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| | A widespread belief in "Manifest Destiny" was driving this growth. Manifest Destiny was the concept that westward expansion was part of God's plan for the United States to spread out over the continent. They believed that exploration and expansion was a mission from God. | | A widespread belief in "Manifest Destiny" was driving this growth. Manifest Destiny was the concept that westward expansion was part of God's plan for the United States to spread out over the continent. They believed that exploration and expansion was a mission from God. |
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| − | Settlers began to move westward in large groups, traveling on the Oregon Trail. This trail stretched for 2000 miles and many settlers spent six months traveling along it. Missionaries traveled in order to minister to the Indians far and wide. Others went westward in a search for gold, and the "gold rush" that began in 1848 and hit a fever pitch in 1849 attracted many to California (the football team the "San Francisco 49ers" is named after those settlers). | + | In 1842, the United States resolved some minor disputes with Canada (still a British colony) over the location of the border. Known as the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, this resolved the location of the northern border of Maine, agreed on the location of the border in the Great Lakes (and shared use of those Lakes), and affirmed the use of the 49 degrees latitude as the border in the west. Daniel Webster, then the Secretary of State (who otherwise was a prominent Senator), signed the Treaty for the United States and the U.S. Senate ratified it as required by the Constitution. |
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| | + | Settlers began to move westward in large groups, traveling on the Oregon Trail. Beginning in 1843, Americans became fascinated with the Oregon territory, and 1000 pioneers traveled all the way from Missouri to Willamette Valley (a trip that took 4 to 6 months then). The Oregon Trail stretched for 2000 miles and many settlers spent six months traveling along it. Missionaries traveled in order to minister to the Indians far and wide. |
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| | + | Others went westward in a search for gold, and the "gold rush" that began in 1848 and hit a fever pitch in 1849 attracted many to California (the football team the "San Francisco 49ers" is named after those settlers). |
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| | Half of the Oregon territory, which included the current states of Oregon and Washington, was controlled by the British. In 1846 the Oregon Treaty settled the disputes between America and Britain, giving most of Oregon to the United States. | | Half of the Oregon territory, which included the current states of Oregon and Washington, was controlled by the British. In 1846 the Oregon Treaty settled the disputes between America and Britain, giving most of Oregon to the United States. |
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| − | <> | + | Along with the expansion and migration came great social change. Utopian communities thrived in the 1840s to pursue idealistic societies, often based on common religious beliefs and sharing homes and property. Examples were the Shakers, the Oneida Community, Brook Farm and the Rappites:<ref>http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/amana/utopia.htm</ref> |
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| | + | * The Shakers, whose formal name was the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Coming, believed in communal living (people sharing each other's homes and property), productive labor, celibacy, pacifism, simplicity, and ritualistic dancing and shaking during services. It was founded by an Englishwoman in 1758, split off from the Quakers in 1772, and grew to 6,000 members in America before the Civil War. The Shakers rejected slavery and other American values, and had thriving communities in Enfield, Connecticut and in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, stand as two noteworthy examples of Shaker communities. Other Shaker communities existed in Kentucky, New Hampshire, New York (New Lebanon), and Maine (New Glochester), where Shakers survive to this day! |
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| | + | * Brook Farm was a Utopian community based on "transcendentalism", which was a philosophy started by Immanuel Kant in the late 1700s that emphasized man's ability to "transcend" experience and pursue a lifestyle of simple living, self-reliance, and rejection of industrialization. This movement took inspiration from Ralph Waldo Emerson, was the leading American proponent of this philosophy (without himself living in a Utopian community), and his friend Henry David Thoreau, who did spend some time living in simplicity on "Walden's Pond," except when he went over to Emerson's house to enjoy a good meal and better surroundings! Brook Farm itself was located in Suffolk County, Massachusetts and was led by a former Unitarian minister. The community provided to all members, their children and family dependents, housing, fuel, wages, clothing and food, and had schools at all levels before college. The project ended in failure due to financial difficulties and even a bitter lawsuit by investors attempting to recover their money. The community never exceeded 120 persons, making it smaller than most homeschooling communities today. |
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| | + | The Rappites: The Harmony Society, also called the Rappites, were similar to the Shakers in certain beliefs. Named after their founder, Johann Georg Rapp, the Rappites immigrated from Württemburg, Germany, to the United States in 1803, seeking religious freedom. Establishing a colony in Butler County, Pennsylvania, called Harmony, the Rappites held that the Bible was humanity's sole authority. They also advanced celibacy and lead a communal life without individual possessions, and believed that the harmony of male and female elements in humanity would be reestablished by their efforts. Under the guidance of Frederick Rapp, George Rapp's adopted son, the economy of Harmony grew from one of subsistence agriculture to gradual diversified manufacturing. By 1814 the Society boasted 700 members, a town of about 130 brick, frame, and log houses, and numerous factories and processing plants. Their manufactured products, particularly textiles and woolens, gained a widespread reputation for excellence, as did their wines and whisky. The Harmony Society soon outgrew its markets, and after selling all their holdings to a Mennonite group for $100,000 they moved to a new location on the Wabash River in Indiana. Here again they built a prosperous community, New Harmony (now a National Historic Landmark), only to sell it to Robert Owen, a social reformer from New Lanark, Scotland, and his financial partner, William Maclure, in 1825. The Harmonists next returned to Pennsylvania and built their final home at Economy (now called Old Economy and recognized as a National Historic Landmark), in Ambridge on the Ohio River. The Harmonists reached their peak of prosperity in 1866, but the practice of celibacy and several schisms thinned the Society's ranks, and the community was finally dissolved in 1905. The surviving buildings of the first settlement in Harmony, with their sturdy, simple brick dwellings, the Great House with its arched wine cellar, and the imposing cemetery and original town plan are today a National Historic Landmark named the Harmony Historic District. |
