Experimental Americans

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From colonial times to the present, the United States has been home to a steady stream of utopian experimental communities. In Experimental Americans, George L. Hicks takes us inside one of the longer-lived of such communities, Celo Community in western North Carolina, to explore the dynamics of intentional communities in America.Founded in 1937, Celo (pronounced see-lo) established its own rules of land tenure and taxation, conducted its internal business by consensus, and did not require its members to accept any particular ideology or religious creed. Attacked for its opposition to World War II, Celo was revived by pacifists released from prisons and Civilian Public Service camps after the war, debilitated in the 1950s by bitter feuds with ex-members, it was buoyed in the 1960s by the radical enthusiasm of new currents in the nation.Hicks assesses the community's success in creating alternatives to mainstream social relations and examines the interactions between Celo and its neighboring community. He considers variations in paths taken by utopian communities, with a look at a close cousin of Celo, the Macedonia Community in Georgia. He also discusses the community's "post-utopian" phase, marked by a shift in the late 1970s from social goals to straightforward land management.