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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
Disappointed by the demise of the Macedonia Cooperative Community, in which he had become a member, Staughton Lynd wrote in 1958: “Let us hope that some contemporary group will demonstrate by a living example that disintegration and authoritarianism are not our only alternatives.” Indeed, these have been the twin perils in the experience of many American intentional communities throughout the years, particularly those that have sought a high degree of integration as an antidote to what their members perceive to be the inequality and competitiveness of conventional society. Because such ideals cut across the cultural grain, the casualty rate is high. But the primary ingredient in the survival of some may be the very factor responsible for the mortality of others: the almost inevitable quest for a common center, characterized by insistence upon deeper levels of commitment, an increasing degree of homogeneity, and a greater sense of common purpose. Recent works by sociologists like Rosabeth Moss Kanter and historians like Laurence Vesey support this conclusion, as does the judgment of many earlier observers. The quest for such a communal center lay at the heart of the Macedonian experience.
1. Lynd, Staughton, “Can Men Live as Brothers?” Liberation, 2 (02 1958), 14.Google Scholar
2. Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1972)Google Scholar; Vesey, Laurence, The Communal Experience: Anarchist and Mystical Counter-Cultures in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1973).Google Scholar
3. Buber, Martin, Paths in Utopia (New York: Macmillan, 1950), p. 135.Google Scholar
4. Nordhoff, Charles, The Communistic Societies of the United States (1875; rpt. New York: Hillary House, 1961), p. 387.Google ScholarKanter, , Commitment and Community, makes much the same point (p. 136).Google Scholar
5. Nordhoff, , The Communistic Societies, p. 392.Google Scholar Vesey warns that structure and charisma frequently have combined to produce the strongest communal enterprises, but, in his view, at the cost of human freedom (The Communal Experience, p. 478).Google Scholar
6. On some of the community experiments in the first three decades of this century, see Vesey, , The Communal ExperienceGoogle Scholar; Kagan, Paul, New World Utopias (New York: Penguin, 1975)Google Scholar; Conkin, Paul K., Two Paths to Utopia: The Hutterites and the Llano Colony (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1965).Google Scholar
7. Muste, A. J.'s “critique of community” appeared in his serialized autobiography, “Not So Long Ago,” Liberation, 3 (09 1958), 18.Google Scholar
8. Morgan, Arthur E., Nowhere Was Somewhere: How History Makes Utopias and How Utopias Make History (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1946), p. 166.Google Scholar
9. Arthur Morgan to Henry Dyer, April 22, 1946, in the Macedonia Cooperative Community papers, donated by Morris R. Mitchell to the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, hereafter cited as the Macedonia papers, SCPC. I am indebted to Bernice Nichols, Curator of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, and her staff for their kind assistance in my research on Macedonia. I also would like to thank the staff of the Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina Library for their help in my use of the Morris R. Mitchell papers there.
10. Conkin, Paul K., Tomorrow a New World: The New Deal Community Program (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1959), pp. 127–28.Google Scholar
11. Banfield, Edward C., Government Project (Glencoe, III.: Free Press, 1951), p. 231Google Scholar; Lord, Russell and Johnstone, Paul H., eds., A Place on Earth: A Critical Appraisal of Subsistence Homesteads (Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture, 1942), pp. 181–82.Google Scholar
12. From Tugwell, 's foreword to Banfield, Government Project, p. 12.Google Scholar
13. Interview by the author with Wilmer and Mildred Young, Philadelphia, Pa., June 12, 1975; the homesteader's comment is quoted from a mimeographed report, “Little River Farm Project,” 12 1951.Google Scholar
14. Interview by the author with Morris Mitchell at his retirement home, White Pines, adjacent to the Macedonia tract, near Clarkesville, Ga., September 4, 1975.
