page_title: Ceresco, Wisconsin
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Ceresco, Wisconsin / History / Religion
caption_attribution_description: English: Perspective view of Charles Fourier's Phalanstère. The rural areas and the gardens are not represented.
context_page_description: Ceresco, also known as the Wisconsin Phalanx, was a commune founded in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin in 1844 by followers of the communitarian socialist ideas of Charles Fourier. About 180 people lived in the Association at its peak, farming nearly 2,000 acres. It was one of the three longest-lived Fourierist Associations in the United States, dissolving in 1850, and was unique for having assets which exceeded liabilities at the time of its termination.
  Since the Fourierist Association had registered their community under state law, the village of Ceresco, Wisconsin survived the collapse of the utopian socialist experiment of the 1840s. Remaining members of the Wisconsin Phalanx later formed a living cooperative and study group called the Ceresco Union in 1855, espousing the doctrines of religious freethought and interpersonal free love until disbursed by a mob of outraged citizens.
  In 1858 the remaining inhabitants of Ceresco were annexed by the nearby town of Ripon, Wisconsin.
context_section_description: The Wisconsin Phalanx's deep concern with profanity, honesty, and temperance was not accidental. Although nominally secular, American Fourierism was marked with strong religious overtones. American popularizer Albert Brisbane was emphatic in this regard, quoting Fourier's assertion that "The Love of God will become in this new Order the most ardent Love among Men." Not only would the fidelity of marital union be preserved, Brisbane promised, but Association would "respect sacredly the Religious Sentiment, and preserve religious Worship, which is the external manifestation of that Sentiment in the human soul."
  Brisbane expanded this perspective at some length:
  
  "The horrors perpetrated in religious wars and persecutions, the atrocities of the Inquisition and other outrages committed in the name of Religion are certainly appalling to contemplate. Struck with these abuses and believing them inherent in Religion, some reformers have wished to abolish it; they have not had the perspicuity to separate the abuses of Religion from Religion itself — to separate the effect of sectarian Fanaticism, acting upon ignorant and deluded minds, from true Religion and the high and exalted sentiments connected with it..."
  Unsurprisingly, Brisbane's Christian reformationism found sympathetic ears among Wisconsin's Fourier enthusiasts living at Ceresco, who "were rather religious rather than irreligious," the ranks of which included Methodist preacher Uriel Farmin and Baptist minister George H. Stebbins.
  Sunday school and Bible study classes were conducted, with various religious denominations making use of the main hall for their services in sequence. De facto leader of the community Warren Chase emphasized the religious harmony of members of the phalanx, noting in a letter that "although we have many members of different religious societies, they all seem determined to lay aside metaphysical differences, and make a united social effort, founded on the fundamental principles of religion."
  Outside suspicions that the Wisconsin Phalanx was irreligious were hotly denied. In June 1848 one member replied to such a charge with a published letter in The Investigator, which declared:
  
  "Some of us are and have been Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, etc. Others have never been members of any church, but with very few exceptions very readily admit the authenticity and moral value of the Scriptures. The ten commandments are the sum, substance, and foundation of all true law. Add to this the gospel of love, and you have a code of laws worthy of adoption and practice by any set of men, and upon which associationists must base themselves, or they never can succeed."
  This assessment was confirmed by a Methodist circuit rider who visited the community, who noted that "though a few of the men were professed infidels, they always received ministers gladly and treated them with consideration." Other observers contended that religious observation declined in the enterprise's final years.
caption: Elevated view of Fourier's concept of the edifice of a phalanstry, illuminating his architectural utopianism. Fourier sought construction of a massive longhouse connecting 1800 residents in a single dwelling, which enclosed common area.
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