Introductory Film
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Orientation Room
Carrying out one of the most audacious social experiments in American History, the Oneida Community proposed: All things are owned in common Men and women are comparable in standing All men and women are spouses to one another Sex is a joyful, spiritual act Men are responsible for preventing conception Children are planned and raised by the community as a wholeThe Oneida Community's solutions to property relations, gender equality, marriage, birth control, eugenics, and child-raising startled the people of their day. Their ideas still challenge us today.The Oneida Community exemplified major religious and intellectual currents in early 19th century America: The intense Christian fervor of Upstate New York, a region so frequently scorched by flames of revival that it was called "the Burnt-Over District;" The most progressive reform-thinking of the day (women's rights); and The best dreams of the time for living harmoniouslyThis group lasted longer than any other utopian society and came closest to lasting success.The house and gardens they created continue to bear witness to their energy, skill, and passionate idealism.We hope you experience something of the Oneida Community's spirit as you stroll through the building and grounds.
Exterior Architecture
As you exit the main (Kenwood Avenue) entrance, turn to your right and follow the sidewalk around the buildings.The Mansion House consists of five connected buildings, built to meet the changing needs of the Community. The current structure was built in stages from 1862 through 1914.The first house (no longer standing) was timber framed and built cooperatively in 1848 by Community men and women. That first Mansion House stood just south of the current buildings, at the foot of the existing slope.1862 HouseIn need of space and other improvements, in 1862, the Community designed a masonry building in Italian Villa style. Building design was led by Community member Erastus Hamilton, and incorporated design feedback from the entire Community. The Italian Villa style is distinguished by a tower, a low gabled roof with a cupola, and arcaded porch (features popular during the Italian Renaissance).South WingIn 1869, the Community began a program of carefully planned child-bearing, which they called stirpiculture. This increase in reproduction required an increase in living space, and in 1868–1869, an addition was built onto the south end of the main building. Further additions to the Children’s Department continued to the west, enclosing an interior courtyard. The three architectural masses rise to different heights, and are topped by a Mansard roof, a feature of the French Second Empire style popular during the 1850s and 1860s.The QuadrangleThe interior courtyard was called the Quadrangle. It also contained a storage building and a cistern. The Tulip Poplar tree was planted around 1851 and is currently one of the largest trees of that species in New York State.Standing inside the Quadrangle, you are surrounded by the Tontine (1863–1864), the Lounge (1914), the New House (1877–1878), the main building (1862), and the South Wing (1869).TontineThe Tontine originally stood apart from the other buildings until the Lounge was built. During Community days, the Tontine housed the dining room, kitchen, and laundry on the ground floor and basement. The second floor and basement were workshops for various operations, including silk-making operations and the printing department.The LoungeThe Lounge was designed by Theodore Skinner, who was born in the Community and trained as an architect at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition to houses and churches in Sherrill, Skinner also designed public spaces, including buildings at Smith College and the University of Virginia. The Lounge was imagined as a gathering place for residents and the community, a function it has fulfilled for many decades.New HouseThe Victorian Gothic styled New House, built in 1877–1878, was the last building of the communal period. The New House was designed by the architecture and engineering firm of Lewis W. Leeds, well-known for his attention to environmental hygiene and ventilation system designs. This building was the first Community structure to include flush toilets, and also featured low-pressure radiant heat, large sash windows, high ceilings, and exhaust flues.
The Big Hall
The Big Hall, or as the Oneida Community called it, “Family Hall” is the largest room in the Mansion House and is built to accommodate the entire Community and as a venue for musical and other performing arts. John Humphrey Noyes described the Hall as “an embodiment of our life and faith.”Adult members met here in evening meetings to discuss the variety of topics that affected Community life: religion, personal life, social issues, and economic activities. They also read from the Bible or listened to “home talks” by Noyes.The Community furnished the Hall with benches and an assortment of chairs and small tables. At evening meetings, members sat in chairs and around the tables. Benches werereserved for formal or public occasions.The Hall was designed for multiple uses but contains no overtly religious iconography. For example, the stage is theatrical, raked from back to front, with footlights and a proscenium arch. Trompe l’oeil painting imitates 3D paneling, embellishes the walls. The round paintings on the ceiling depict four Greek Muses.
The Upper Sitting Room
The Community depended upon and encouraged socializing. As one member explained, their home was designed with parlors and sitting rooms “to make association easy and attractive.” In contrast to the growing stratification in “the world,” Community life promoted co-mingling of women and men in most productive and social activities. The Upper Sitting Room was a space in which members spent time together or alone, in social or contemplative activities. The sitting room was surrounded by individual sleeping rooms, with comings and goings easily observed by those in the parlor. A similar parlor was below it on the first floor.
