“History is more or less bunk.” Henry Ford

“Well this history isn’t.” Holly Rennick

“Those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana

“Might we give this one another try?” Cindi Barton

HOLLY’S COMMENTS:

The upcoming NEA Iowa Conference for Teachers of Language Arts is soliciting papers dealing with “Language for Leadership.” If I get something accepted, District will foot the bill and it will count as a professional activity in my annual review. Otherwise, I have to go to PTA meetings. What I’m going to write, “Cohabitive Control by Misogynist Dominance, the Oneida Story,” might be more interesting than the “FDR’s Fireside Chats” that Doris Mullins presented last year.

The Oneida community, New York, was one of the more successful utopian communes in history, “Christian Perfectionism” shielding themselves from sin in the 1800s.

Because Adam and Eve were created innocent, and we, as their children, have no shame, we’re innately sinless. “The church on earth is now rising to meet the approaching kingdom in the heavens, and to become its duplicate and representative on earth.” Man might thus live his life purely. (Sorry for the sexism, but that’s how they put it.)

The Oneida community was of interest to HG Wells, Aldous Huxley, Julian Huxley, and George Bernard Shaw, the latter appending “Experiment at Oneida Creek” in his “The Revolutionist’s Handbook” to his “Man and Superman.” Thus my topic has literary merit.

Today, Oneida is a silver company, but the original community was good in both business and what they called “complex marriage.” It’s such a shame that the art is lost. Not the silversmithing art, I mean to say, the other one.

My paper will analyze the use of language by Oneida’s father figure, John Humphrey Noyes, 1811-1886. First, though, I want to get the chronology in order. I’ll do the deconstruction later. I took “Deconstructionism and Postmodernism” as an English major.

There are books on the subject and an archive of original documents at Syracuse University. For those wanting a more scholarly study, there’s Martin Richards (2004) “Perfecting People: Selective Breeding at the Oneida Community (1869–1879) and the Eugenics Movement,” New Genetics and Society, 23:1, 47-71. It’s on the web. Check out the illustrations.

I won’t load my paper up with references, though, since who cares?

I’ve asked my colleague Cindi Barton to check me out. She teaches science.

CINDI’S COMMENTS

For heaven’s sake! Why did I agree to do this? English majors like Holly should stick to how to use the semicolon, or whatever. As a scientist, let’s say I discover a new element doing the strong-acid-plus-sugar demo — “Safety glasses, everyone.” — maybe I’ll write a paper. I could call it “Cindium.” Maybe “Bartonium” if it’s radioactive. “Br” is taken, though, but I think “Ci” is still available. I have this chart.

Anyway, my comments are inserted between the

*** Cindi Begins

and the *** Cindi Ends

. Holly’s just insecure about sex. That’s why we’re buddies; we balance each other. For reading over her notes, she’s promised to take me to the Sizzler.

Holly, back over to you.

*** Cindi Ends

LET HISTORY SPEAK

John Humphrey Noyes was born in Brattleboro, Vermont in 1811. His forebears arrived from England just 14 years after the Pilgrims. Noyes’ father, a successful businessman and Congressman, had become an agnostic while studying theology at Dartmouth. Noyes’ mother was an aunt of Rutherford Hayes. Sixteen years younger than her husband, she was strong-willed and deeply religious. She taught her children to fear the Lord, praying before John’s birth that someday he might someday become a minister of the Gospel.

In 1826 New England religious revival hit its peak, but young Noyes was cynical. He entered Dartmouth, graduated with honors in 1830, and spent a year studying law.

*** Cindi Begins

This guy pronounces his name like “noise,” but it’s spelled “No” plus “yes.” He’s out to pull the old switcheroo.

I’ll refrain comment about an older father, a younger mother and a growing boy. I can hear Mrs. Noyes when Mr. Noyes was at his office. “John Humphrey, dear. Come upstairs and work this whalebone under my bosom so it fits me better.”

So we’ve got his number. Things look grim for Holly’s deconstruction, or whatever she plans to do with this. When I go to NEA, I run into my principal on the elevator and we skip the papers.

*** Cindi Ends

THAT OLD-TIME RELIGION

The Second Great Awakening swept northern states in 1831. All could enter heaven by repenting of sin. At the request of his mother, John Humphrey attended an event, but shrill he was at unmoved, but then suffered a feverish cold that led him to think of death, humble himself, expect the Millennial Kingdom, end his study of law and enroll at Andover Seminary.

