rooms. Is how they were known, 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:53.840 I think, right off of the upper sitting room, and 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.000 you could essentially book a room for a few hours, 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:58.400 but everybody knew about it when you did. It seems 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:00.920 so awkward to they are right off the room. I 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.280 think one that is still in existence as a as 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:07.000 a show piece really is right off the fitting room 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.960 where everyone is hanging out. Um, but really everyone already 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.720 knew who is matched up anyways, because couples had to 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:18.480 be approved by the Central Guidance Committee, which was made 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:21.400 of course of Noise and his family and other elders. 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:25.160 And they not only approved the couples, but they kept 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.119 an eye out for anyone that was getting too exclusive 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:33.520 because that was of course at odds with the community's ideals. Yeah, 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:37.200 and other couplings were enforced and created by the committee itself, 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.240 which is kind of a strange idea. This is where 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:44.399 it gets a little disturbing. Yeah, Noise would initiate teen 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.280 girls while his wife and sister would do the same 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:49.679 for boys. So this is one type of arrangement that 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:53.359 was made to sort of introduce these younger people into 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.920 the system. Yeah, and these these couples that were formed 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:00.480 by the committee, not because of some other attraction. After 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:03.639 the members hit their twenties, they were usually allowed to 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:06.560 choose have a little more choice in who their partners 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:10.320 were going to be. But interestingly, it is this regulation 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.520 surrounding not just sex, but eventually child bearing that eventually 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:17.760 signaled the beginning of the end for the community. So 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.320 Noise decided that it seemed like the Kingdom of Heaven 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:25.720 wasn't immediately on hand, and he started thinking that maybe 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.480 they should start having more children and and beef up 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:32.040 the numbers a little bit and have the community grow. 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:36.639 So he started to approve natural reproduction, no longer using 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:41.520 male continents. But there's a catch. Only the reproduction between 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:45.159 partners that seemed to be a good spiritual match with 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:48.159 each other. Yeah, he calls its strip culture. That's the 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:51.960 name that he gave it. And it basically says that 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:54.840 only those with the highest spiritual development will be allowed 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:57.840 to reproduce. So couples would have to apply to the 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:01.399 committee and either be accepted, reject died, or rematched with 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:05.840 another person. And it was pretty successful. Forty eight kids 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:08.760 or fifty eight, depending on which you read, were born 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:12.600 between eighteen sixty nine in eighteen seventy nine. Nine of 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.919 those were noise kids, because, of course he has the 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:20.040 highest level of spiritual development. And one of the strange 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.080 things about this is, of course it is very much 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:28.320 inspired by eugenics. It's spiritual, but it is eugenics, and 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:31.320 he had read quite a bit about it and and 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:35.000 was trying to emulate that. But obviously it read a 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.880 lot of hard feelings. In addition to children. There were 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:43.520 couples who were rejected, who felt jealous of the people 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:47.120 who did get to have children. Some of the new 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.040 parents were sad because they're forced to turn their kids 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:54.360 over to this communal upbringing, and so by eighteen seventy eight, 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:57.600 some of the younger community members were getting really tired 0:19:57.640 --> 0:19:59.760 of it. They were getting fed up with being rejected 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.320 or matched with the people they didn't want, or having 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:06.639 to give up their kids, and they wanted romance and 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:10.520 monogamous marriage and family, and so some of them started 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:14.359 to couple up and leave the community, often when they 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:18.600 were rejected by the committee. And trouble was compounded by 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:22.760 noise passing on administration more and more to his son, Theodore, 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:27.600 who was not very competent, and in eighteen seventy nine 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:30.000 he fled to Canada because he was faced with this 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:34.240 moral lawsuit. And it only took two months for the 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:39.040 community to end the practice of complex marriage and mutual criticism. 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:41.840 Can imagine maybe people were a little bit tired of that, 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:46.560 but it's interesting to see how how quickly it crumbles 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:50.280 with Without him, it dissolved quickly. But it didn't end 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:54.399 there right, not exactly after the community dissolved in a 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:57.960 couple of months. Within a year, they became a corporation, 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.359 which is a total surp which was as a total shock, 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:03.119 but I mean, when you look at it, they already 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:06.200 had the foundations for this and the Share All Things group. 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:10.000 They got together and decided that instead of property and partners, 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:13.399 they would share stock in business. Yeah, so they formed 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:17.520 the Oneida Community Limited, which was a joint stock company 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:21.679 that made silver plate because they were quite successful and 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:26.240 good in this manufacturing realm, and probably they were also 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:29.760 thinking they had invested their life's work into a community. 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.040 You want to get some kind of return on it, 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:35.160 even if it's in the form of stock. That sort 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:39.320 of goes against their their original community ideals. But Oneida 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:43.000 Silver is, of course still one of the most famous 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:47.600 American silver companies today. Their motto interestingly, like I checked 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:49.719 out their website to see what they were what they 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:52.639 were offering these days, and their motto is bring life 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:56.640 to the table, which I'm probably reading too much into that. 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:01.640 And the mansion house is also still intact. You can 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:04.040 tour it, stay the night, and some people even rent 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:08.359 apartments there. Only one trusting room is still left for show, however, 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.199 the one I mentioned that is really right off of 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:15.359 the upper sitting room. And um, I think maybe we 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:19.240 could close out with this quote from an Oneida expert. 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.960 He's a historian, Robert S. Fogerty, and he wrote quote, 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:26.240 there's some who think noise is just a lecturer, pure 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:29.359 and simple. There are others who believe that he was 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:33.280 a great forward thinking individual who is a great religious figure. 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:37.199 I think it's fifty fifty to be honest. So UM, 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:39.840 I mean, I'm sure that you guys are going to 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:44.080 have an opinion on on noise and the Anona community, 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:47.679 and um, maybe you have family members who were a 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:50.280 part of it. I actually read that many of the 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:54.200 people who go and stay at the mansion house today, UM, 0:22:54.240 --> 0:23:00.000 in the hotel or tour it did have ancestors who participated. UM. 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.399 Or if you just have some some Oneida silver and 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:07.639 let us know, um what you think about the history 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:11.359