Jewish Agricultural Utopias in America, 1880-1910

Jewish Agricultural Utopias in America, 1880-1910 PDF

Author: Uri D. Herscher

Publisher: Wayne State University Press

Published: 2018-02-05

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 081434464X

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Brook Farm, Oneida, Amana, and Nauvoo are familiar names in American history. Far less familiar are New Odessa, Bethlehem-Jehudah, Cotopaxi, and Alliance—the Brook Farms and Oneidas of the Jewish people in North America. The wealthy, westernized leaders of late nineteenth-century American Jewry and a member of the immigrating Russian Jews shared an eagerness to "repeal" the lengthy socioeconomic history in which European Jews were confined to petty commerce and denied agricultural experience. A small group of immigrant Jews chose to ignore urbanization and industrialization, defy the depression afflicting agriculture in the late 1800s, and devote themselves to experiments in collective farming in America. Some of these idealists were pious; others were agnostics or atheists. Some had the support of American and West European philanthropists; others were willing to go it alone. But in the farming colonies they founded in Oregon, Colorado, the Dakotas, Michigan, Louisiana, Arkansas, Virginia, and New Jersey, among other places, they were sublimely indifferent to the need for careful planning and thus had limited success. Only in New Jersey, close to markets and supporters in New York and Philadelphia, were colonization efforts combined with agro-industrial enterprises; consequently, these colonies were able to survive for as long as one generation.

Jewish Agricultural Colonies in New Jersey, 1882-1920

Jewish Agricultural Colonies in New Jersey, 1882-1920 PDF

Author: Ellen Eisenberg

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 1995-08-01

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9780815626633

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Most of the synagogues are gone; a temple has been converted into a Baptist church. There is little indication to the passerby that the southern New Jersey’s Salem and Cumberland counties once contained active Jewish colonies—the largest and most successful in fact, of the settlement experiments undertaken by Russian-Jewish immigrants in America during the late nineteenth century. Ellen Eisenberg’s work focuses on the transformation of these colonies over a period of four decades, from agrarian, communal colonies to private mixed industrial-agricultural communities. The colonies grew out of the same “back to the land” sentiment that led to the development of the first modern Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine. Founded in 1882, the settlements survived for over thirty years. The community of Alliance’s population alone grew to nearly 1000 by 1908.Originally established as socialistic agrarian settlements by young idealists from the Russian Jewish Am Olam movement, the colonies eventually became dependent on industrial employment, based on private ownership. The early independent, ideological settlers ultimately clashed with the financial sponsors and the migrants they recruited, who did not share the settlers’ communitarian and agrarian goals.

America's Communal Utopias

America's Communal Utopias PDF

Author: Donald E. Pitzer

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2010-01-20

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 080789897X

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From the Shakers to the Branch Davidians, America's communal utopians have captured the popular imagination. Seventeen original essays here demonstrate the relevance of such groups to the mainstream of American social, religious, and economic life. The contributors examine the beliefs and practices of the most prominent utopian communities founded before 1965, including the long-overlooked Catholic monastic communities and Jewish agricultural colonies. Also featured are the Ephrata Baptists, Moravians, Shakers, Harmonists, Hutterites, Inspirationists of Amana, Mormons, Owenites, Fourierists, Icarians, Janssonists, Theosophists, Cyrus Teed's Koreshans, and Father Divine's Peace Mission. Based on a new conceptual framework known as developmental communalism, the book examines these utopian movements throughout the course of their development--before, during, and after their communal period. Each chapter includes a brief chronology, giving basic information about the group discussed. An appendix presents the most complete list of American utopian communities ever published. The contributors are Jonathan G. Andelson, Karl J. R. Arndt, Pearl W. Bartelt, Priscilla J. Brewer, Donald F. Durnbaugh, Lawrence Foster, Carl J. Guarneri, Robert V. Hine, Gertrude E. Huntington, James E. Landing, Dean L. May, Lawrence J. McCrank, J. Gordon Melton, Donald E. Pitzer, Robert P. Sutton, Jon Wagner, and Robert S. Weisbrot.

