Experimental Americans
Subtitle: Celo and Utopian Community in the Twentieth Century
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: June 11, 2001
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9780252026614
Subjects: Cultural studies; Sociology, Social Studies; Community; Utopias; Political Science; Sociology; USA; Social History; United States - 20th Century; Social Science / Sociology / General; History & Theory - General; Sociology - General; United States - State & Local - General; 20th century; Celo Community; Collective settlements; History; North Carolina; United States
First sentence: IN AMERICAN CULTURE, the symbols that express and reflect equality and individualism are fundamental and pervasive (Schneider 1976; Varenne 1986).
Description: "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 by Arthur Morgan, first chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority, 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. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Celo and among its local neighbors, consultation of Celo's documentary records, and interviews with ex-members, Hicks traces the Community's ups and downs.

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 up in the 1960s by the radical enthusiasm of new currents in the nation."--BOOK JACKET.