CUSTOMS AND PRACTICES

OF THE

AMERICAN COMMUNES.

THOUGH brief accounts are given in the preceding pages of several recently established communistic societies, it is evident that only those which have been in practical operation during a term of years are useful for purposes of comparison, and to show the actually accomplished results of communistic effort in the United States, as well as the means by which these results have been achieved.

The societies which may thus be properly used as illustrations of successful communism in this country are the SHAKERS, established in the Eastern States in 1794, and in the West about 1808; the RAPPISTS, established in 1805; the BAUMELERS, or ZOARITES, established in 1817; the EBEN-EZERS, or AMANA Communists, established in 1844; the BETHEL Commune, established in 1844; the ONEIDA PERFECTIONISTS, established in 1848; the ICARIANS, who date from 1849; and the AURORA Commune, from 1852.

Though in name there are thus but eight societies, these consist in fact of not less than seventy-two communes: the Shakers having fifty-eight of these; the Amana Society seven; and the Perfectionists two. The remaining societies consist of but a single commune for each.

It will be seen that the oldest of these communes have existed for eighty years; the youngest cited here for review has been founded twenty-two years. Of all, only two societies remain under the guidance of their founders; though it may be

It seems to me a fair deduction from the facts, that neither religious fanaticism nor an unnatural sexual relation (unless