Sleeping Room
Most adults had a private bedroom similar to this one, which afforded privacy for sleep, spiritual reflection, and, of course, sexual “interviews” with other members.The Community pursued gender equality through complex marriage (rather than monogamy), ensuring no woman was subordinate to a man. Community members were free to engage multiple partners but sleeping in bed together was discouraged. The Perfectionists believed that spending too much time with one sexual partner led to emotional dependency and the sin of “special love.” The architectural priority of the Community was shared space within the Mansion House. Common areas, such as the Big Hall, were elaborately decorated. Individual sleeping chambers were almost monastic in design. Undoubtedly, members arranged their rooms to be pleasant and comfortable, with modest personal possessions, such as pictures, journals, keepsakes, and utilitarian objects. The miniature bureau was designed with such objects in mind.
Oneida Industries Exhibit
The Oneida Community earned much of their income from industrial manufacturing, especially metalworking, food preservation, and silk threadmaking. Those commercial activities connected the utopian Community with mainstream 19th century industrial capitalism.Animal trapping was big business in this period. Among the major customers for Community animal traps were farmers who wanted to control agricultural pests (rats, weasels), and the Hudson’s Bay Company, which wanted to trap beaver, mink and other fur-bearing animals—fashionable clothes for men and women.A second profitable venture was silk thread, spooled for the modern Singer Sewing Machine. Raw silk was imported from China and Japan, spun into thread at their Willow Place branch, and then brought to the Mansion House to be dyed and spooled.Thanks to their manufacturing activities, the Community was part of the surrounding economy. They even built a factory in 1864 at Willow Place (now Sherrill), a mile and half north of the Mansion House. That factory was managed by Community members, but worked by waged laborers—adults and children—whom the Community referred to as “hirelings.” Hirelings were not part of the religious Community. Originally, the Community embraced self-sufficiency and divided labor tasks among all members, as jobs rotated frequently. However, as they became more dependent upon commerce, they employed hired labor to increase profitability. Those economic practices changed the way the Community understood itself.Ultimately, the once-utopian Community voted to disband at the end of 1880 and transfer their common property—factories, land, Mansion House—to a joint-stock company, Oneida Community, Ltd. In the early 20th century, that company spun off the still-profitable trap business to focus on tableware. In 1935, the tableware company changed its name again, to Oneida Ltd. and led the world in silverware manufacturing.
The Cabinet of Curiosities
The main staircase leads up to the Vestibule; a gathering space immediately outside the Hall.Typical of the Victorian era, this cabinet of curiosities showcases objects that depict interests in natural and human history, and in other places and cultures. These collections also reflect the thinking and social practices of the Community, such as their interest in China and the trade in raw silk. It functioned as a way to teach the Community’s many children and show off for outside visitors.Vestibule walls are decorated with lithographs and paintings, including a portrait of French utopian philosopher Charles Fourier and an aerial view of a Fourierist phalanx, illustrating the Community’s interest in other collectivist societies.
The Old Library
According to an 1871 inventory, the Library contained 3,581 bound volumes and more than 140 periodicals on a wide range of topics: literature, history, science, philosophy, and Christianity. Classical works as well as books on contemporary affairs and scientific discoveries filled the shelves. The Community practiced and encouraged lifelong education and self-improvement. Community members believed it was important to maintain an open intellectual relationship with the outside world.One Community child remembered the Library as “that silent room where men and women, seated in comfortable armchairs, were reading while others bent over a long table scanning the files of newspapers.”
The Best Quilt
In the early 1800s, every woman needed to know how to sew. Women might sometimes work as a group to make a quilt. Each woman would contribute a square, and then quilt the squares together, creating what is called an album quilt.In 1873, Harriet Noyes invited her fellow Oneida Community members to make squares for an album quilt. The idea was popular. Community members made over a hundred quilt squares. Even some of the men got into the spirit of the quilt. The Community voted on which squares were the best, and stitched them together to make this "best quilt."The Best Quilt reflects the values, interests, and beliefs of the Community. Many of the squares depict symbols of work, family, or religion. The Best Quilt also reveals the interests of the women who created the squares. A women who loved to sing sewed a square with a musical motif. Another woman celebrated the Community's love for croquet in her square.Many of the quilt's contrbutions illustrated their work. Mixing squares of lathes and editing desks with squares of children and flowers demonstrated work as an essential park of life, as necessary as children and beauty. The Community saw work both as necessary labor and as a means of self-fulfillment. Community members changed jobs frequently. Defying the conventions of the time, both men and women cared for children and worked in the print shop.Fifteen year old Jessie Baker contributed Little Red Riding Hood. As an adult, known as Jessie Kinsley, she experimented with other forms of fabric art and created braided tapestries. Her braidings are on view throughout the Mansion House and are highlighted in their own exhibit.
