E-text prepared by Eric Eldred, Marvin A. Hodges, Charles Franks, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team
THE COMMUNISTIC SOCIETIES OF THE UNITED STATES
_FROM PERSONAL VISIT AND OBSERVATION_
BY CHARLES NORDHOFF
TO MY FRIENDS, DOCTOR AND MRS. JOHN DAVIS, OF CINCINNATI.
[Illustration: VIEWS IN ZOAR.]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
SUBJECTS OF THE INQUIRY
THE CONDITION AND NECESSITIES OF LABOR
MISTAKE OF THE TRADES-UNIONS
REASONS FOR IT
LABOR SOCIETIES, AS AT PRESENT MANAGED, MISCHIEVOUS
THE AMANA SOCIETY
ITS HISTORY AND ORIGIN
AMANA IN 1874
SOCIAL HABITS AND CUSTOMS
RELIGION AND LITERATURE
THE HARMONISTS AT ECONOMY
ECONOMY IN 1874
HISTORY OF THE HARMONY SOCIETY
ITS RELIGIOUS CREED
PRACTICAL LIFE
SOME PARTICULARS OF "FATHER RAPP"
THE SEPARATISTS OF ZOAR
ORIGIN AND HISTORY
THEIR RELIGIOUS FAITH
PRACTICAL LIFE AND PRESENT CONDITION
THE SHAKERS
"MOTHER ANN"
THE ORDER OF LIFE AMONG THE SHAKERS
A VISIT TO MOUNT LEBANON
DETAILS OF ALL THE SHAKER SOCIETIES
SHAKER LITERATURE
"SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATIONS"
THE ONEIDA AND WALLINGFORD PERFECTIONISTS
ORIGIN AND HISTORY
THEIR RELIGIOUS BELIEF
DAILY LIFE AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
SUNDAY AT ONEIDA
"CRITICISM" AND "PRAYER-CURES"
THE AURORA AND BETHEL COMMUNES
AURORA IN OREGON
BETHEL IN MISSOURI
THEIR HISTORY AND RELIGIOUS FAITH
THE ICARIANS
THE BISHOP HILL COLONY
ITS ORIGIN AND HISTORY
CAUSES OF ITS FAILURE
THE CEDAR VALE COMMUNE
THE SOCIAL FREEDOM COMMUNITY
THREE COLONIES--NOT COMMUNISTIC
ANAHEIM, IN CALIFORNIA
VINELAND, IN NEW JERSEY
SILKVILLE PRAIRIE HOME, IN KANSAS
COMPARATIVE VIEW AND REVIEW
STATISTICAL
COMMUNAL POLITICS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY
CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE
INFLUENCES OF COMMUNISTIC LIFE
CONDITIONS AND POSSIBILITIES OF COMMUNISTIC LIVING
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VIEWS IN ZOAR
MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF COMMUNISTIC SOCIETIES
GRACE BEFORE MEAT--AMANA
SCHOOL-HOUSE--AMANA
AMANA, A GENERAL VIEW
CHURCH AT AMANA
INTERIOR VIEW OF CHURCH
PLAN OF THE INSPIRATIONIST VILLAGES
ASSEMBLY HALL--ECONOMY
CHURCH AT ECONOMY
A STREET VIEW IN ECONOMY
FATHER RAPP'S HOUSE--ECONOMY
CHURCH AT ZOAR SCHOOL-HOUSE AT ZOAR
A GROUP OF SHAKERS
THE FIRST SHAKER CHURCH, AT MOUNT LEBANON
SHAKER ARCHITECTURE--MOUNT LEBANON
SHAKER ARCHITECTURE--ENFIELD, N. H.
SHAKER WOMEN AT WORK
SHAKER COSTUMES
SHAKER WORSHIP.--THE DANCE
SISTERS IN EVERY-DAY COSTUME
ELDER FREDERICK W. EVANS
VIEW OF A SHAKER VILLAGE
THE HERB-HOUSE--MOUNT LEBANON
MEETING-HOUSE AT MOUNT LEBANON
INTERIOR OF MEETING-HOUSE AT MOUNT LEBANON
SHAKER TANNERY--MOUNT LEBANON
SHAKER OFFICE AND STORE AT MOUNT LEBANON
A SHAKER ELDER
A GROUP OF SHAKER CHILDREN
SHAKER DINING-HALL
A SHAKER SCHOOL
SHAKER MUSIC-HALL
J. H. NOYES, FOUNDER OF THE PERFECTIONISTS
COSTUMES AT ONEIDA
THE BETHEL COMMUNE, MISSOURI
CHURCH AT BETHEL, MISSOURI
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF COMMUNISTIC SOCIETIES.]
INTRODUCTION
Though it is probable that for a long time to come the mass of mankind
in civilized countries will find it both necessary and advantageous to
labor for wages, and to accept the condition of hired laborers (or, as
it has absurdly become the fashion to say, employees), every thoughtful
and kind-hearted person must regard with interest any device or plan
which promises to enable at least the more intelligent, enterprising,
and determined part of those who are not capitalists to become such, and
to cease to labor for hire.
