The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and ObservationNordhoff, Charles
History
The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and Observation
Nordhoff, Charles
Collective settlements -- United States
The men dress as people in the world do, but plainly, each one following
his own fancy. The women wear a dress consisting of a bodice, loose
trousers, and a short skirt falling to just above the knee. Their hair
is cut just below the ears, and I noticed that the younger women usually
gave it a curl. The dress is no doubt extremely convenient: it admits of
walking in mud or snow, and allows freedom of exercise; and it is
entirely modest. But it was to my unaccustomed eyes totally and fatally
lacking in grace and beauty. The present dress of women, prescribed by
fashion, and particularly the abominable false hair and the
preposterously ugly hats, are sufficiently barbarous; but the Oneida
dress, which is so scant that it forbids any graceful arrangement of
drapery, seemed to me no improvement.
[Illustration: COSTUMES AT ONEIDA.]
As they have no sermons nor public prayers, so they have no peculiar
mode of addressing each other. The men are called Mr., and the women
Miss, except when they were married before they entered the society. It
was somewhat startling to me to hear Miss ---- speak about her baby.
Even the founder is addressed or spoken of simply as Mr. Noyes.
At the end of every year each person gives into the Finance Board a
detailed statement of what clothing he or she requires for the coming
year, and upon the aggregate sum is based the estimate for the next year
for clothing. At the beginning of 1874, the women proposed a different
plan, which was thus described in the _Circular_:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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