Questions for Class Discussion

1. What were the fundamental human and social problems that Noyes radical ideas attempted to address? Why was he able to put them into practice in antebellum America?
   
   
2. Was the Oneida experiment doomed to failure from the start? Or should its nearly thirty years of existence be considered a rather remarkable success, especially in its challenge to traditional Victorian patterns of marriage gender relations, considering the very short life-span of most utopian communes?
   
   

Suggested Student Exercises

• Locate Putney, Vermont, and Oneida, New York on maps. Compare the pattern of Noyes communal migrations with those of other utopian groups that challenged conventional patterns of monogamous marriageespecially Joseph Smiths Mormons and Mother Ann Lees Shakers. Consider why such groups frequently migrated toward the frontier.
  
  
• Examine some of Noyes own statements and writings. Consider whether his sexual and communal experimentation was really a movement toward freedom, or whether it really represented a kind of cult-like control by the founder himself that was resented by the younger generation reared in the commune.