ABSTRACT
[In 1840, the Owenite Benjamin Timms, formerly of the Manea Fen Community in Cambridgeshire, opened a branch of the AACAN in New York, along with a group of fellow British immigrants. This paved the way for an Owenite revival in America. Over the next three years, Robert Owen’s disciples founded four new communities in the United States – Promisewell, Goose Pond (both located in Pennsylvania), Skaneateles, New York, and Equality, Wisconsin (Harrison 1969, 221–222). The latter was established by the prominent London Owenite Thomas Hunt in accordance with the enduring belief in a “new moral world”. But it was also a response to ongoing tension within the British socialist movement. In September 1839, Hunt had rejected Owen’s view that working men were unable to establish viable communities without the help of the middle- and upper classes. He also dismissed the “Social Father’s” critique of Manea Fen, which was a renegade community in the eyes of orthodox Owenites (Working Bee, 28 September 1839). These arguments were repeated in the following Report of 1843, which urged “real”, working-class socialists to establish a community of Equality abroad. Only in the New World, away from Owen’s stifling governance and Europe’s perceived backwardness, could material abundance and freedom be achieved through complete social and political equality (Chase 2011, 200). Twenty-one Owenites answered Hunt’s call for action. These included John Green, former editor of the Working Bee, Manea Fen’s official publication. Thomas Hunt resigned from his position as President of the London Branch A1, and the group left England for Wisconsin in June 1843, but the following winter was extremely 466harsh and they did not manage to produce sufficient crops to ensure self-sufficiency. The community folded in early 1847 (Langdon 2000, 323–330).]
