Fruitlands in 1915

The Alcott Anarchist Experiment

The failures at Fruitlands showed that anarchist and vegetarian ideals weren’t enough to sustain a community—spiritually or nutritionally.
William Maclure

A Boatload of Knowledge for New Harmony

Leaders of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences voyaged down the Ohio River in 1825–1826, taking academic education on a journey in search of utopia.
Women cooking in a public kitchen, 19th century

Kitchenless Dreams

Escaping the drudgery of housekeeping via collective action became a feminist focus of utopian practitioners and theorists in the later nineteenth century.
Still Life with a Peacock Pie

The Joy of Eating in Utopia

The early socialist Charles Fourier had grand ideas about food. The pleasure of eating was right up there with sex.
Oneida community home building

Eroticism and Religion in Utopia

Some 19th-century utopian idealists took up deeply unconventional sexual arrangements based specifically on their religious beliefs.
Main Street U.S.A. at Disneyworld

Walt Disney, Urban Utopian

The Main Street of Disneyland and Disney World were Walt Disney's first attempts at creating the utopian city he could never quite manage.