Nor can any one doubt the great importance, both to the security of the
capitalists, and to the intelligence and happiness of the
non-capitalists (if I may use so awkward a word), of increasing the
number of avenues to independence for the latter. For the character and
conduct of our own population in the United States show conclusively
that nothing so stimulates intelligence in the poor, and at the same
time nothing so well enables them to bear the inconveniences of their
lot, as a reasonable prospect that with industry and economy they may
raise themselves out of the condition of hired laborers into that of
independent employers of their own labor. Take away entirely the grounds
of such a hope, and a great mass of our poorer people would gradually
sink into stupidity, and a blind discontent which education would only
increase, until they became a danger to the state; for the greater their
intelligence, the greater would be the dissatisfaction with their
situation--just as we see that the dissemination of education among the
English agricultural laborers (by whom, of all classes in Christendom,
independence is least to be hoped for), has lately aroused these
sluggish beings to strikes and a struggle for a change in their
condition.
Hitherto, in the United States, our cheap and fertile lands have acted
as an important safety-valve for the enterprise and discontent of our
non-capitalist population. Every hired workman knows that if he chooses
to use economy and industry in his calling, he may without great or
insurmountable difficulty establish himself in independence on the
public lands; and, in fact, a large proportion of our most energetic and
intelligent mechanics do constantly seek these lands, where with patient
toil they master nature and adverse circumstances, often make fortunate
and honorable careers, and at the worst leave their children in an
improved condition of life. I do not doubt that the eagerness of some of
our wisest public men for the acquisition of new territory has arisen
from their conviction that this opening for the independence of laboring
men was essential to the security of our future as a free and peaceful
state. For, though not one in a hundred, or even one in a thousand of
our poorer and so-called laboring class may choose to actually achieve
independence by taking up and tilling a portion of the public lands, it
is plain that the knowledge that any one may do so makes those who do
not more contented with their lot, which they thus feel to be one of
choice and not of compulsion.
Any circumstance, as the exhaustion of these lands, which should
materially impair this opportunity for independence, would be, I
believe, a serious calamity to our country; and the spirit of the
Trades-Unions and International Societies appears to me peculiarly
mischievous and hateful, because they seek to eliminate from the
thoughts of their adherents the hope or expectation of independence. The
member of a Trades-Union is taught to regard himself, and to act toward
society, as a hireling for life; and these societies are united, not as
men seeking a way to exchange dependence for independence, but as
hirelings, determined to remain such, and only demanding better
conditions of their masters. If it were possible to infuse with this
spirit all or the greater part of the non-capitalist class in the United
States, this would, I believe, be one of the gravest calamities which
could befall us as a nation; for it would degrade the mass of our
voters, and make free government here very difficult, if it did not
entirely change the form of our government, and expose us to lasting
disorders and attacks upon property.
We see already that in whatever part of our country the Trades-Union
leaders have succeeded in imposing themselves upon mining or
manufacturing operatives, the results are the corruption of our
politics, a lowering of the standard of intelligence and independence
among the laborers, and an unreasoning and unreasonable discontent,
which, in its extreme development, despises right, and seeks only
changes degrading to its own class, at the cost of injury and loss to
the general public.
The Trades-Unions and International Clubs have become a formidable power
in the United States and Great Britain, but so far it is a power almost
entirely for evil. They have been able to disorganize labor, and to
alarm capital. They have succeeded, in a comparatively few cases, in
temporarily increasing the wages and in diminishing the hours of labor
in certain branches of industry--a benefit so limited, both as to
duration and amount, that it cannot justly be said to have inured to the
general advantage of the non-capitalist class. On the other hand, they
have debased the character and lowered the moral tone of their
membership by the narrow and cold-blooded selfishness of their spirit
and doctrines, and have thus done an incalculable harm to society; and,
moreover, they have, by alarming capital, lessened the wages fund,
seriously checked enterprise, and thus decreased the general prosperity
of their own class. For it is plain that to no one in society is the
abundance of capital and its free and secure use in all kinds of
enterprises so vitally important as to the laborer for wages--to the
Trades-Unionist.
To assert necessary and eternal enmity between labor and capital would
seem to be the extreme of folly in men who have predetermined to remain
laborers for wages all their lives, and who therefore mean to be
peculiarly dependent on capital. Nor are the Unions wiser or more
reasonable toward their fellow-laborers; for each Union aims, by
limiting the number of apprentices a master may take, and by other
equally selfish regulations, to protect its own members against
competition, forgetting apparently that if you prevent men from becoming
bricklayers, a greater number must seek to become carpenters; and that
thus, by its exclusive policy, a Union only plays what Western gamblers
call a "cut-throat game" with the general laboring population. For if
the system of Unions were perfect, and each were able to enforce its
policy of exclusion, a great mass of poor creatures, driven from every
desirable employment, would be forced to crowd into the lowest and least
paid. I do not know where one could find so much ignorance, contempt for
established principles, and cold-blooded selfishness, as among the
Trades-Unions and International Societies of the United States and Great
Britain--unless one should go to France. While they retain their present
spirit, they might well take as their motto the brutal and stupid saying
of a French writer, that "Mankind are engaged in a war for bread, in
which every man's hand is at his brother's throat." Directly, they offer
a prize to incapacity and robbery, compelling their ablest members to do
no more than the least able, and spoiling the aggregate wealth of
society by burdensome regulations restricting labor. Logically, to the
Trades-Union leaders the Chicago or Boston fire seemed a more beneficial
event than the invention of the steam-engine; for plenty seems to them a
curse, and scarcity the greatest blessing. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy
footnote relocated to chapter end.]