But he found the Andover students too worldly and transferred to Yale, a hotbed of anti-Calvinistic Perfectionism, an offshoot of Wesleyanism offering a path to holiness by inner salvation. He was ordained as a Congregational minister.

In 1834 Noyes spent three weeks in New York City during which he fluctuated from manic euphoria to depression, and just days after that, announced that he’d reached a state of sinlessness. Perhaps because a sinless world might be difficult for organized religion, his license to preach was annulled.

Noyes found the succeeding three years difficult as he wandered around New York and New England, expounding with little success his unorthodox beliefs.

*** Cindi Begins

This is why I’m a Catholic. We’re not perfect. Maybe I let a guy undo a few buttons because we’re just fooling around on the Hudson’s Bay blanket and then he slips down my jeans and, well, you know. Confess it.

If it was your brother, maybe you don’t give that detail to the Father, is all. Some Fathers mess up with the celibacy thing. They’re not perfect either, but they should definitely not have sex with the Sisters.

Myself, I never ask about a guy’s religion, but I can tell. Another Catholic will never look at Mary above my bed. I got that picture when I was little. A good Catholic will cross himself afterward.

*** Cindi Ends

COMPLEX MARRIAGE

By 1836, Noyes’ thoughts had coalesced. By his calculation, the Second Coming had already occurred in 70 AD, so it was high time for him to implement the benefits, a Biblical Communism in which property was owned jointly. More revolutionary than Marxian economics, however, would be the end of exclusive marriage. As there’s no marriage in Heaven, the faithful may love each other fully, and those who love each other in communal association must be allowed to love each other physically, “not by pairs, as in the world, but en masse.”

Perfected unity results where each is married to all in all manners. “Free love” was a term Noyes believed himself to have coined, but as the label was soon purloined to represent licentiousness, with which Noyes had no affinity, he entitled it “complex marriage.”

“In the holy community, there is no more reason why sexual intercourse should be restricted by law than why eating and drinking should be ... Experience testifies that the human heart is capable of loving more than one at the same time.”

*** Cindi Begins

I agree it’s not about shame, but to make it like snarfing down a Big Mac?

Sex is fun when it’s a little bit possible and a little bit risky. Take Aaron in my Life Sciences, for example. He’s not confident with girls. My bending over turns him beet red. My risk wasn’t much, just allowing him a peek. His risk was brushing me when hanging up the wall chart of the nitrogen cycle. Three or four times, as nobody was watching. He’s an opportunity that awaits. I’ll do the No-Yes to steer him along, but let’s be honest; it isn’t as we’ll be going to McDonald’s.

*** Cindi Ends

BEGINNINGS

Noyes’ 1837 denunciation of marriage in his radical The Battle-Axe and Weapons of War newspaper temporarily cost him most of his followers, but his effort snared Harriet Holton, granddaughter of the Lieutenant Governor. After she started to financially support him, Noyes proposed marriage in which they’d selfishly possess one another just for a time and then grow to higher dimensions.

“By this marriage, besides herself, and a good social position, which she held as belonging to the first families of Vermont, I obtained money enough to buy a house and printing-office, and to buy a press and type.”

During the decade following, Noyes published a series of newspapers promoting his views and helped arrange the marriages of his sisters to two of his adherents, Harriet to John Skinner and Charlotte to John Miller. He gained the loyalty of his younger brother George and later, his own mother.

The Putney, Vermont community came to be. John Humphrey was the boss. “I would never connect myself with any individual or association in religion unless I were acknowledged leader.”

Putney communism “included all property of family living and associations” Some 37 members lived in three houses, maintained a store and worshiped in a chapel. They ran two farms and supported themselves.

In 1841, Noyes and Harriet initiated the complex marriage aspect by enlarging their marital relations to include George and Mary Cragin.

*** Cindi Begins

I knew it! Who comes back into the picture? Mr. No-Yes. We don’t need to be rocket scientists to see his design. Sex, a community activity; he’s said so. So whom does he recruit? His mom and his sisters.