Utopias in American History

Utopias in American History PDF

Author: Jyotsna Sreenivasan

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2008-10-24

Total Pages: 451

ISBN-13: 1598840533

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An insightful look at the long tradition of communal societies in the United States from colonial times to the present, examining their ideological foundations, daily life, and relationships to mainstream American society. With this volume, a fascinating, yet often overlooked, part of the American story is brought to the forefront. In Utopias in American History, independent scholar Jyotsna Sreenivasan makes the case that from the founding of the American colonies to the hippie communes of the 1960s to the cohousing movement, which started in the 1990s, the United States has the most sustained tradition of utopianism of any modern country. Accessible yet authoritative and highly informative, Utopias in American History offers dozens of alphabetically organized entries covering all aspects of communal societies from colonial times to the present. Featured are descriptions of over 40 major utopian communities, both religious and secular. Entries are organized in terms of their histories, belief systems, leadership, economics, daily life, and the reactions they drew from mainstream society.

Exploring American Jewish History through 50 Historic Treasures

Exploring American Jewish History through 50 Historic Treasures PDF

Author: Avi Y. Decter

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2024-03-05

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 153811562X

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Exploring American Jewish History through 50 Historic Treasures offers students and general readers new perspectives on the rich complexity of Jewish experiences in America. As one of America's most fascinating and enduring minorities, American Jews have played key roles in every era of American history and every region of the country. The 50 treasures are depicted in full color and range from a family cookbook to a college campus and include items that are iconic, ordinary, and whimsical. Each of the treasures is described in historical, material, and visual contexts, offering readers new, unexpected insights into the meanings of Jewish life, history, and culture.

Utopias and Utopians

Utopias and Utopians PDF

Author: Richard C.S. Trahair

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-31

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 1135947732

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Utopian ventures are worth close attention, to help us understand why some succeed and others fail, for they offer hope for an improved life on earth. Utopias and Utopians is a comprehensive guide to utopian communities and their founders. Some works look at literary utopias or political utopias, etc., and others examine the utopias of only one country: this work examines utopias from antiquity to the present and surveys utopian efforts around the world. Of more than 600 alphabetically arranged entries roughly half are descriptions of utopian ventures; the other half are biographies of those who were involved. Entries are followed by a list of sources and a general bibliography concludes the volume.

Historical Dictionary of Utopianism

Historical Dictionary of Utopianism PDF

Author: Toby Widdicombe

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2017-06-21

Total Pages: 613

ISBN-13: 153810217X

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Utopian thinking embraces fictional descriptions of how to create a better (but not a perfect) alternative way of life as well as intentional communities (that is, groups of people leading lives in small communities for their own betterment and the betterment of others). The first edition almost exclusively dealt with the intentional-community side of utopianism; this second edition offers a much more inclusive definition of the key term utopia by offering a great many entries devoted to describing fictional or literary utopian works. It is also heavily illustrated with plates from utopian works, especially those from the heyday of utopianism in the late nineteenth century. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Utopianism contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1000 cross-referenced entries on broad conceptual entries; narrower entries about specific works; and narrower entries about specific intentional communities or movements. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Utopianism.

The A to Z of Utopianism

The A to Z of Utopianism PDF

Author: James M. Morris

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2009-06-22

Total Pages: 430

ISBN-13: 0810863359

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This reference contains more than 600 cross-referenced dictionary entries on utopian thought and experimentation that span the centuries from ancient times to the present. The text not only covers utopian communities worldwide, but also its ideas from the well known such as those expounded in Thomas More's Utopia and the ideas of philosophers and reformers from ancient times, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and from notable 20th-century figures. Included are the descriptions of utopian experiments attempted in the United Sates, like those of the Shakers, Oneida, Robert Owen, and the Fourierists, and elsewhere throughout the world from Europe to Australia, Latin America, and the Far East. Major utopian literary works and their literary counterparts and dystopian novels are also profiled because these have fueled the fires of time-honored arguments about the feasibility of creating a perfect society. From the early theoreticians and thinkers who proposed republican, democratic, and authoritarian innovations; to those who sought equality of classes, races, and genders; to those who insisted on hierarchy under a supreme leader, or god; and to those who had more practical economic, social, and ethical plans, this reference enables the reader to explore the Western mind's desire to improve the world and the lives of the people within it as utopianism has persisted over the centuries.

Tradition Transformed

Tradition Transformed PDF

Author: Gerald Sorin

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 1997-04-18

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9780801854460

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Sorin argues that, from colonial times to the present, "acculturation" and not "assimilation" has best described the experience of Jewish Americans.