Any organization which teaches its adherents to accept as inevitable for
themselves and for the mass of a nation the condition of hirelings, and
to conduct their lives on that premise, is not only wrong, but an injury
to the community. Mr. Mill wisely says on this point, in his chapter on
"The Future of the Laboring Classes": "There can be little doubt that
the _status_ of hired laborers will gradually tend to confine itself
to the description of work-people whose low moral qualities render them
unfit for any thing more independent; and that the relation of masters
and work-people will be gradually superseded by partnership in one of
two forms: in some cases, association of the laborers with the
capitalist; in others, and perhaps finally in all, association of
laborers among themselves." I imagine that the change he speaks of will
be very slow and gradual; but it is important that all doors shall be
left open for it, and Trades-Unions would close every door.
Professor Cairnes, in his recent contribution to Political Economy, goes
further even than Mr. Mill, and argues that a change of this nature is
inevitable. He remarks: "The modifications which occur in the
distribution of capital among its several departments, as nations
advance, are by no means fortuitous, but follow on the whole a
well-defined course, and move toward a determinate goal. In effect, what
we find is a constant growth of the national capital, accompanied with a
nearly equally constant decline in the proportion of this capital which
goes to support productive labor.... Though the fund for the
remuneration of mere labor, whether skilled or unskilled, must, so long
as industry is progressive, ever bear a constantly diminishing
proportion alike to the growing wealth and growing capital, there is
nothing in the nature of things which restricts the laboring population
to this fund for their support. In return, indeed, for their mere labor,
it is to this that they must look for their sole reward; but _they may
help production otherwise than by their labor: they may save, and thus
become themselves the owners of capital;_ and profits may thus be
brought to aid the wages-fund." [Footnote: "Some Leading Principles of
Political Economy Newly Expounded." By J. E. Cairnes, M.A. New York,
Harper & Brothers.]
Aside from systematized emigration to unsettled or thinly peopled
regions, which the Trades-Unions of Europe ought to organize on a great
scale, but which they have entirely neglected, the other outlets for the
mass of dissatisfied hand-laborers lie through co-operative or
communistic efforts. Co-operative societies flourish in England and
Germany. We have had a number of them in this country also, but their
success has not been marked; and I have found it impossible to get
statistical returns even of their numbers. If the Trades-Unions had used
a tenth of the money they have wasted in futile efforts to shorten hours
of labor and excite their members to hatred, indolence, and waste, in
making public the statistics and the possibilities of co-operation, they
would have achieved some positive good.
But while co-operative efforts have generally failed in the United
States, we have here a number of successful Communistic Societies,
pursuing agriculture and different branches of manufacturing, and I have
thought it useful to examine these, to see if their experience offers
any useful hints toward the solution of the labor question. Hitherto
very little, indeed almost nothing definite and precise, has been made
known concerning these societies; and Communism remains loudly but very
vaguely spoken of, by friends as well as enemies, and is commonly a word
either of terror or of contempt in the public prints.
In the following pages will be found, accordingly, an account of the
COMMUNISTIC SOCIETIES now existing in the United States, made from
personal visit and careful examination; and including for each its
social customs and expedients; its practical and business methods; its
system of government; the industries it pursues; its religious creed and
practices; as well as its present numbers and condition, and its
history.
It appears to me an important fact that these societies, composed for
the most part of men originally farmers or mechanics--people of very
limited means and education--have yet succeeded in accumulating
considerable wealth, and at any rate a satisfactory provision for their
own old age and disability, and for the education of their children or
successors. In every case they have developed among their membership
very remarkable business ability, considering their original station in
life; they have found among themselves leaders wise enough to rule, and
skill sufficient to enable them to establish and carry on, not merely
agricultural operations, but also manufactures, and to conduct
successfully complicated business affairs.
Some of these societies have existed fifty, some twenty-five, and some
for nearly eighty years. All began with small means; and some are now
very wealthy. Moreover, while some of these communes are still living
under the guidance of their founders, others, equally successful, have
continued to prosper for many years after the death of their original
leaders. Some are celibate; but others inculcate, or at least permit
marriage. Some gather their members into a common or "unitary" dwelling;
but others, with no less success, maintain the family relation and the
separate household.