*** Cindi Ends

MALE CONTINENCE

“Male continence” meant the man inside the woman for periods of over an hour and withdrawing without ejaculation after the woman experienced multiple orgasms.

“I conceived the idea that the sexual organs have a social function which is distinct from the propagative; and that these functions may be separated practically. I experimented on this idea, and found that the self-control which it required was not difficult; also that my enjoyment was increased; also that my wife’s experience was very satisfactory, as it had never been before.

“We begin by analyzing the act of sexual intercourse. It has a beginning, middle, and an end. Its beginning and most elementary form is the simple presence of the male organ in the female. Then usually follows a series of reciprocal motions. Finally this exercise brings a nervous action or ejaculatory crisis which expels the semen ... Suppose the man chooses ... to enjoy ... the reciprocal motion, and yet to stop short of the final crisis ... If you say that this is impossible, I answer that I know it is possible, nay, that it is easy.

“I appeal to the memory of every man who has had good sexual experience to say whether, on the whole, the sweetest and noblest period of intercourse with woman is not that first of simple presence and spiritual effusion, before the muscular exercise begins.

“As propagation will become a science, so amative intercourse will have place among the fine arts. Indeed it will take rank above music, painting, sculpture &c; for it combines the charms and benefits of them all.”

Noyes, the rationalist, was troubled by any waste of semen. In sex not intended for procreation, the expulsion of semen was illogical. Celibacy didn’t solve the God-given need. Nor was a women’s safe period method a good solution, as she’d be unavailable too frequently.

With Noyes’ technique there was minimal risk of pregnancy. At most, 31 accidental births took place in a community of approximately 200 adults exchanging partners as often as twice a week over 20 years.

*** Cindi Begins

Is this for real? Everybody with everybody might make some sort of sense, but the guy not coming? “Reciprocal motion” is what it’s all about.

Holly thinks I’m too much into sex, but it’s not all the time. Guys are two types: those who shoot before you’re ready; and those who’ll wait. That’s it. We’re talking minutes, though. An hour? No way, Jose.

Some say Tibetan Buddhism aids male control because the point of sacred sex is to raise men’s kundalini energy by metaphysically re-absorbing their sperm and sending it shooting up their spinal cords into their brains and thus achieving blissful union with the Goddess.

What? Maybe some Yogi can pull this off, but not a red-blooded American.

Women are thought to be “shaktis,” empowering incarnations of goddesshood that validates the male spiritual experience.

What?

This new-age “karezza” thing says that there should be long, tender, restful pauses, alternations of “storm and peace.”

Well, whoop-ti-do!

Perhaps Noyes applied some sort of numbing potion. Maybe he recited the books of the Bible backwards to keep from inseminating. However he did it, it seems to be an art as lost as that of scrimshaw.

But maybe Noyes was half right is that sex ranks “above music, painting, sculpture, &c.” I can’t sing, can’t paint, can’t sculpt one bit, and still do just fine.

*** Cindi Ends

MUTUAL CRITICISM

All members were subject to criticisms of the whole, usually directed toward traits, thoughts or acts detracting from family unity. Women were afforded opportunity to discuss sexual expectations and to criticize the physical performance of a partner. An individual repeatedly criticized could be denied desirable partners.

Mutual criticism represented the centerpiece of community life. Noyes, himself, was exempt.

Harriet Noyes wasn’t exempt, though “Mrs. Harriet A. Noyes was criticized. It was thought she was deficient in severity; it would do her good to scold sometimes. She should improve in sitting up straight.”

The youth needed guidance. “A spirit has prevailed among them of running together in cliques, leading to anti-improvement and superficiality. Last evening a note from Sarah Burt was read confessing a spirit of false love and insincerity and a desire to separate herself from it. This led to a general criticism of that class of girls. Their condition was attributed in some degree to novel reading.”

*** Cindi Begins

Where Noyes got mean was allowing complaints about a guy’s performance. The best of guys can just foul up. Tell them that it’s OK. My brother and I were terrible at first, but we just laughed because we loved each other.

*** Cindi Ends

THE END OF PUTNEY

In 1847, the Putney group agreed that the Kingdom of God had arrived.

Noyes had treated a Harriet Hall for tuberculosis and dropsy by holding a séance and sexually sealing the spiritual cure. After her husband’s complaint, a civil grand jury indicted Noyes for adultery, and investigation led to a second count based on conversations with both supporters and those who’d defected.