Oneida Ltd. More than a Silverware Company
The Short Dress
The Nursery Kitchen
There were always children in the Oneida Community. Early joiners brought their kids with them; children were born into the Community as well. However, the birthrate was purposefully kept low for the first twenty years as members planned their growth as a Community. Within that effort, men practiced a form of birth control known as “male continence.” In 1869, the Community began a program of planned reproduction that they named “stirpiculture”. The Community proposed that spirituality was an inherited trait, and those members deemed most spiritually fit were encouraged to have children with each other. Between 1869 and 1880, about sixty such children were born. All children were cared for and educated together in the Children’s Department. The South Wing was built for that purpose. The South Wing’s Nursery Kitchen, also referred to as the “pocket kitchen,” was used throughout the day for various purposes.According to the Community’s bi-weekly Circular, “Here Aunt Susan comes every morning to prepare the mashed potato and barley porridge for the babies’ breakfast...and here in fact, is where one flees in moments of distress, whether afflicted with a toothache, an earache, or some other ache—he is sure to find something adapted to his ills.” (February 12, 1872) Although raised communally, children knew their biological mothers and, in most cases, their biological fathers as well. Community members expressed concern about “selfish love” and encouraged adults to love all children equally.
James R. Colway: From Central New York to the World
Coles Phillips: Beautiful Art Meets Innovative Advertising
Much of Oneida Ltd.’s success can be attributed to its innovative advertising campaigns. Oneida Ltd. was one of the first companies to hire professional artists to create large-scale advertisements that were works of art in and of themselves. In the early 20th century, the company hired Coles Phillips, a popular, talented, largely self-taught painter who did extensive work for Life magazine. There, he developed his signature “Fade Away Girl,” in which the model fades away into the background of the painting. Many of the ads featured in this hallway employ “the fade away” technique, which was not only incredibly popular but translated into big profits for Oneida Ltd. Part of this success was that these ads appealed to young people who were inspired by the stylish, modern appearances of the women depicted—something Phillips took meticulous care with. These striking and alluring ads made this series not only one of the most successful campaigns in Oneida Ltd.’s history, but a groundbreaking one for the advertising industry.Learn more about Oneida Limited’s history of innovative advertising by picking up a book in our gift shop!
Explore the Grounds
Further Reading and Watching
* Indicates availability through OCMH museum store; for more information or to order books, please call (315) 363-0745, or email Tom Guiler (tguiler@oneidacommunity.org)*Anderson, Ted and The Exhibition Alliance. The Braidings of Jessie Catherine Kinsley. Exhibit Catalog. Oneida, NY: Oneida Community Mansion House, 2010.* Carden, Maren Lockwood. Oneida: Utopian Community to Modern Corporation. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1998.* Doyle, Michael. The Minister’s War: John W. Mears, the Oneida Community, and the Crusade for Public Morality. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2018.* Edmonds, Walter D. The First Hundred Years, 1848-1948. New York: Oneida Ltd., 1948.Fogarty, Robert S., ed. Desire and Duty at Oneida: Tirzah Miller’s Intimate Memoir. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2000.*Fogarty, Robert S., ed. Special Love/Special Sex: An Oneida Community Diary. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1994.Foster, Lawrence. Religion and Sexuality: Three American Communal Experiments of the Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.* Foster, Lawrence. Women, Family, and Utopia: Communal Experiments of the Shakers, the Oneida Community, and the Mormons. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1991.*Giesburg, Judith. Sex and the Civil War: Soldiers, Pornography, and the Making of American Morality. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2017.* Gluck, Nancy. The Community Table. Norwalk, CTt: Silver Season, 2006.* Hatch, Laura Wayland-Smith. Harriet Worden: A Photographic Compilation of the Descendants of Harriet Worden and Her Partners in the Oneida Community. Morrisville, NC: Lulu Press, 2022.* Hatcher, John P. L. Oneida (Community) Limited: A Goodly Heritage Gone Wrong. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2016.Hayden, Dolores. Seven American Utopias: The Architecture of Communitarian Socialism, 1790-1975. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1976.Herrick, Tirzah Miller. Desire and Duty at Oneida: Tirzah Miller’s Intimate Memoir. Edited by Robert S. Fogarty. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2000.* Hinds, William Alfred. American Communities and Co-operative Colonies. Reprinted by Philadelphia, PA: Porcupine Press, 1975.Holloway, Mark. Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities in America, 1680-1880. New York: Turnstile Press, Ltd., 1951.Holloway, Mark. Utopian Communities in America, 1680-1880. