UTOPIA

N EXPERIMENTS

AND MENTAL ILLN

ESSES

1815-1858

A V E R Y BE N N E T T

http://deathknightwrites.blogspot.com/2011/07/is-perfect-society-possible.html November 8, 2011

ORIGINS OF THE UTOPIAN IDEAL• The modern concept of a “Utopia” actually has

its roots in the ancient world, with examples such as the Garden of Eden or the Golden Age of Greek mythology.

• The Greek philosopher Plato is known to be one of the first to create the idea of a perfect society outlined in his book Republic, in which he described how he envisioned the perfect Greek city-state.

• It is thought that Plato’s ideas had a great influence on Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), who coined the term Utopia from the Greek ou, meaning “not” and topos, or “place.”

• Since that time, the word Utopia has been regarded as referring to a perfect place, such as an ideal city or country.

• The Protestant Reformation was also a major influence in the 19th-century Utopian idea.

• Monastic communities in the early Catholic Church were created by Saint Benedict and revolved around the idea of communal living in harmony and love with one another, and later in the medieval period this idea of harmonious communal life spread to lay groups.

• The Protestant Reformation shifted the views of many Europeans from the old views of a hierarchical society to one in which everyone is “of equal spiritual dignity.”1

• Various religious groups developed over time, many of which tried to create “pure” communities of people sharing their same common beliefs and values.

THE BEGINNING OF UTOPIAN EXPERIMENTS IN AMERICA

• Many of these religious sects migrated to the New World, and the first notable community established was the Ephrata Community in 1732.

• “The Great Awakening, a series of religious revivals that affected every part of English America in the first half of the eighteenth century, prepared the American soil for numerous religious sects.”1

• Following the adoption of the Constitution with the First Amendment guaranteeing religious tolerance, even more European religious groups made the flight across the Atlantic to establish their own communities in the United States.

BROOK FARM• One major early utopian community in the United States

was Brook Farm in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, which was an experiment that only lasted from 1841-1847. It never contained more than 120 inhabitants, but attracted all sorts of intellectuals as well as workers such as farmers, cobblers, etc.

• The community itself provided its inhabitants with the necessities of life, including shelter, money, food, schooling, and clothing.

• Financial trouble, as well as a devastating fire, led to the downfall of Brook Farm.

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Brook Farm

NEW HARMONY, INDIANA• Perhaps one of the most famous utopian experiments in the

United States is New Harmony, Indiana. • The Rappites (named after their founder, Johann Rapp), also

known as the Harmony Society, emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1803 in search of religious freedom.

• They first established a small colony called The Harmony Society in Butler County, Pennsylvania, but it soon expanded into a very large and diverse community, and they became well known across the United States as manufacturing some of the best-quality products available.

• The Harmony Society expanded so rapidly and so well that they had outgrown the local economy in Butler County, and they moved their entire community to an area along the Wabash River in Indiana, where they reestablished a prosperous community, this time called New Harmony.

• In 1825, New Harmony was sold to Robert Owen and his financial partner, William Maclure.

• Robert Owen was a Welshman born in 1771, growing up as the Industrial Revolution was kicking off in Britain, which greatly influenced his thinking.

• Owen first experimented with reforming society in a factory setting. His experiments were largely successful, and he once said:• “An idle, dirty, desolute, and drunken population was transformed by

the application of proper means into one of order, neatness, and regularity.”2

• “Owenite” groups began to form to discuss Owen’s practices and ideas, and Owen himself sought a place to put his complete ideas into practice, which is why he chose to purchase New Harmony.

• The settlement eventually failed in 1827 because of the growing discontent, disunity, and disagreement with many aspects of Owen’s leadership and various economic issues, though the community does still exist.

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COLLAPSE OF 19TH CENTURY UTOPIAN EXPERIMENTS

• Though each established community faced different struggles and hardships that led to their downfalls, it can be generally said that the societies could not keep up with the rapidly growing world around them and still finance their internal affairs. As they grew, finances became an even larger struggle, as did dealing with discontent and disagreement within each establishment.

• Religious unity tended to unite religious establishments and help them last longer than their secular cousins, but they were still incapable of dealing with their own internal affairs as well as harsh criticism from the outside world.

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DOROTHEA DIX• Before the nineteenth century, there was

no system for caring for the mentally ill. It had been remarked on numerous occasions that the mentally ill were taken care of in the easiest way possible, which often meant simply confining them in cramped, unheated, often crowded cells.

• One figure from this time period who noticed how inhumanely the mentally ill were often treated was Dorothea Dix, who made it known that she had seen people “Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience” (Howe, page 604).3

• Dix was so moved by what she saw that she decided to take action, travelling around the country to encourage change in the way the mentally ill are handled and treated.

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DOROTHEA DIX CONTINUED• Dix travelled and advocated the moral

treatment of the mentally ill with compassion, both in writing and with moving speeches.

• Dix believed that the best way to solve the problem of handing the insane was to place them in state-run asylums, although her image pictured the true meaning of the word “asylum”—a haven in which the mentally ill can live peacefully and be treated until if/when they were ready to go back into the world.

• Dix’s campaign was extraordinarily successful. She did not advocate anything regarding women’s rights, including suffrage, so politicians were willing to listen to her.

• Byt 1840, there were only eight insane asylums in the United States, but Dix campaigned to establish thirty-two more and to move the mentally ill places where they did not belong, such as prisons (which were rapidly becoming overpopulated).

REFORMS IN TREATMENT• The first means for physically treating the mentally ill were

very inhumane and included such practices as the notorious bloodletting, inducing vomiting, submerging patients in ice baths until unconscious, or subjecting patients to massive electric shocks in an attempt to either expel the “bad humor” that was making them insane or shock them into compliance or sanity.

• At the beginning of the 1800s, a new style of treatment was developed called “Moral Management,” which was founded on the notion that the environment of the patients played a crucial role in the recovery or treatment of patients.

• “Creating a more domestic feel, beds, pictures and decorations replaced shackles, chains and cement cells. It was thought that recovery would more likely occur if conditions and surroundings resembled the comfort of home.”4

• The first publicly supported mental institution in the United States was the Eastern Lunatic Asylum, opened in 1841 by Dr. John Galt.

CONTINUING REFORMS• In response to an increased interest

in mental health and treatment of the mentally ill, more new methods of treatment were developed, and mental health was studied in more detail.

• Phrenology was a major development because of this new interest in mental health, and a larger focus also grew around the benefits of hypnosis.

• The most crucial reforms in the mental health world did not actually occur, however, until the period following the civil war when thousands of soldiers suffered from PTSD.

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WORKS CITED• Numbered Citations (Direct Quotes):• 1. http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/amana/utopia.htm (November 8,

2011)• 2. http://yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1989/1/89.01.04.x.html

(November 8, 2011)• 3. Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought : The Transformation

of America, 1815-1848. Oxford University Press USA, 2007. 8 November 2011 <http://lib.myilibrary.com?ID=227069>

• 4. www.mnpsychsoc.org/history%20appendix.pdf (November 8, 2011)• Other sources:• http://www.ushistory.org/us/26d.asp (November 8, 2011)• http://www.toddlertime.com/advocacy/hospitals/Asylum/history-

asylum.htm (November 8, 2011)• http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/owen.html (November 8, 2011)