It seemed to me that the conditions of success vary sufficiently among
these societies to make their histories at least interesting, and
perhaps important. I was curious, too, to ascertain if their success
depended upon obscure conditions, not generally attainable, as
extraordinary ability in a leader; or undesirable, as religious
fanaticism or an unnatural relation of the sexes; or whether it might
not appear that the conditions absolutely necessary to success were only
such as any company of carefully selected and reasonably determined men
and women might hope to command.
I desired also to discover how the successful Communists had met and
overcome the difficulties of idleness, selfishness, and unthrift in
individuals, which are commonly believed to make Communism impossible,
and which are well summed up in the following passage in Mr. Mill's
chapter on Communism:
"The objection ordinarily made to a system of community of property and
equal distribution of the produce, that each person would be incessantly
occupied in evading his fair share of the work, points, undoubtedly, to
a real difficulty. But those who urge this objection forget to how great
an extent the same difficulty exists under the system on which nine
tenths of the business of society is now conducted. The objection
supposes that honest and efficient labor is only to be had from those
who are themselves individually to reap the benefit of their own
exertions. But how small a part of all the labor performed in England,
from the lowest paid to the highest, is done by persons working for
their own benefit. From the Irish reaper or hodman to the chief justice
or the minister of state, nearly all the work of society is remunerated
by day wages or fixed salaries. A factory operative has less personal
interest in his work than a member of a Communist association, since he
is not, like him, working for a partnership of which he is himself a
member. It will no doubt be said that, though the laborers themselves
have not, in most cases, a personal interest in their work, they are
watched and superintended, and their labor directed, and the mental part
of the labor performed, by persons who have. Even this, however, is far
from being universally the fact. In all public, and many of the largest
and most successful private undertakings, not only the labors of detail,
but the control and superintendence are entrusted to salaried officers.
And though the 'master's eye,' when the master is vigilant and
intelligent, is of proverbial value, it must be remembered that in a
Socialist farm or manufactory, each laborer would be under the eye, not
of one master, but of the whole community. In the extreme case of
obstinate perseverance in not performing the due share of work, the
community would have the same resources which society now has for
compelling conformity to the necessary conditions of the association.
Dismissal, the only remedy at present, is no remedy when any other
laborer who may be engaged does no better than his predecessor: the
power of dismissal only enables an employer to obtain from his workmen
the customary amount of labor, but that customary labor may be of any
degree of inefficiency. Even the laborer who loses his employment by
idleness or negligence has nothing worse to suffer, in the most
unfavorable case, than the discipline of a workhouse, and if the desire
to avoid this be a sufficient motive in the one system, it would be
sufficient in the other. I am not undervaluing the strength of the
incitement given to labor when the whole or a large share of the benefit
of extra exertion belongs to the laborer. But under the present system
of industry this incitement, in the great majority of cases, does not
exist. If communistic labor might be less vigorous than that of a
peasant proprietor, or a workman laboring on his own account, it would
probably be more energetic than that of a laborer for hire, who has no
personal interest in the matter at all. The neglect by the uneducated
classes of laborers for hire of the duties which they engage to perform
is in the present state of society most flagrant. Now it is an admitted
condition of the communist scheme that all shall be educated; and this
being supposed, the duties of the members of the association would
doubtless be as diligently performed as those of the generality of
salaried officers in the middle or higher classes; who are not supposed
to be necessarily unfaithful to their trust, because so long as they are
not dismissed their pay is the same in however lax a manner their duty
is fulfilled. Undoubtedly, as a general rule, remuneration by fixed
salaries does not in any class of functionaries produce the maximum of
zeal; and this is as much as can be reasonably alleged against
communistic labor.
"That even this inferiority would necessarily exist is by no means so
certain as is assumed by those who are little used to carry their minds
beyond the state of things with which they are familiar....
"Another of the objections to Communism is similar to that so often
urged against poor-laws: that if every member of the community were
assured of subsistence for himself and any number of children, on the
sole condition of willingness to work, prudential restraint on the
multiplication of mankind would be at an end, and population would start
forward at a rate which would reduce the community through successive
stages of increasing discomfort to actual starvation. There would
certainly be much ground for this apprehension if Communism provided no
motives to restraint, equivalent to those which it would take away. But
Communism is precisely the state of things in which opinion might be
expected to declare itself with greatest intensity against this kind of
selfish intemperance. Any augmentation of numbers which diminished the
comfort or increased the toil of the mass would then cause (which now it
does not) immediate and unmistakable inconvenience to every individual
in the association--inconvenience which could not then be imputed to the
avarice of employers or the unjust privileges of the rich. In such
altered circumstances opinion could not fail to reprobate, and if
reprobation did not suffice, to repress by penalties of some
description, this or any other culpable self-indulgence at the expense
of the community. The communistic scheme, instead of being peculiarly
open to the objection drawn from danger of over-population, has the
recommendation of tending in an especial degree to the prevention of
that evil."
It will be seen in the following pages that means have been found to
meet these and other difficulties; in one society even the prudential
restraint upon marriage has been adopted.
