A cooperative community founded by John Humphrey Noyes in Oneida, New York in 1848 after he went under a religious conversion. The community was dedicated to an ideal of perfect economic and social equality. Community members shared property and even marriage partners. The Oneida Community was often attacked for their system of planned reproduction and communal child-rearing as a sinful experiment in "free love". However, the community managed to prosper economically through their high-end silverware products.
New Harmony
A secular experiment in New Harmony, Indiana founded by the Welsh industrialist and reformer Robert Owen. This socialist community was created out of hope that it could provide an answer to the problems of inequality and alienation caused by the Industrial Revolution. This experiment failed due to financial problems and disagreements in the community.
Brooke Farm
A communal experiment created by Protestant minister, George Ripley, in Massachusetts in 1841. This was created to see if a community of people could live out a life of the transcendentalist ideal. Ripley wished to achieve "a more natural union between intellectual and manual labor". Some of those living at Brook Farm, like Emerson, were leading intellectuals at the time. The experiment ended in 1849 due to a bad fire and heavy debts. Brook Farm is remembered for its atmosphere of artistic creativity, innovative school, and its appeal to New England's intellectual elite and their children.
Lowell System
Because factory life could not compete with the lure of cheap land in the West, textile mills in Lowell Massachusetts recruited younger farm women and housed them in company dormitories. This system was created by Francis Cabot Lowell. In the 1830s, other factories began to imitate the Lowell System and many of them used child labor as well. Single women consisted as the majority of the workers due to their lack of household activities and a spouse that was expected to support them.