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
Each family cooks for itself; but they have a general bakehouse, and
make excellent bread. They have no general laundry. They have led water
into the village from a reservoir on a hill beyond. Most of the houses
accommodate several families, but each manages its own affairs. Tea,
coffee, sugar, and other "groceries," are served out to all householders
once a week. The young girls are taught to sew, knit, and spin, and to
do the work of the household. The boys, when they leave school, are
taught trades or put on the farm.
In their religious observances they studiously avoid forms. On Sunday
they have three meetings. In the morning there is singing, after which
the leading trustee reads one of Baumeler's discourses, which they are
careful not to call sermons. In the afternoon there is a children's
meeting, where there is singing, and reading in the Bible. In the
evening they meet to sing and hear reading from some work which
interests them. They do not practice audible or public prayer. There are
no religious meetings during the week; but the boys meet occasionally to
practice music, as they have a band. The church has an organ, and
several of the houses have pianos. They do not allow dancing. There is
no "preacher," or clergyman. They have printed a hymn-book, which is
used in their worship.
Baumeler had some knowledge of homoeopathy, and was during his life the
physician of the community, and they still use the system of medicine
which he introduced among them. Like all the communists I have known,
they are long-lived. A number of members have lived to past eighty--the
oldest now is ninety-one; and he, strangely enough, is an American, a
native of New Hampshire, who, after a roving life in the West, at last,
when past fifty, became a Shaker, and after eleven years among that
people, came to Zoar twenty-eight years ago, and has lived here ever
since. The old fellow showed the shrewd intelligence of the Yankee,
asking me whether we New-Yorkers were likely after all to beat the
Tammany Ring; and declaring his belief that the Roman Catholics were the
worst enemies of the United States. He appeared to be, what a person of
his age usually is if he retain his faculties, a sort of
adviser-general; he sat in the common room of the hotel, and when any
one came in he asked him about his business, and gave him advice what to
do.
The oldest German member is now eighty-six; and there are still between
thirty and forty people who came over from Germany with Baumeler. The
latter died in 1853, at the age of seventy-five.
Most of the members now are middle-aged people, and the society is
prosperous. Thirty-five years ago, however, it had double the number it
now counts. Occasionally members leave; and in the society's early days
it had much trouble and suffered some losses from suits for wages
brought against it by dissatisfied persons. Hence the stringent terms of
the covenant.
They use neither Baptism nor the Lord's Supper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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