Finally, I wished to see what the successful Communists had made of
their lives; what was the effect of communal living upon the character
of the individual man and woman; whether the life had broadened or
narrowed them; and whether assured fortune and pecuniary independence
had brought to them a desire for beauty of surroundings and broader
intelligence: whether, in brief, the Communist had any where become
something more than a comfortable and independent day-laborer, and
aspired to something higher than a mere bread-and-butter existence.
To make my observations I was obliged to travel from Maine in the
northeast to Kentucky in the south, and Oregon in the west. I have
thought it best to give at first an impartial and not unfriendly account
of each commune, or organized system of communes; and in several
concluding chapters I have analyzed and compared their different customs
and practices, and attempted to state what, upon the facts presented,
seem to be the conditions absolutely requisite to the successful conduct
of a communistic society, and also what appear to be the influences, for
good and evil, of such bodies upon their members and upon their
neighbors.
I have added some particulars of the Swedish Commune which lately
existed at Bishop Hill, in Illinois, but which, after a flourishing
career of seven years, has now become extinct; and I did this to show,
in a single example, what are the causes which work against harmony and
success in such a society.
Also I have given some particulars concerning three examples of
colonization, which, though they do not properly belong to my subject,
are yet important, as showing what may be accomplished by co-operative
efforts in agriculture, under prudent management.
It is, I suppose, hardly necessary to say that, while I have given an
impartial and respectful account of the religious faith of each commune,
I am not therefore to be supposed to hold with any of them. For
instance, I thought it interesting to give some space to the very
singular phenomena called "spiritual manifestations" among the Shakers;
but I am not what is commonly called a "Spiritualist."
[Relocated Footnote: Lest I should to some readers appear to use too
strong language, I append here a few passages from a recent English
work, Mr. Thornton's book "On Labor," where he gives an account of some
of the regulations of English Trades-Unions:
"A journeyman is not permitted to teach his own son his own trade, nor,
if the lad managed to learn the trade by stealth, would he be permitted
to practice it. A master, desiring out of charity to take as apprentice
one of the eight destitute orphans of a widowed mother, has been told by
his men that if he did they would strike. A bricklayer's assistant who
by looking on has learned to lay bricks as well as his principal, is
generally doomed, nevertheless, to continue a laborer for life. He will
never rise to the rank of a bricklayer, if those who have already
attained that dignity can help it."
"Some Unions divide the country round them into districts, and will not
permit the products of the trades controlled by them to be used except
within the district in which they have been fabricated.... At Manchester
this combination is particularly effective, preventing any bricks made
beyond a radius of four miles from entering the city. To enforce the
exclusion, paid agents are employed; every cart of bricks coming toward
Manchester is watched, and if the contents be found to have come from
without the prescribed boundary the bricklayers at once refuse to
work.... The vagaries of the Lancashire brick makers are fairly
paralleled by the masons of the same county. Stone, when freshly
quarried, is softer, and can be more easily cut than later: men
habitually employed about any particular quarry better understand the
working of its particular stone than men from a distance; there is great
economy, too, in transporting stone dressed instead of in rough blocks.
The Yorkshire masons, however, will not allow Yorkshire stone to be
brought into their district if worked on more than one side. All the
rest of the working, the edging and jointing, they insist on doing
themselves, though they thereby add thirty-five per cent, to its
price.... A Bradford contractor, requiring for a staircase some steps of
hard delf-stone, a material which Bradford masons so much dislike that
they often refuse employment rather than undertake it, got the steps
worked at the quarry. But when they arrived ready for setting, his
masons insisted on their being worked over again, at an expense of from
5s. to 10s. per step. A master-mason at Ashton obtained some stone ready
polished from a quarry near Macclesfield. His men, however, in obedience
to the rules of their club, refused to fix it until the polished part
had been defaced and they had polished it again by hand, though not so
well as at first.... In one or two of the northern counties, the
associated plasterers and associated plasterers' laborers have come to
an understanding, according to which the latter are to abstain from all
plasterers' work except simple whitewashing; and the plasterers in
return are to do nothing except pure plasterers' work, that the laborers
would like to do for them, insomuch that if a plasterer wants laths or
plaster to go on with, he must not go and fetch them himself, but must
send a laborer for them. In consequence of this agreement, a Mr. Booth,
of Bolton, having sent one of his plasterers to bed and point a dozen
windows, had to place a laborer with him during the whole of the four
days he was engaged on the job, though any body could have brought him
all he required in half a day.... At Liverpool, a bricklayer's laborer
may legally carry as many as twelve bricks at a time. Elsewhere ten is
the greatest number allowed. But at Leeds 'any brother in the Union
professing to carry more than the common number, which is eight bricks,
shall be fined 1s.'; and any brother 'knowing the same without giving
the earliest information thereof to the committee of management shall be
fined the same.'... During the building of the Manchester Law Courts,
the bricklayers' laborers struck because they were desired to wheel
bricks instead of carrying them on their shoulders."]
