Examining the decades from the Civil War to World War I, this text explores a neglected chapter in the history of American utopian and communal experiments. Countering the view that utopianism declined dramatically after the 1840s, it studies utopian experiments across the USA from 1860 to 1914.
From the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries America has been both a haven for utopian dreamers and a fertile ground for experiments in community. Closely examining the decades from the Civil War to World War I, Robert S. Fogarty provides the first comprehensive study of a neglected chapter in the history of American utopian and communal experiments.