Emma and Helen Campbell, 24 and 21, could legally surrender their virtue to John Miller and Noyes. Miller writes, “I was quite pleased to find Emma at our house. The only thing that displeases me is that she is too much afraid to stay and will not make herself at home.”

Fifteen-year-old Lucinda Lamb was one of three “flowers of the village” plucked by Miller, and Lucinda, more enthusiastic for full participation, went to Miller’s brother-in-law George Noyes.

Things were getting too complex, as even complex marriage wasn’t didn’t allow a girl that young to fellowship with not her father or brothers. As Noyes thought it should, he left.

In later years, Lucinda’s picture, black hair pulled above her head, appears in the archives of the faithful. Her remaining in the community suggests that George did a good job.

*** Cindi Begins

Many 15-year-olds take charge of their own sexuality, though not always responsibility, why some may need some help.

*** Cindi Ends

THE BEGINNING OF ONEIDA

Forty-five believers followed Noyes to Oneida Creek between Utica and Syracuse, New York where they purchased 23 acres. This promised land was nearer the Canadian border, just in case.

What was practiced at Putney occurred in greater scale and less restrictively at Oneida. By 1849, there were 87 members on approximately 40 acres of partially cleared land with an Indian sawmill. The community purchased additional real estate, established a variety of craft industries, built a communal dwelling and appointed administrative committees.

By February 1850, membership was 172 and not recruiting new members. Nonetheless, by a year later, there were 205.

It seemed to be working, as John Miller reflected to George Cragin, “I think I can say with Mr. Noyes, that exclusive love with me is a thing gone by. Two years ago we ... had to have our watch constantly on duty to prevent our social building from being burned up by the fires of jealousy ... It never enters our heads that we can offend anyone by the expression of love.”

*** Cindi Begins

So they all lived happily ever after. But you know it’s not going to work out because here we are 150 years later, working our butts off.

*** Cindi Ends

ASCENDING FELLOWSHIP

As the community explained, “It is regarded as better for the young of both sexes to associate in love with persons older than themselves, and, if possible, with those who are spiritual and have been some time in the school of self-control, and who are thus able to make love safe and edifying ... It is not desirable for two inexperienced and unspiritual persons to rush into fellowship with each other; that it is far better for both to associate with persons of mature character and sound sense.”

Tasks to instruct the virgins, the “Central Members” considered closer to God. A male Central Member would pick a virgin of about 14, but some as young as 10. Noyes often insisted on being the first.

Female Central Members past menopause initiated the boys until mastering continence.

As Noyes reflected, “The plan proposed last fall of introducing the young men to the freedom of the Association through the more spiritual women has been attended with difficulties. Mrs. Cragin lost her equilibrium in the attempt to carry it out, and there appears to have been an unhealthy excitement in Perkins and perhaps others, which has ended in grudging discontent.”

“The transition of the young men from the hot blood of virginity to the quiet freedom which is the essential element of our Society is emphatically the difficult pass in our social experience. The spiritual collapse of Julia Hyde and Sarah Dunn, perhaps also of Sarah Campbell, Mrs. Worden and Louisa Waters may be mentioned ... The weaker party needs protection from the untamed lion.”

*** Cindi Begins

So how does this work?

Hiram: “Gosh, Aunt Carrie, I’m not sure what I’m to do.”

Aunt Carrie: “Don’t you worry. That’s why the Central Members chose me.”

Hiram: “Aren’t you a Central Member?”

Aunt Carrie: “Certainly, young man! Now my garters.”

Hiram: “Like this?”

Aunt Carrie: “Yes, but try not to tremble. God wants you to be perfect.”

Hiram: Sorry. “It’s just, you know, I’ve never actually seen...”

Aunt Carrie: “God made me perfect.”

Hiram: “My heavens, Aunt Carrie!”

Aunt Carrie: “Just checking. About like your father. We talked to him in Mutual Criticism”

Hiram: “So I get on top, like we practice in the Children’s Wing?”

Aunt Carrie: “You do?”

Hiram: “The girls don’t let us push in, though. They want it to be Mr. Noyes.”

Aunt Carrie: “You just lie flat and I’ll do the work.”

Hiram: “What if I spill my seed?”