THE INSPIRATIONISTS,
AT
AMANA, IOWA
THE AMANA COMMUNITY.
I.
The "True Inspiration Congregations," as they call themselves ("_Wahre
Inspiration's Gemeinden_"), form a communistic society in Iowa,
seventy-four miles west of Davenport.
The society has at this time 1450 members; owns about 25,000 acres of
land; lives on this land in seven different small towns; carries on
agriculture and manufactures of several kinds, and is highly prosperous.
Its members are all Germans.
The base of its organization is religion; they are pietists; and their
religious head, at present a woman, is supposed by them to speak by
direct inspiration of God. Hence they call themselves "Inspirationists."
They came from Germany in the year 1842, and settled at first near
Buffalo, on a large tract of land which they called Eben-Ezer. Here they
prospered greatly; but feeling the need of more land, in 1855 they began
to remove to their present home in Iowa.
They have printed a great number of books--more than one hundred
volumes; and in some of these the history of their peculiar religious
belief is carried back to the beginning of the last century. They
continue to receive from Germany accessions to their numbers, and often
pay out of their common treasury the expenses of poor families who
recommend themselves to the society by letters, and whom their inspired
leader declares to be worthy.
They seem to have conducted their pecuniary affairs with eminent
prudence and success.
II.--HISTORICAL.
The "Work of Inspiration" is said to have begun far back in the
eighteenth century. I have a volume, printed in 1785, which is called
the "Thirty-sixth Collection of the Inspirational Records," and gives an
account of "Brother John Frederick Rock's journeys and visits in the
year 1719, wherein are recorded numerous utterances of the Spirit by his
word of mouth to the faithful in Constance, Schaffhausen, Zurich, and
other places."
They admit, I believe, that the "Inspiration" died out from time to
time, but was revived as the congregations became more godly. In 1749,
in 1772, and in 1776 there were especial demonstrations. Finally, in the
year 1816, Michael Krausert, a tailor of Strasburg, became what they
call an "instrument" (_werkzeug_), and to him were added several
others:
Philip Moschel, a stocking-weaver, and a German; Christian Metz, a
carpenter; and finally, in 1818, Barbara Heynemann, a "poor and
illiterate servant-maid," an Alsatian ("_eine arme ganz ungdehrte
Dienstmagd_").
Metz, who was for many years, and until his death in 1867, the spiritual
head of the society, wrote an account of the society from the time he
became an "instrument" until the removal to Iowa. From this, and from a
volume of Barbara Heynemann's inspired utterances, I gather that the
congregations did not hesitate to criticize, and very sharply, the
conduct of their spiritual leaders; and to depose them, and even expel
them for cause. Moreover, they recount in their books, without disguise,
all their misunderstandings. Thus it is recorded of Barbara Heynemann
that in 1820 she was condemned to expulsion from the society, and her
earnest entreaties only sufficed to obtain consent that she should serve
as a maid in the family of one of the congregation; but even then it was
forbidden her to come to the meetings. Her exclusion seems, however, to
have lasted but a few months. Metz, in his "Historical Description,"
relates that this trouble fell upon Barbara because she had too friendly
an eye upon the young men; and there are several notices of her desire
to marry, as, for instance, under date of August, 1822, where it is
related that "the Enemy" tempted her again with a desire to marry George
Landmann; but "the Lord showed through Brother Rath, and also to her own
conscience, that this step was against his holy will, and accordingly
they did not marry, but did repent concerning it, and the Lord's grace
was once more given her." But, like Jacob, she seems to have wrestled
with the Lord, for later she did marry George Landmann, and, though they
were for a while under censure, she regained her old standing as an
"inspired instrument," came over to the United States with her husband,
was for many years the assistant of Metz, and since his death has been
the inspired oracle of Amana.
In the year 1822 the congregations appear to have attracted the
attention of the English Quakers, for I find a notice that in December
of that year they were visited by William Allen, a Quaker minister from
London, who seems to have been a man of wealth. He inquired concerning
their religious faith, and told them that he and his brethren at home
were also subject to inspiration. He persuaded them to hold a meeting,
at which by his desire they read the 14th chapter of John; and he told
them that it was probable he would be moved of the Lord to speak to
them. But when they had read the chapter, and while they waited for the
Quaker's inspiration, Barbara Heynemann was moved to speak. At this
Allen became impatient and left the meeting; and in the evening he told
The brethren that the Quaker inspiration was as real as their own,
but that they did not write down what was spoken by their preachers;
whereto he received for reply that it was not necessary, for it was
evident that the Quakers had not the real inspiration, nor the proper
and consecrated "instruments" to declare the will of the Lord; and so the
Quaker went away on his journey home, apparently not much edified.
The congregations were much scattered in Germany, and it appears to have
been the habit of the "inspired instruments" to travel from one to the
other, deliver messages from on high, and inquire into the spiritual
condition of the faithful. Under the leadership of Christian Metz and
several others, between 1825 and 1839 a considerable number of their
followers were brought together at a place called Armenburg, where
manufactures gave them employment, and here they prospered, but fell
into trouble with the government because they refused to take oaths
and to send their children to the public schools, which were under
the rule of the clergy.
