Oneida, Ellen WaylandSmith
Oneida, Ellen WaylandSmith
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Oneida
From Free Love Utopia to the Well-Set Table

Author: Ellen Wayland-Smith

Narrator: Khristine Hvam

Unabridged: 12 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/03/2016

Synopsis

In the early nineteenth century, many Americans were looking for an alternative to the Puritanism that had been the foundation of the new country. Amid the fervor of the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening, John Humphrey Noyes, a spirited but socially awkward young man, attracted a group of devoted followers with his fiery sermons about creating Jesus' millennial kingdom here on Earth. Noyes established a revolutionary community in rural New York centered around achieving a life free of sin through God's grace, while also espousing equality of the sexes and "complex marriage," a system of free love where sexual relations with multiple partners was encouraged. When the Community disbanded in 1880, a new generation of Oneidans sought to exorcise the ghost of their fathers' disreputable sexual theories. Converted into a joint-stock company, Oneida Community, Limited, would go on to become one of the nation's leading manufacturers of silverware.

Told by a descendant of one of the Community's original families, Oneida is a captivating story that straddles two centuries to reveal how a radical, free-love sect transformed into a purveyor of the white-picket-fence American dream.

About Ellen Wayland-Smith

Ellen Wayland-Smith teaches in the writing program at the University of Southern California, and received her PhD in comparative literature from Princeton University. A descendant of John Humphrey Noyes, the founder of the Oneida community, she lives in Los Angeles with her family.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Morgan on July 05, 2021

I was excited to read this book, especially to understand the connection between electricity, sex, and immortality. ;) I found the author’s writing to be a bit long-winded. I also felt she infused so much of her own personal opinions and judgments that I didn’t know if I was always getting the facts......more

Goodreads review by Liss on January 05, 2020

This was meant to be my final book of 2019 - however, I got busy through the holidays and couldn't quite carve out enough time to push through to the end before the arbitrary deadline. Alas! It's a very good read about a really fascinating time in American (and specifically American religious) histo......more

Goodreads review by Claire on May 22, 2017

Spectacularly dull for a book that had a chapter called "sex battery." I guess it'll take even more than bizarro sex communism to make 19th century Revivalism interesting to me. Several book club members brought in their silverware.......more

Goodreads review by Susan O on January 31, 2018

3.5 Ellen Wayland-Smith, a descendant of the original founders of the Oneida community, digs into the commune's history and tells the story of how they started, but of more interest to me, how they changed and survived for over 100 years. A commune espousing free love was not unusual in the years bef......more

Goodreads review by Noel on September 10, 2017

Fascinating and well-presented book of the Oneida community. I've read many accounts, and what I like best about this one is that it traces the line of the OC past its abandonment of Complex Marriage to its present-day families.......more

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