15. “We, the undersigned …,” Clarkesville, Ga., 05 1, 1939Google Scholar, and “Articles of Incorporation for the Macedonia Cooperative Community” (not dated, but apparently written at the same time), the Macedonia papers, SCPC. Mitchell wrote glowingly of the cooperative community experiment in a number of articles, including “Taking Dewey Seriously,” Progressive Education, 15 (02 1938), 110–17Google Scholar, “Habersham County in the Awakening South,” Progressive Education, 17 (12 1940), 517–23Google Scholar, and “Teacher Education Through Useful Work,” Educational Methods, 20 (10 1940), 15–22.Google Scholar
16. Mitchell wanted the community to accept responsibility for an F.S.A. loan for capital improvement, but the members were not enthusiastic, and the loan eventually fell through. The issue regarding principles resulted when several members urged abandonment of the dairy enterprise and return of the carefully developed pastures to cultivation, a move which Mitchell could not accept.
17. The cooperative and service ideals in the early C.P.S. program are discussed in Orser, W. Edward, “Involuntary Community: Conscientious Objectors at Patapsco State Park during World War II,” Maryland Historical Magazine, 72 (Spring 1977), 132–46.Google Scholar
18. Camp Walhalla News, 04 1943Google Scholar, American Friends Service Committee Civilian Public Service papers (hereafter cited as AFSC papers), Swarthmore College Peace Collection.
19. “Preparation for Community in CPS,” reprinted from the Friends Intelligencer (05 13, 1944)Google Scholar, AFSC papers, SCPC.
20. Pacifica Views, 3 (04 1946), 2.Google Scholar
21. Henrik F. Infield compiled biographical information on the Macedonia participants for a community study in 1947, later reported in Utopia and Experiment: Essays in the Sociology of Cooperation (New York: Praeger, 1955), pp. 233–34.Google Scholar
22. “Macedonia Cooperative Community: Report—1948,” a twenty-page pamphlet in the Macedonia papers, SCPC, p. 3. Hereafter cited as “Report— 1948.”
23. Norman, Edward, “Letter to a Cooperative Community,” Cooperative Living, 4 (Spring 1953), 4.Google Scholar
24. Newton, David R., “The Macedonia Community,” Politics, 5 (Winter 1948), 29.Google Scholar
25. Infield reported his findings in Utopia and Experiment, pp. 212, 256.Google Scholar
26. Newton, , “The Macedonia Community,” p. 29.Google Scholar
27. Infield viewed this laxity regarding membership requirements as a major problem in 1947. See Utopia and Experiment, pp. 212, 230.Google Scholar
28. Morris Mitchell to Henrik Infield, November 4, 1948, the Macedonia papers, SCPC. Mitchell expressed similar views regarding his preference for cooperative rather than communal forms in an interview with the author, White Pines. Ga., March 31, 1975.
29. David Newton, in reply to an inquiry from Sweden, July 18, 1948, the Macedonia papers, SCPC.
30. “Report—1948,” pp. 9–10. Art Wiser wrote in 1949 that the community was committed to the principles that “income should be based on need” and that there should be “relative equality in the satisfaction of needs.” “Exploring Responsibility,” Fellowship, 15 (09 1949), 5.Google Scholar
31. “Report—1948,” p. 3.Google Scholar
32. Interview by the author with Ed and Margaret Moyer, Millmont, Pa., December 8, 1975.
33. Newton, , “The Macedonia Community,” p. 30.Google Scholar
34. Newton, , “The Macedonia Community,” p. 27.Google Scholar
35. Interview with the Moyers, , Millmont, Pa., 12 8, 1975.Google Scholar
36. Newton, , “The Macedonia Community,” p. 27.Google Scholar Ed Moyer observed in the interview, Millmont, Pa., December 8, 1975, “I think that there is the element of individual differences, and individuality, which I think is what we were trying to emphasize—now, maybe that's incompatible with the idea of a total giving of one's self.”
37. Newton, David, “Some Emotional Aspects of Group Living,” Cooperative Living, 3 (Fall 1951), 10–11.Google Scholar Italics in original.
38. Infield, Henrik F., The American Intentional Communities: Study in the Sociology of Cooperation (Glen Gardner, N.J.: Glen Gardner Community Press, 1955), pp. 39, 61.Google Scholar
39. Al Foster, who found his differences with the group too great to remain there, expressed his opinion in a letter to the author, December 28, 1975, that a nucleus of three or four families was pressing for “complete homogeneity.”
