History 12 Reading Guide
Social Gospel, Theosophy, Socialists, and Secular Alternatives
- J. Gordon Melton, �The Theosophical Communities and Their Ideal of Universal Brotherhood,� in Pitzer, America�s Communal Utopias, 396-418.
- Robert V. Hine, �California�s Socialist Utopias,� in Pitzer, America�s Communal Utopias, 419-431.
Further reading:
- James E. Landing, �Cyrus Reed Teed and the Koreshan Unity,� in Pitzer, America�s Communal Utopias, 375-395.
- Timothy Miller, �Artists� Colonies as Communal Societies in the Arts and Crafts Era,� Communal Societies 16 (1996), 43-70.
Questions:
- Note: These scholars examine two contrasting communal impulses in late nineteenth and early twentieth century California.
- Would either or both of these communal societies have had a better chance of success elsewhere (outside of the US)? Would they even have been attempted elsewhere?
- In the utopias of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, what changed? What stayed the same? How can we accounts for the differences and the similarities?
- What does the Bellamy-Theosophical connection suggest about the appeal of Bellamy�s (and W.D. Howell�s) ideas for his/their contemporaries? How does that appeal help us better understand how Bellamy wrote for an audience of his contemporaries?
- To whom do American communards look for inspiration? How does that shape their understanding of both the �problems� and the solutions?
- What is the significance of these international (European/American) communities of interest?
- What are we coming to understand about the connections between utopian / communistic / alternative society ventures?
- Ponder these later utopian ventures as precursors to the twentieth century: in what ways were their visions of both the problems and the solutions forward (as opposed to backward) looking?