Aunt Carrie: “It’s not a problem, due to my seniority qualification. Ready?”

Hiram: “Mom says she’s next.”

Aunt Carrie: “You can’t sleep with my sister until you have your continence perfected. Don’t be like your father.”

Sounds pretty good for our Aunt Carrie, don’t you think?

*** Cindi Ends

MR. NO-YES

Noyes allowed greater freedom to followers he thought ready. An 1849 letter from Mary Cragin to her husband reports Noyes’s suggestion that, “if Mr. Bradley is in a good state ... he has liberty with Ellen and Philena if he wishes. Sarah [Bradley] will no doubt be pleased to help her husband fellowship with others ... Also hint to those girls that they exercise some conservatism, and not allow themselves to be made too free with by all sorts.”

Noyes likewise withheld authorization for sexual relations, as Mary notes, “With regard to the state of things between you and me ... he thinks best he will give me that attraction which you desire; and until he does think best, as there is some excellent reason for withholding it, let us say, ‘Thy will be done.’”

A letter from Noyes’ son Theodore to medical student Anita McGee. The power to regulate or withdraw sexual privileges, “by common consent delegated to father and his subordinates, constituted by far the most effectual means of government. Father possessed in a remarkable degree the faculty of convincing people that the use of this arbitrary power was exercised for their own good.”

*** Cindi Begins

Mr. No-Yes: “No, Mary, you can’t with your husband. Yes. Mr. Bradley, you may with Ellen and Philena. Have Mrs. Bradley make the arrangements.”

Mary: “Thy will be done.”

Having shown how to remember the spelling of John Humphry’s surname, here’s a trick for the community: “Fellows, join up and you can marry more than one Ida.” (And I’m not even a Language Arts teacher.)

*** Cindi Ends

ARE YOU TAKEN TONIGHT?

The men had their problems. William Perry was accused of “sensual self-seeking and concealment,” including hiding evidence of venereal disease in his overly-free relations. Those suffering from what Noyes called “the rooster spirit” and unwilling to conform were expelled.

As women who were younger and more attractive might be overwhelmed with demands, a more-Victorian recruitment evolved.

“Persons shall not be obliged to receive under any circumstances the attentions of those whom they do not like. They abhor rapes, whether committed under the cover of marriage or elsewhere ... Every woman is free to refuse every man’s attentions.

“It is best for men in their approaches to women, to invite personal interviews through the intervention of a third party, for two important reasons: viz., first, that the matter may be brought in some measure under the inspection of the community; and, secondly, that the women may decline proposals, if they choose, without embarrassment or restraint.”

Details were worked out amongst the ladies. “If there is any doubt in the minds of those who are asked to give invitations as to the propriety of the visit they are to consult any one of the following persons: Mrs. Dunn, Mrs. Leonard, Mrs. Thayer, Jane Kinsley and Harriet Allen. All women carrying invitations shall report to these women, who will keep a record.”

*** Cindi Begins

I try to be a matchmaker for Holly. I’ll drop a few hints: not “Mick likes your eyes,” but maybe something about Mick liking a certain author. Maybe set up a double date. My brother and I used to double at the drive-in. My date and I got the front and I’d straddle, facing the rear, and my brother’s date, the same way on his. He could read me even if I was only silhouetted. Holly’s too inhibited, though. Plus they hardly have drive-ins any more.

What relates to Oneida is that somebody else trying to schedule you can get complicated. Probably Aaron could write a computer program where you’d say how often you wanted to and your first choices and it would email everyone the schedule. To test the program, we’d start with two names, Aaron and Cindi. When it said we should sleep together, I’d say, just pretend. I’d say that he had to take off my blouse, though, us not computers ourselves.

*** Cindi Ends

MARY CRAGIN

Mary Cragin’s untimely death in a boating accident in 1851 brought Noyes personal crisis, as she was indeed his favorite woman. Excerpting from a letter to his own wife, Harriet.

“Do you not think, as I do, that my falling in love with Mrs. Cragin was what drew me out of commencing bondage to you and gave us all a send-off into Communism? ... What if I was in danger of being surrounded and taken possession of by Mrs. Cragin, so that I could not be a free medium of the community spirit or do my duty to the young in behalf of the ascending fellowship? It seems now clear to me that this was the meaning of Mrs. Cragin’s withdrawal.”