40. Henrik Infield summarized the misfortunes and defections in The American Intentional Communities (pp. 65–67)Google Scholar, and numerous letters and documents from 1952 and 1953 mention them in the Macedonia papers, SCPC. The Moyers attribute their decision to go to the jaundice, the realization of their own need for individuality, and their resistance to pressure toward a religious basis for community. Interview, Millmont, Pa., December 8, 1975.
41. Art Wiser to Mitchell, Morris, 07 14, 1953.Google Scholar A letter from Kurtz, Mark to Mitchell, Morris, 09 21, 1953Google Scholar, also stressed the effect of the troubles, generally, and the defection of the two families, in particular, as leading the community to seek a greater degree of unity. Both letters are from the Macedonia papers, SCPC.
42. “From the Community at Macedonia” (a mimeographed letter, undated, but clearly written at Christmas 1953), the Macedonia papers, SCPC.
43. On the history of the Bruderhof, see Arnold, Emmy, Torches Together: The Beginning and Early Years of the Bruderhof Communities (Rifton, N.Y.: Plough Publishing House, 1964)Google Scholar; Zablocki, Benjamin, The Joyful Community (Baltimore: Penguin, 1971)Google Scholar; and Whitworth, John McKelvie, God's Blueprints: A Sociological Study of Three Utopian Sects (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975).Google Scholar
44. “From the Community at Macedonia,” Christmas 1953.Google Scholar
45. “To all friends of the Society of Brothers, Kingwood Community, Macedonia Cooperative Community,” March 1954, the Macedonia papers, SCPC.
46. Art Wiser wrote to Mitchell, Morris, 03 25, 1954Google Scholar: “The Brothers present a challenge that is tremendous…. One can't simply say, ‘it just isn't for me’ and go on living” (the Macedonia papers, SCPC).
47. Lynd, Staughton, “The Individual Was Made for Community,” Liberation, 1 (01 1957), 16–17.Google Scholar
48. Lynd, , “The Individual Was Made for Community,” p. 15.Google Scholar Lynd later discussed the tenor of Macedonia life in “Open Politics and Community,” a talk printed in Repo, Satu, ed., This Book Is About Schools (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), pp. 240–52.Google Scholar An interview by the author with Staughton and Alice Lynd in Chicago, Ill., November 9, 1975, was quite helpful in shedding light on the dynamics of Macedonia's last three years. David Dellinger replied to Lynd's description of a closer form of communalism by insisting, “The Community Was Made for Man,” Liberation, 1 (01 1957), 18–19.Google Scholar
49. “Dear Friends of Macedonia,” 09 16, 1957Google Scholar, the Macedonia papers, SCPC.
50. Letters from Ruth and Wendell Kramer (of Tuolumne Co-operative Farm) and Griscom Morgan, among others, expressed these views in the Fellowship of Intentional Communities Newsletter, 10 1, 1958, pp. 8–11.Google Scholar
51. Letter from Harold Winchester in ibid., p. 2.
52. Bryce Babcock, formerly of Tuolumne and Hood River communities, in FIC (1958), pp. 11–12.Google Scholar
53. Lynd, Staughton, “Can Men Live as Brothers?” p. 14.Google Scholar
54. Griscom Morgan, an active participant in the FIC during this period and head of Community Services, Inc., for many years, felt that the Macedonia experience reinforced his view that integral community produced extreme personal stress, as well as pressure toward unity and uniformity. Interview by the author, Yellow Springs, Ohio, November 8, 1975.
55. Zablocki, Benjamin in The Joyful CommunityGoogle Scholar describes this period as one of “liberalization and expansion” for the Bruderhof, soon followed by a time of consolidation and tightening up (pp. 93–110).
56. It was not possible for me to ascertain the way in which Bruderhof members who formerly participated in the Macedonia Cooperative Community now view the Macedonia experience. One member, speaking for several I had hoped to interview, wrote me on June 2, 1975: “On joining we have taken vows to put the past under forgiveness and therefore it would be very difficult for us to talk or write about our past, either positively or negatively. Our commitment is to a life in the present and future.”
57. Arnold, Eberhard, “Why We Live in Community” (1927; rpt. Rifton, N.Y.: Plough Publishing House, 1967), p. 15.Google Scholar