In 1848, a group of religious perfectionists, led by John Humphrey Noyes, established a commune in Oneida, New York, where they lived and worked together. Women in the community had certain freedoms compared to the outside world, in both dress and occupation. What captured the attention of the outside world, though, were the sexual practices of the Oneidans, who believed in complex marriage where every man and every woman in the community were married to each other and where birth control was achieved via male continence. 

Joining me to discuss the Oneida community, and its most infamous resident, presidential assassin Charles Guiteau, is New York Times bestselling writer Susan Wels, author of An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President's Murder.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode Music is “Walk Together (Acoustic Piano and Guitar Version)” by Olexy from Pixabay. The episode image is “Oneida Community,” photograph taken between 1860 and 1880; image is in the Public Domain and available via the Library of Congress.

 

Additional sources:

• “The First Great Awakening.” by Christine Leigh Heyrman, Divining America, TeacherServe©, National Humanities Center.
• “Great Awakening,” History.com, Originally posted March 7, 2018, Updated September 20, 2019.
• “Religious Transformation and the Second Great Awakening,” USHistory.org.
• “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic: Religion and the New Republic,” Library of Congress.
• “The Second Great Awakening,” by Isaiah Dicker, Guided History: History Research Guides by Boston University Students.
• “‘My Heart Was So Full of Love That It Overflowed’: Charles Grandison Finney Experiences Conversion,” History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web.
• “People & Ideas: Charles Finney,” God in America, PBS.
• “The Utopia of Sharing in Oneida, N.Y.”by Beth Quinn Barnard, The New York Times, August 3, 2007.
• “The Rich, Sexy History Of Oneida — Commune And Silverware Maker,” WBUR, May 20, 2016.
• “Oneida Community (1848-1880): A Utopian Community,” Social Welfare History Project (June 2017), Virginia Commonwealth University.
• “Oneida Community Collection,” Syracuse University.
• Oneida Mansion House.

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