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1966 and 2011.Jackson, Holly. American Radicals: How Nineteenth-Century Protest Shaped the Nation. New York: Crown, 2019.Jennings, Chris. Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism. New York: Random House, 2016.Kern, Louis J. An Ordered Love: Sex Roles and Sexuality in Victorian Utopias: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1981.* Kinsley, Jessie Catherine. A Lasting Spring: Jessie Catherine Kinsley, Daughter of the Oneida Community. Edited by Jane Kinsley Rich and Nelson M. Blake. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1983.* Klaw, Spencer. Without Sin: the Life and Death of a Utopian Community. New York: Viking, 1993.* Leonard, Dorothy. Monday Rhymes: Poems by Dorothy Leonard. Edited by Mary L. Beagle and Alan N. Stone. n.p., 1988.Mandelker, Ira L. Religion, Society, and Utopia in Nineteenth-Century America. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984.Nordhoff, Charles. The Communistic Societies of the United States from Personal Visit and Observation. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1875, reprinted 2012.* Noyes, Corinna Ackley. The Days Of My Youth. Introduction by Anthony Wonderley. Clinton, NY: Richard W. Couper Press, 2011.Noyes, George Wallingford, and Lawrence Foster. Free Love in Utopia: John Humphrey Noyes and the Origin of the Oneida Community. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001.Noyes, George Wallingford, ed. John Humphrey Noyes, The Putney Community. Oneida, NewYork, 1931.* Noyes, George Wallingford, ed. Religious Experience of John Humphrey Noyes, Founder of the Oneida Community. New York: Macmillan, 1923.Noyes, John Humphrey. History of American Socialisms. New York: Hillary House Publishers, 1961.Noyes, John Humphrey. Home-talks. LaVergne, TN: General Books, 2009.* Noyes, John Humphrey. Mutual Criticism. Edited by Murray Levine. Introduction by Murray Levine and Barbara Benedict Bunker. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1975.* Noyes, Pierrepont. A Goodly Heritage: Oneida Ltd. Silversmiths. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company, 1958.* Noyes, Pierrepont. My Father's House: an Oneida Boyhood. London: John Murray, 1937.Parker, Robert Allerton. A Yankee Saint; John Humphrey Noyes and The Oneida Community. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1935.Pitzer, Donald E., ed. America’s Communal Utopias. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.* Reece Erik. Utopia Drive: A Road Trip Through America’s Most Radical Idea. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2016.* Robertson, Constance Noyes. Oneida Community: An Autobiography, 1851-1876. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1970.* Robertson, Constance Noyes. Oneida Community: The Breakup, 1876-1881. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1972.Robertson, Constance Noyes. Oneida Community Profiles. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1977.* Schwartz Helen. “The Braidings of Jessie Catherine Kinsley: Oneida Community Mansion House.” Exhibit Catalog. Oneida Community Mansion House, n.d.Schaefer, Richard T. and William W. Zellner. Extraordinary Groups: An Examination of Unconventional Lifestyles, 9th edition. New York: Worth Publishers, 2011.* Skinner, Harriet H. Oneida Community Cooking or A Dinner Without Meat. Edited by Victoria Carver. Oneida Community Mansion House, 2013.* Smith, Barbara Noyes. The Merrie Green Fields Of Clover: A Memoir. n.p., 1989.Teeple, John B. The Oneida Family: Genealogy of a 19th Century Perfectionist Commune, Containing Original Community Photographs and Drawings. Oneida, New York: Oneida Community Historical Committee, 1985.0Thomas, Robert David. The Man Who Would Be Perfect: John Humphrey Noyes and the Utopian Impulse. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc., 1977.Walters, Ronald G. Amercan Reformers: 1815-1860. Revised Edition. New York: Hill and Wang, 1997.* Wayland-Smith, Ellen. The Angel in the Marketplace: Adwoman Jean Wade Rindlaub and the Selling of America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2020.* Wayland-Smith, Ellen. Oneida: From Free Love Utopia to the Well-Set Table. New York: Picador: 2016.* White, Carol. A Taste of Heaven on Earth: Harnessing the Energies of Love. Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2020.Whitworth, John McKelvie. God's Blueprints: A Sociological Study of Three Utopian Sects. London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975.* Wonderley, Anthony, ed. John Humphrey Noyes on Sexual Relations in the Oneida Community: Four Essential Texts. Clinton, NY: Richard W. Couper Press, 2012.* Wonderley, Anthony. Oneida Utopia: A Community Searching for Human Happiness and Prosperity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2017.* Wonderley, Anthony, Susan Belasco, Thomas A. Guilder, and Laura Wayland-Smith Hatch, ed. Voices of an American Utopia: The Oneida Community in Their Own Words. Oneida, NY: Oneida Community Mansion House, 2024.* Wonderley, Anthony, ed. Writings from Wallingford: The Connecticut Outpost of the Oneida Community. Clinton, NY: Richard Couper Press, 2020.* Worden, Harriet M. Old Mansion House Memories: By One Brought Up In It. Kenwood, Oneida, NY: Oneida Ltd., 1950. Youcha, Geraldine. Minding the Children. New York: Scribner, 1995.
