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Electronic Texts in American Studies
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ORCID IDs
Document Type
Archival Material
Date of this Version
1875
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.”
Comments
From: Charles Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the United States from Personal Visit and Observation (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1875), pp. 259–301.