Utopia, USA: America's Experiments in a Better World

#30DayMapChallenge · Utopia

Thomas More coined Utopia in 1516 as a pun: ou-topos, "no place," and eu-topos, "good place." Americans kept trying to build one anyway.

These are some of the religious colonies, socialist phalanxes and back-to-the-land communes that tried to remake society from scratch, from the 1730s to today. Most lasted less than a decade. A few are still going, and they're ringed in gold.

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Sources

• List of American utopian communities, Wikipedia
• Shaker communities, Wikipedia
• 5 19th-Century Utopian Communities in the United States, History.com
• James M. Morris & Andrea L. Kross, The A to Z of Utopianism (Scarecrow Press, 2009)
• Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village
• History of Fairhope and the Single Tax Corporation, Fairhope Single Tax Corporation
• Koreshan State Park, Florida State Parks
• The Llano del Rio Cooperative Colony, Lancaster Museum of Art and History
• Llano del Rio, Wikipedia
• Challenge of the Big Trees: Kaweah Colony, National Park Service
• Kaweah Colony, Wikipedia
• Twin Oaks, Arcosanti and The Farm, the communities' own sites

Locations are approximate.