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| | + | Oneida Community Mansion House, Madison County, New York |
| | + | Photograph courtesy of Oneida Ltd. |
| | + | The Oneida Community: The founder and leader of the communal Oneida Community, John Humphreys Noyes, was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1811. Noyes joined the Andover Theological Seminary in November, 1831. Transferring to Yale Theological College at New Haven, he became involved with the nascent abolitionist movement. In 1833 he founded the New Haven Anti-Slavery society and the New Haven Free Church, where he preached his radical belief which laid great emphasis on the ideal of perfection being attainable in this life. His followers became known as Perfectionists. However, Noyes's belief in "complex marriage" alienated many of the townspeople in Putney, New York, where he was living, and he left in 1847. Perfectionists practicing "complex marriage" considered themselves married to the group, not a single partner. Noyes moved his community to the town of Oneida, in Madison County, New York. At Oneida, the group practiced "Bible Communism." The skills of the artisan members were channeled into broom manufacturing, shoe manufacturing, flour processing, lumber milling and trap manufacturing. The Perfectionists in Oneida held communal property, meals and arrangements for the rearing and education of children. They built the Oneida Community Mansion House, a rambling U-shaped, brick, Victorian building which began housing the community in the early 1850s. The Oneida Community Mansion House is now listed as a National Historic Landmark. In 1874 there were 270 members of the Oneida Community. Misunderstanding of the community, allied with traditional points of view, inspired a 1879 meeting of ministers in Syracuse, New York, to condemn the settlement. Eventual unrest hit Noyes' followers, and Noyes fled to Canada on June 29 1879. "Complex marriage" ended two days later. The experiment in their communal utopia ended in January of 1881 when the Oneida community was reconstituted as a joint stock corporation. |
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| | + | The Demise of the 19th-Century Utopian Colonies: Numerous religious and social communal groups developed in the nineteenth century. By the end of the century even Theosophical colonies, based off Madame Blavatasky's merging of eastern and western mysticism, had cropped up in such places as Point Loma and Temple Home, near San Diego, California. Other groups included the Zoarites in Ohio, the Moravians of North Carolina, and the followers of German-born Wilhelm Keil, a Methodist minister heavily influenced by the pietist movement, who founded colonies in Bethel, Missouri, and Aurora, Oregon. Yet of all these utopian groups only the Amana Inspirationists developed and built a network of seven villages set in an agricultural region (see essays on Amana History). They managed to survive by modifying their system into two distinct organizations, one secular and one spiritual. The Inspirationists of Amana founded their communities with an agricultural basis as did other communal groups in the United States. Both men and women labored, although in Amana women's work did not include trades and the ministry as it did in the Shaker communities. |
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| | + | Amana's past and future meet at the Amana General Store in South Amana, now Fern Hill Gifts and Quilts |
| | + | Photograph by Blanche H. Schroer, National Park Service |
| | + | While the 20th century witnessed further experiments in communal living, the great wave which founded the 19th-century religious and secular utopian communities had begun to subside. Some of the 19th-century groups were established and depended on the strength of their leaders, those which survived into the 20th century had to alter their way of life significantly, as traditional rural life evolved due to the industrial, economic and scientific progress in the larger society. General causes relating to the demise of these utopian colonies have to be explained individually, as each utopian community faced different circumstances. Overall, the conflict that many of these agrarian or small craft communities faced in an increasingly industrialized world may have contributed to their demise, as did external hostility manifested in the larger, surrounding society, often seen in inflammatory newspaper articles attacking the utopian experiments. Generally, most analysts of utopian experiments, from Charles Nordhoff to Arthur Bestor, Jr., have found that religious utopian colonies possessed a longer life then their secular counterparts. |
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| | + | Women's Rights/Seneca Falls "1848: 1st ""women's rights"" convention: called for women right to vote and drafted Declaration of Sentiments" |
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| | + | Liberty Party "1840-8: (NY) 1st anti-slavery party, later joined antislavery Whigs, Dems to form stronger Free-Soil party." |
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| | + | Mormon Church "1830: Joseph Smith founds in Western NY, went to OH; 1844 largest town in IL; 1847 to Utah, majority there" |
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| | + | Commonwealth v. Hunt 1842: Mass. Sup. Ct. held it was legal for workers to organize a union and to strike; this was union victory |
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| | + | Seventh Day Adventist Church "1844: stresses second coming of Christ, Saturday Sabbath, Bible, part of great second awakening" |
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| | + | Elizabeth Blackwell "1849: first women to receive a medical degree in America, from Geneva College in NY; English-born" |
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| | ==James K. Polk and War with Mexico== | | ==James K. Polk and War with Mexico== |