In 1842 it was revealed to Christian Metz that all the congregations
should be gathered together, and be led far away out of their own country.
Later, America was pointed out as their future home. To a meeting of the
elders it was revealed who should go to seek out a place for settlement;
and Metz relates in his brief history that one Peter Mook wanted to be
among these pioneers, and was dissatisfied because he was not among those
named; and as Mook insisted on going, a message came the next day from
God, in which he told them they might go or stay as they pleased, but
if they remained in Germany it would be "at their own risk;" and as Mook
was not even named in this message, he concluded to remain at home.
Metz and four others sailed in September, 1842, for New York. They found
their way to Buffalo; and there, on the advice of the late Mr. Dorsheimer,
from whom they received much kindness, bought five thousand acres of the
old Seneca Indian reservation at ten dollars per acre. To this they added
later nearly as much more. Parts of this estate now lie within the
corporate limits of Buffalo; and though they sold out and removed to the
West before the land attained its present value, the purchase was a most
fortunate one for them. Metz records that they had much trouble at first
with the Indians; but they overcame this and other difficulties, and by
industry and ingenuity soon built up comfortable homes. Three hundred and
fifty persons were brought out in the first year, two hundred and
seventeen in 1844; and their numbers were increased rapidly, until they
had over one thousand people in their different villages.
[Illustration: Amana, a general view.]
Between 1843 and 1855, when they began to remove to Iowa, they turned
their purchase at Eben-Ezer (as they called the place) into a garden. I
visited the locality last year, and found there still the large,
substantial houses, the factories, churches, and shops which they built.
Street cars now run where they found only a dense forest; and the eight
thousand acres which they cleared are now fertile fields and
market-gardens. Another population of Germans has succeeded the Amana
Society; their churches now have steeples, and there is an occasional
dram-shop; but the present residents speak of their predecessors with
esteem and even affection, and in one of the large stores I found the
products of the Iowa society regularly sold. A few of the former members
still live on the old purchase.
They appear to have had considerable means from the first. Among the
members were several persons of wealth, who contributed large sums to
the common stock. I was told that one person gave between fifty and
sixty thousand dollars; and others gave sums of from two to twenty
thousand dollars.
They were not Communists in Germany; and did not, I was told, when they
first emigrated, intend to live in community. Among those who came over
in the first year were some families who had been accustomed to labor in
factories. To these the agricultural life was unpleasant, and it was
thought advisable to set up a woolen factory to give them employment.
This was the first difficulty which stared them in the face. They had
intended to live simply as a Christian congregation or church, but the
necessity which lay upon them of looking to the temporal welfare of all
the members forced them presently to think of putting all their means
into a common stock.
Seeing that some of the brethren did not take kindly to agricultural
labor, and that if they insisted upon a purely agricultural settlement
they would lose many of their people, they determined that each should,
as far as possible, have employment at the work to which he was
accustomed. They began to build workshops, but, to carry these on
successfully, they had business tact enough to see that it was necessary
to do so by a general contribution of means.
"We were commanded at this time, by inspiration, to put all our means
together and live in community," said one to me; "and we soon saw that
we could not have got on or kept together on any other plan."
Eben-Ezer is a wide plain; and there, as now in Iowa, they settled their
people in villages, which they called "Upper," "Lower," and "Middle"
Eben-Ezer. From the large size of many of the houses, I imagine they had
there, commonly, several families in one dwelling. At Amana each family
has its own house; otherwise their customs were similar to those still
retained in Iowa, which I shall describe in their proper place.
In 1854 they were "commanded by inspiration" to remove to the West. They
selected Iowa as their new home, because land was cheap there; and in
1855, having made a purchase, they sent out a detachment to prepare the
way.
It is a remarkable evidence of the prudence and ability with which they
conduct their business affairs, that they were able to sell out the
whole of their eight-thousand-acre tract near Buffalo, with all their
improvements, without loss. Usually such a sale is extremely difficult,
because the buildings of a communistic society have peculiarities which
detract from their value for individual uses. The Rappists, who sold out
twice, were forced to submit to heavy loss each time. I do not doubt
that several of the northern Shaker societies would have removed before
this to a better soil and climate but for the difficulty of selling
their possessions at a fair price.
The removal from Eben-Ezer to Amana, however, required ten years. As
they found purchasers in one place they sent families to the other;
meantime they do not appear to have found it difficult to maintain their
organization in both.
III.--AMANA--1874.
"The name we took out of the Bible," said one of the officers of the
society to me. They put the accent on the first syllable. The name
occurs in the Song of Solomon, the fourth chapter and eighth verse:
"Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from
the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions'
dens, from the mountains of the leopards."