*** Cindi Begins

Mr. No-Yes’s first extra-marital conquest. Can’t you hear his authority? “Fear not, my dear Mrs. Cragin. My seed is secured within my loins, promising you ecstasy upon ecstasy. Love me only as you would love Christ Jesus.”

After Noyes “married” Mary, so to speak, he ruled that she needed to knock it off with her husband. “Thy will be done,” she conceded.

*** Cindi Ends

EXPEDIENT PROPRIETY

In 1850 and 1851, grand juries heard complaints about the Perfectionists. Ten indictments loomed, one precipitated by the severe whipping by member Henry Seymour of his mentally disturbed wife Tryphena. She had been “crying nights, wandering about, frightening the children, and talking incoherently.” Tryphena had one of the first locals to join the group, accepting with difficulty the sexual obligation.

In January 1852 The Observer launched a crusade against Noyes, the Tryphena publicity fostering comparison to the polygamous Mormons, Noyes feared, proposing a temporary concession: discontinue complex marriage until public feeling moderated. “To be able to conform to any circumstances, and any institutions, and still preserve spiritual freedom” was the goal. New effort would be devoted to the “abolition of death.”

As part of their reimaging, the Oneidans invited 80 surrounding families to a strawberries-and-cream party. More was involved than strawberries, however. As Noyes observed, “It seems to me that the likeliest way to quash those indictments is to set the [plaintiffs] to work as our attorneys, and pay them well for it.”

Tryphena’s case was settled out of court, Oneida paying asylum expenses and $125 per year if she were well and $200 if she remained “unsound in body or mind” after discharge.

Oneida announced resumption of complex marriage and Tryphena eventually overcame her disorder and returned to the community and her husband, by whom she had a child. Henry was noted for his horticulture.

In another of Oneida’s court cases, a young member found the atmosphere uncongenial and demanded $9,150 for $150 of property put in and $1,500 per year for six years of wages. A month after his succession, his father wrote to the community, “I did not for a moment suppose that he had any idea of attempting the absurd project of extorting money from the community ... I did however discover, before I parted with him at the depot, that he had what appeared to me a fearfully wicked spirit, and thought that I should not be surprised to hear that he had committed a fearful crime.”

The would-be extortionist denounced Oneida as a “spiritual and social despotism ... constantly violating the most sacred laws of God and Man,” and calling upon “Merchants, the Press, Bench and Pulpit” to unite in “wiping it out.” The call failed. The young man was Charles Guiteau, afterwards the assassin of President Garfield.

*** Cindi Begins

Tryphena gets institutionalized and her Henry gets to garden.

Perfectionism makes more sense, though than Mormon men who wear special underwear and get to populate their own universes. Plus they all get to be Elders. A Mormon wife is like living in a time-share. A Perfectionist wife would have been more like a whole hotel. My church is just as bad about females, but we aren’t excommunicated for pointing it out.

Putting complex marriage on hold? Either it’s OK with God or it isn’t. You don’t let The Observer set your Commandments. It would be like this: The Pope says that God says no abortions, but Pro-Choice is whining so the Pope allows that God’s looking the other way.

*** Cindi Ends

A POEM

Work that strengthens heart and brain:

Work that makes earth bloom again.

Music, bursting, joyous, free,

Charm of order’s melody.

Love, sweet mystic fount within.

That gushes heaven, and keeps from sin.

Thanks for thy gifts, O God, above:

The sacred three, Work, Music, Love.

John Humphrey Noyes, September 11, 1856

*** Cindi Begins

His ideas about sex were at least interesting, His poetry’s awful.

*** Cindi Ends

THE MANSION

The three-story red brick Mansion House was begun in 1861, its towers and decoration, the style of the day. Its eventual-200 rooms spoke of a big family. At the Mansion’s center was a hall with a stage for evening meetings, plays and concerts. Around a central core were sitting rooms and individual or double sleeping quarters.

In 1867 Oneida boasted, “Beside the central mansion are five large buildings, one for a general dining hall, one for baking, one for washing by machinery and canning fruits, and others for various industries ... Whatever is required by comfortable livers, to meet present and future wants, is in abundance ... Their barns are as extensive and complete as any in the land. There is stabling for over one hundred horses and cattle.”