278 Chapter 10 The Making of Middle-Class America
United States. Rumors circulated that the Mormons
intended to take over the entire Northwest for their
“empire.” Once again local “gentiles” rose against
them. Smith was arrested, then murdered by a mob.
Under a new leader, Brigham Young, the
Mormons sought a haven beyond the frontier. In
1847 they marched westward, pressing through the
mountains until they reached the desolate wilderness
on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. There, at last,
they established their Zion and began to make their
truly significant impact on American history.
Irrigation made the desert flourish, precious water
wisely being treated as a community asset. Hard,
cooperative, intelligently directed effort spelled
growth and prosperity; more than 11,000 people
were living in the area when it became part of the
Utah Territory in 1850. In time the communal
Mormon settlement broke down, but the religion has
remained—known as the Church of Latter-Day
Saints, a major force in the shaping of the West. The
Mormon Church is still by far the most powerful sin-
gle influence in Utah and is a thriving organization in
many other parts of the United States and in Europe.
Despite their many common characteristics, the
religious communities varied enormously; subordina-
tion of the individual to the group did not destroy
group individualism. Their sexual practices, for exam-
ple, ranged from the “complex marriage” of the
Oneidans through Mormon polygamy and ordinary
monogamy to the reluctant acceptance of sexual
intercourse by the Amana Community and the
celibacy of the Shakers. The communities are more
significant as reflections of the urgent reform spirit of
the age than they are for their accomplishments.
The communities had some influence on reform-
ers who wished to experiment with social organiza-
tion. When Robert Owen, a Britishutopiansocialist
who believed in economic as well as political equality
and who considered competition debasing, decided
to create an ideal community in America, he pur-
chased the Rappite settlement at New Harmony,
Indiana. Owen’s advocacy of free love and “enlight-
ened atheism” did not add to the stability of his
group or to its popularity among outsiders. The
colony was a costly failure.
The American followers of Charles Fourier, a
French utopian socialist who proposed that society
should be organized in cooperative units called pha-
lanxes, fared better. Fourierism did not seek to tam-
per with sexual and religious mores. Its advocates
included important journalists such as Horace
Greeley of the New York Tribuneand Parke Godwin
of the New York Evening Post. In the 1840s several
dozen Fourierist colonies were established in the
northern and western states. Members worked at
whatever tasks they wished and only as much as they
wished. Wages were paid according to the “repulsive-
ness” of the tasks performed; the person who “chose”
to clean out a cesspool would receive more than
someone hoeing corn or mending a fence or engag-
ing in some task requiring complex skills. As might be
expected, none of the communities lasted very long.Utopian Communities before the Civil Warat
myhistorylab.comReligious Troublemakers of the Nineteenth
Centuryatmyhistorylab.comThe Age of Reform
The communitarians were the most colorful of the
reformers, their proposals the most spectacular. More
effective, however, were the many individuals who took
on themselves responsibility for caring for the physically
and mentally disabled and for the rehabilitation of crim-
inals. The work of Thomas Gallaudet in developing
methods for educating deaf people reflects the spirit of
the times. Gallaudet’s school in Hartford, Connecticut,
opened its doors in 1817; by 1851 similar schools for
the deaf had been established in fourteen states.
Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe did similar work with
the blind, devising means for making books with
raised letters (Louis Braille’s system of raised dots was
not introduced until later in the century) that the
blind could “read” with their fingers. Howe headed a
school for the blind in Boston, the pioneering Perkins
Institution, which opened in 1832. Of all that
Charles Dickens observed in America, nothing so
favorably impressed him as Howe’s success in educat-
ing twelve-year-old Laura Bridgman, who was deaf,
mute, and blind. Howe was also interested in trying
to educate the mentally disabled and in other causes,
including antislavery. “Every creature in human shape
should command our respect,” he insisted. “The
strong should help the weak, so that the whole
should advance as a band of brethren.”
One of the most striking aspects of the reform
movement was the emphasis reformers placed on
establishing special institutions for dealing with social
problems. In the colonial period, orphans, indigent
persons, the insane, and the feebleminded were usually
cared for by members of their own families or boarded
in a neighboring household. They remained part of the
community. Even criminals were seldom “locked
away” for extended jail terms; punishment commonly
consisted of whipping, being placed in stocks in the
town square, or (for serious crimes) execution. But
once persuaded that people were primarily shaped by
their surroundings, reformers demanded that deviant
and dependent members of the community be takenWatchtheVideoSeetheMap