Icarians, California, Iowa, Texas, Missouri, Louisiana, and Illinois
Etienne Cabet was a French author and politician who developed a theory of organizing society into communal living, with no private ownership of property, while living as an exile in England. He published these ideas in a novel which he called Voyage to Icaria, a fictional land made into a communist society (at the time the word communism referred to communal living) by its national hero, Icar. The book was popular in Europe and Cabet boosted its sales by publishing journals and magazines which promoted Icarianism.
In 1847 Cabet published in one of his magazines a proposal to create Icarian colonies in America on an agrarian and light manufacturing basis, selecting the new State of Texas as the site for his first colony. Texas speculators agreed to sell him the land. Although Cabet deluded himself into believing that tens of thousands of his supporters would flock to the new colony, less than one hundred arrived in Texas, where they found themselves the victims of a bad real estate deal and generally dismal conditions.
Eventually the Icarians established small communities in several states, although their numbers never came near what was envisioned by Cabet. The Icarians developed agriculture in accordance with the location of the community. Generally the members donated their property to the colony and it had to have a minimum value of $60 for membership. They lived in large communal buildings in separate rooms for families, using shared dining and living rooms. Everyone had the same type and amount of furniture. The Icarians sold produce from their farms and products from their shops to create profits, which were divided among the community after expenses.
The Icarians’ religious beliefs were required to comply with ten points provided by Cabet, and instruction on major religions was provided to all at the age of eighteen. Friction among the different Icarian communities and within some of the larger gradually wore down the society, and in 1898 the last remaining Icarian community, near Corning, Iowa, voluntarily disbanded. The Icarians were the longest lasting American communal living experiment not based on religion.