Documenting utopia in Oregon: The challenges of tracking the quest for perfection

Oregon Historical Quarterly

Volumn 105, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 308-319

  Kopp, James J ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 60950652240     PISSN: 00304727     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (69)

1. See, for instance, Arthur E. Morgan, Nowhere was Somewhere: How History Makes Utopias and How Utopias Make History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947)
2. and Lorainne Stobbart, Utopia, Fact or Fiction? The Evidence from the Americas (Wolfeboro Falls, N.H.: Alan Sutton, 1992)
3. See Malcolm Clark, Jr., Eden Seekers: The Settlement of Oregon, 1818-1862 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981)
4. William L. Lang, "An Eden of Expectations: Oregon Settlers and the Environment They Created," Oregon Humanities (Winter 1992), 28
5. See Jeff W. Hayes, Portland, Oregon, A.D. 1999 and Other Sketches (Portland, Ore.: F.W. Baltes, 1913)
6. Howard P. Segal, "Jeff W. Hayes: Reform Boosterism and Urban Utopianism," Oregon Historical Quarterly 79:4 (Winter 1978): 345-57
7. and Suzanne Elizabeth Reid, Presenting Ursula K. Le Guin (New York: Twayne, 1997)
8. For studies of Utopias in Oregon, see, for example, David Johnson, "Greener Grass: A Short History of Oregon's Utopian Tradition," Oregon Heritage 1:4 (Winter/Spring 1995): 14-17
9. Elizabeth Amsden,"Communes Rooted in Oregon History," Oregonian, October 11, 1984
10. and Ione Juanita Beale Harkness, "Certain Community Settlements of Oregon" (M.A. thesis, Univ. of Southern California, 1925), which is important for identifying documentation related to Aurora
11. Robert Hendricks, Bethel and Aurora: An Experiment in Communism as Practical Christianity with Some Account of Past and Present Ventures in Collective Living (New York: Press of the Pioneers, 1933), 228
12. On the "pseudo-historical" nature of Hendricks's work, see Philip H. Parrish's review of the book in Oregon Historical Quarterly 34:4 (December 1933): 374
13. See William Alfred Hinds, American Communities: Brief Sketches of Economy, Zoar, Bethel, Aurora, Amana, Icaria, the Shakers, Oneida, Wallingford, and the Brotherhood of the New Life (Oneida, N.Y.: Office of the American Socialist, 1878), 39-48
14. and his second revised edition, American Communities and Co-operative Colonies (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1908), 326-39
15. Also see Charles Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the United States... (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1875)
16. Frederick Woodward Skiff, Adventures in Americana: Recollections of Forty Years Collecting Books, Furniture, China, Guns and Glass (Portland, Ore.: Metropolitan Press, 1935), 200-23
17. Clark M. Will, The Story of Old Aurora (n.p.: author, 1982)
18. and Eugene Edmund Snyder, Aurora, Their Last Utopia: Oregon's Christian Commune, 1856-1883 (Portland, Ore.: Binford & Mort, 1993). Many theses and articles have been written on the Aurora Colony
19. Information on the Old Aurora Colony Museum and the Aurora Colony Historical Society can be found at www.auroracolonymuseum.com
20. Several of Will's illustrations can be found in Skiff, Adventures in Americana
21. See Alexander Kent, "Co-operative Communities in the United States," Bulletin of the Department of Labor 35 (July 1901): 563-646
22. Frederick A. Bushee, "Communistic Societies in the United States," Political Science Quarterly 20:4 (December 1905): 625-64
23. Ralph Albertson, A Survey of Mutualistic Communities in America (1936; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1973)
24. Robert S. Fogarty, Dictionary of American Communal and Utopian History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1980)
25. Yaacov Oved, Two Hundred Years of American Communes (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1988)
26. Timothy Miller, American Communes, 1860-1960: A Bibliography (New York: Garland, 1990)
27. Donald E. Pitzer, ed., America's Communal Utopias (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997)
28. and Foster Stockwell, Encyclopedia of American Communes, 1663-1963 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1998)
29. Also see Robert P. Sutton, Communal Utopias and the American Experience: Religious Communities, 1732-2000 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003)
30. and Sutton, Communal Utopias and the American Experience: Secular Communities, 1824-2000 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004)
31. See Helen E. Blumenthal, "New Odessa, 1882-1887: United We Stand, Divided We Fall" (M.A. thesis, Portland State University, 1975)
32. and Blumenthal, "New Odessa Colony of Oregon, 1882-1886," Western States Jewish Historical Quarterly 14:4 (July 1982): 321-32
33. Also see George B. Abdill, "New Odessa: Douglas County's Russian Communal Colony," Umpqua Trapper 1:4 (Winter 1965): 10-14, 2:1 (Spring 1966): 16-21
34. and Uri D. Herscher, Jeivish Agricultural Utopias in America, 1880-1910 (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1981), 37-48
35. See James J. Kopp, letter to the editor, Oregon Historical Quarterly 104:4 (Winter 2003): 616-77
36. See Monica St. Romain,"What Is Mystery of Old Religious Colony?" Newport News-Times, May 29, 1969