Amana in Iowa, however, is not a mountain, but an extensive plain, upon
which they have built seven villages, conveniently placed so as to
command the cultivated land, and to form an irregular circle within
their possessions. In these villages all the people live, and they are
thus divided:
Name Population Business
Amana 450 Woolen-mill, saw and grist mill,
and farming
East Amana 125 Farming.
Middle Amana 350 Woolen-mill and farming.
Amana near the Hill 125 Farming, saw-mill, and tannery.
West Amana 150 Grist-mill and farming.
South Amana 150 Saw-mill and farming
Homestead 135 Railroad station, a saw-mill, farming,
and general depot.
The villages lie about a mile and a half apart, and each has a store at
which the neighboring farmers trade, and a tavern or inn for the
accommodation of the general public. Each village has also its
shoemakers', carpenters', tailors', and other shops, for they aim to
produce and make, as far as possible, all that they use. In Middle Amana
there is a printing-office, where their books are made.
The villages consist usually of one straggling street, outside of which
lie the barns, and the mills, factories, and workshops. The houses are
well built, of brick, stone, or wood, very plain; each with a sufficient
garden, but mostly standing immediately on the street. They use no
paint, believing that the wood lasts as well without. There is usually a
narrow sidewalk of boards or brick; and the school-house and church are
notable buildings only because of their greater size. Like the Quakers,
they abhor "steeple-houses"; and their church architecture is of the
plainest. The barns and other farm buildings are roomy and convenient.
On the boundaries of a village are usually a few houses inhabited by
hired laborers.
Each family has a house for itself; though when a young couple marry,
they commonly go to live with the parents of one or the other for some
years.
As you walk through a village, you notice that at irregular intervals
are houses somewhat larger than the rest. These are either cook-houses
or prayer-houses. The people eat in common, but for convenience' sake
they are divided, so that a certain number eat together. For Amana,
which has 450 people, there are fifteen such cooking and eating houses.
In these the young women are employed to work under the supervision of
matrons; and hither when the bell rings come those who are appointed to
eat at each--the sexes sitting at separate tables, and the children
also by themselves.
"Why do you separate men from women at table?" I asked.
"To prevent silly conversation and trifling conduct," was the answer.
Food is distributed to the houses according to the number of persons
eating in each. Meal and milk are brought to the doors; and each
cooking-house is required to make its own butter and cheese. For those
whom illness or the care of small children keeps at home, the food is
placed in neat baskets; and it was a curious sight to see, when the
dinner-bell rang, a number of women walking rapidly about the streets
with these baskets, each nicely packed with food.
When the bell ceases ringing and all are assembled, they stand up in
their places in silence for half a minute, then one says grace, and when
he ends, all say, "God bless and keep us safely," and then sit down.
There is but little conversation at table; the meal is eaten rapidly,
but with decorum; and at its close, all stand up again, some one gives
thanks, and thereupon they file out with quiet order and precision.
They live well, after the hearty German fashion, and bake excellent
bread. The table is clean, but it has no cloth. The dishes are coarse
but neat; and the houses, while well built, and possessing all that is
absolutely essential to comfort according to the German peasants' idea,
have not always carpets, and have often a bed in what New-Englanders
would call the parlor; and in general are for use and not ornament.
They breakfast between six and half-past six, according to the season,
have supper between six and seven, and dinner at half-past eleven. They
have besides an afternoon lunch of bread and butter and coffee, and in
summer a forenoon lunch of bread, to which they add beer or wine, both
home-made.
They do not forbid tobacco.
Each business has its foreman; and these leaders in each village meet
together every evening, to concert and arrange the labors of the
following day. Thus if any department needs for an emergency an extra
force, it is known, and the proper persons are warned. The trustees
select the temporal foremen, and give to each from time to time his
proper charge, appointing him also his helpers. Thus a member showed me
his "ticket," by which he was appointed to the care of the cows, with
the names of those who were to assist him. In the summer, and when the
work requires it, a large force is turned into the fields; and the women
labor with the men in the harvest. The workmen in the factories are, of
course, not often changed.
The children are kept at school between the ages of six and thirteen;
the sexes do not sit in separate rooms. The school opens at seven
o'clock, and the children study and recite until half-past nine. From
that hour until eleven, when they are dismissed for dinner, they knit
gloves, wristlets, or stockings. At one o'clock school reopens, and they
once more attend to lessons until three, from which hour till half-past
four they knit again. The teachers are men, but they are relieved by
women when the labor-school begins. Boys as well as girls are required
to knit. One of the teachers said to me that this work kept them quiet,
gave them habits of industry, and kept them off the streets and from
rude plays.
They instruct the children in musical notation, but do not allow musical
instruments. They give only the most elementary instruction, the "three
Rs," but give also constant drill in the Bible and in the Catechism.
"Why should we let our youth study? We need no lawyers or preachers; we
have already three doctors. What they need is to live holy lives, to
learn God's commandments out of the Bible, to learn submission to his
will, and to love him."
The dress of the people is plain. The men wear in the winter a vest
which buttons close up to the throat, coat and trousers being of the
common cut.