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TITLE:
The Perfectionists of Oneida and Wallingford
AUTHOR(S):
Charles Nordhoff
Paul Royster (Depositor), University of Nebraska-Lincoln
DOCUMENT TYPE: Article
From: Charles Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the United States from Personal Visit and Observation (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1875), pp. 259–301.
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ABSTRACT:
The Perfectionists of Oneida, New York, and Wallingford, Connecticut,
are best known for their practice of what they called
“complex marriage,” a system of polygamy and polyandry devised
by their founder John Humphrey Noyes (1811–1886). This account
by Charles Nordhoff (1830-1901), a journalist based in New
York, was drawn from his visits to the Perfectionist colonies, and
includes a description of their history, organization, manners, beliefs,
worship, faith-cures, and their practice of “criticism.”