37. See James J. Kopp, "Looking Backward at Edward Bellamy's Influence in Oregon, 1888-1936," Oregon Historical Quarterly 104:1 (Spring 2003): 85-7
38. Also see James J. Kopp and Carol Ginter, "Seeking Prosperity and Freedom on the Oregon Coast: The Bellamy Colony, Lincoln County, Oregon (1897-1899)," Communal Societies 25 (forthcoming, 2005)
39. See Johnson, "Greener Grass," 15. This colony may have been part of a broader movement called the Brotherhood of Light Movement or the New Era Union Movement, and it may also have been influenced by Charles W. Caryl's New Era,... (Denver, Colo.: [Author], [1897]). See Pitzer, ed., America's Communal Utopias, 455, 480
40. More is known of the Holy Rollers of Corvallis, sometimes included as a Utopian group, examined inT. McCracken and Robert B. Blodgett, Holy Rollers: Murder and Madness in Oregon's Love Cult (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Press, 2002)
41. Pendleton East Oregonian, January 15, 1904
42. "Aurora Colony History - Will, Clark M. - Black Box," Aurora Colony Historical Society collection, Aurora, Oregon
43. See Katrine Barber and Janice Dilg,"Documenting Women's History: Using Oral History and the Collaborative Process," Oregon Historical Quarterly 103 (2002): 530-40
44. and Donna Sinclair and Peter Kopp, "Voices of Oregon: Twenty-Five Years of Professional Oral History of the Oregon Historical Society," Oregon Historical Quarterly 103 (2002): 250-63
45. This compilation draws from several sources, including Timothy Miller, The 60s Communes: Hippies and Beyond (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1999)
46. Roy Ald, The Youth Communes (New York: Tower Publications, 1970)
47. Directory of Collectives 1985. West Coast. USA. Canada (Berkeley: The Intercollective, [1985] )
48. and Communities Directory (Langley, Wash.: Fellowship of Intentional Community, 2000)
49. See Jann Mitchell, "Communal Quest," Oregonian, August 30, 1987
50. and Wendy Owen, "Cooperative Independence," Sunday Oregonian, December 9, 2001
51. Rajneeshpuram, the infamous community established near Antelope in central Oregon in the 1980s, has had numerous books and articles written about it. For other communes in Oregon, see Hal Hartzell, Jr., Birth of a Cooperative: Hoedads, Inc., A Worker Owned Forest Labor Co-op (Eugene, Ore.: Hulogos'I Communications, 1987)
52. Sue, Nelly, Dian, Carol, and Billie, Country Lesbians: The Story of the WomanShare Collective (Grants Pass, Ore.: WomanShare Books, 1976)
53. and chapters in such works as Robert Houriet, Getting Back Together (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1971) {High Ridge Farm and the Family of the Mystic Arts], and Hugh Gardner, The Children of Prosperity: Thirteen Modern American Communes (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978) [Talsalsan, Crook's Creek, and "Saddle Ridge Farm," a pseudonymic name for a community in southern Oregon]
54. The Family of Mystic Arts was featured (anonymously) as the cover story in Life: see John Stickney and John Olson, "The Commune Comes to America," Life, July 18, 1969
55. Eva Mosely, "Women in Archives: Documenting the History of Women in America," American Archivist 36:2 (April 1973): 215
56. Timothy J. Gilfoyle,"Prostitutes in the Archives: Problems and Possibilities in Documenting the History of Sexuality," American Archivist 57:3 (Summer 1994): 514-27
57. Mosely, "Women in Archives," 215
58. Paul S. Boyer, foreword to Fitter, ed., America's Communal Utopias, x
59. See Pitzer, ed., America's Communal Utopias, xv-xvi
60. Karl J.R. Arndt, A Documentary History of the Indiana Decade of the Harmony Society, 1814-1824, vol. 1, 1814-1819, vol. 2, 1820-1824 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1975, 1978)
61. Boyer, foreword to Pitzer, ed., America's Communal Utopias, x
62. I borrow the term "cultural suppression" from Gail Lee Dubrow, who has used it to describe suppression of Japanese characteristics in the architecture of the Pacific Northwest. See, for instance, Gail Lee Dubrow, "Deru Kugi Wa Utareru, or the Nail That Sticks up Gets Hit: The Architecture of Japanese American Identity, 1885-1942, the Rural Environment," Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 19:4 (Winter 2002): 319-33
63. Also see Gail Dubrow with Donna Graves, Sento at Sixth and Main: Preserving Landmarks of Japanese American Heritage (Seattle: Seattle Arts Commission, 2002)
64. and Dubrow, "The Nail That Sticks up Gets Hit: The Architecture of Japanese American Identity in the Urban Environment, 1884-1942," in Nikkei (dis)Appearances: Twentieth-Century Japanese American and Japanese Canadian History in the Pacific Northwest, ed. Louis Fiset and Gail Nomura (Seattle: University of Washington Press, forthcoming)
65. The Aurora Colony was one such endeavor viewed as "communistic. " See John E. Simon, "William Keil and Communist Colonies," Oregon Historical Quarterly 36:2 (June 1935): 119-53
66. Kent, "Co-operative Communities," 563
67. See, for instance, Pitzer, ed., America's Communal Utopias, 452, 454-5, 457, 482
68. Lawrence J. McCrank,"Religious Orders and Monastic Communalism in America," in Pitzer, ed., America's Communal Utopias, 204-52
69. Boyer, foreword to Pitzer, ed., America's Communal Utopias, xiii