John Humphrey Noyes

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John Humphrey Noyes

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

John Humphrey Noyes 1811-86, American reformer, founder of the Oneida community, b. Brattleboro, Vt. He studied theology at Yale but lost his license to preach because of his "perfectionist" doctrine. This took its name from Mat. 5.48 and was based on the belief that man's innate sinlessness could be regained through communion with Christ. At Putney, Vt., he formed (1839) a society of Bible communists, later called Perfectionists. In 1846 they began the practice of complex marriage, a form of polygamy, but this so aroused their neighbors that Noyes was forced to flee. In 1848 he established another community at Oneida, N.Y. (and later a branch at Wallingford, Conn.), where he developed his religious and social experiments in communal living. By 1879 internal dissension had arisen and outside hostility became so strong that Noyes went to Canada, where he spent the rest of his life. His writings include The Berean (1847, repr. 1969) and many pamphlets.

Bibliography: See G. W. Noyes, comp., Religious Experience of John Humphrey Noyes (1923, repr. 1971) and John Humphrey Noyes: the Putney Community (1931); R. A. Parker, A Yankee Saint (1935); P. B. Noyes, My Father's House (1937); C. N. Robertson, ed., Oneida Community (1970).

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Noyes, John Humphrey

The Oxford Companion to United States History | 2001 | | © The Oxford Companion to United States History 2001, originally published by Oxford University Press 2001. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Noyes, John Humphrey (1811–1886), religious reformer, founder of the Oneida Community.Born to a prominent family in Brattleboro, Vermont, Noyes attended theological seminaries at Andover and Yale. In his early twenties he developed heretical “perfectionist” religious beliefs that eventually led him to advocate a form of tightly regulated “free love.” From 1834 to 1879, he propagated his ideas through self‐published newspapers. After returning home to Putney, Vermont, in 1836, he began to form a small community, which in 1845 embraced the communal ownership of property. The community's attempt to institute a form of group marriage in 1846 led to its expulsion from Putney in 1847 and its reestablishment at Oneida, New York, in 1848.

At Oneida, community members, numbering some two hundred adults, gradually established a system of “complex marriage.” Considering themselves married to each other in an enlarged family, men and women exchanged sexual partners frequently. Exclusive romantic attachments were broken up as threats to group stability. Members lived, ate, and worked together, practiced communal child rearing, and held most property in common. Although less sex‐role stereotyping occurred at Oneida than in comparable groups, tight control was maintained by group‐criticism sessions, birth control by coitus reservatus, and an informal status hierarchy dominated by Noyes and his closest male and female associates. Beset by internal dissent and external opposition, the community discontinued complex marriage in 1879 and formally dissolved in 1881. Noyes spent his final years in exile in Canada.

John Humphrey Noyes was a serious religious reformer and an incisive social critic, but scholars and popular writers have been most fascinated by his unorthodox sexual ideas and practices, which have impressed some as prototypes for a more liberated future.
See also Antebellum Era; Protestantism; Religion; Sexual Morality and Sex Reform; Shakerism; Utopian and Communitarian Movements.

Bibliography

Robert Allerton Parker , A Yankee Saint: John Humphrey Noyes and the Oneida Community, 1935.
Maren Lockwood Carden , Oneida: Utopian Community to Modern Corporation, 1969, reprint 1998.
Spencer Klaw , Without Sin: The Life and Death of the Oneida Community, 1993.

Lawrence Foster

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Paul S. Boyer. "Noyes, John Humphrey." The Oxford Companion to United States History. Oxford University Press. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. 10 Nov. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

Paul S. Boyer. "Noyes, John Humphrey." The Oxford Companion to United States History. Oxford University Press. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. (November 10, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O119-NoyesJohnHumphrey.html

Paul S. Boyer. "Noyes, John Humphrey." The Oxford Companion to United States History. Oxford University Press. 2001. Retrieved November 10, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O119-NoyesJohnHumphrey.html

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Free newspaper and magazine articles

Free Article THE LOSS OF RELIGIOUS ALLEGIANCE AMONG THE YOUTH OF THE ONEIDA COMMUNITY.
Magazine article from: The Historian; 6/22/2001
Free Article Without Sin.
Magazine article from: National Review; 1/24/1994
Free Article At Oneida, `complex marriage' proved too complicated.(INSIGHT)
Newspaper article from: Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, MA); 4/15/2007

Related topics

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Related articles from newspapers, magazines, and more

Lawrence Foster, ed. Free Love in Utopia. John Humphrey Noyes and the Origin of the Oneida Community.(Book review)
Magazine article from: Utopian Studies; 3/22/2006; ; 700+ words ; ...Foster, ed. Free Love in Utopia. John Humphrey Noyes and the Origin of the Oneida Community...about this utopian experiment. John Humphrey Noyes seeks absolute leadership of the...a radical reinterpretation of John Winthrop's injunction in his...
Free Love in Utopia: John Humphrey Noyes and the Origin of the Oneida Community.(Book Review)(Brief Article)
Magazine article from: Church History; 12/1/2002; ; 692 words ; Compiled by George Wallingford Noyes, edited and with an introduction...nephew of the Perfectionist leader John Humphrey Noyes, it covers the period 1848-54...Further, all copies of the G. W. Noyes compilation were destroyed save...
Desire and Duty at Oneida: Tirzah Miller's Intimate Memoir.(Review)
Magazine article from: Utopian Studies; 1/1/2001; ; 700+ words ; ...Oneida and of its leader, John Humphrey Noyes. Noyes, deeply influenced...daughter of Charlotte Miller, John Humphrey Noyes's youngest sister. Tirzah...also likely that her uncle, John Humphrey Noyes, thirty-three years her...
THE LOSS OF RELIGIOUS ALLEGIANCE AMONG THE YOUTH OF THE ONEIDA COMMUNITY.
Magazine article from: The Historian; 6/22/2001; ; 700+ words ; ...aging of its dynamic leader, John Humphrey Noyes; and infighting among varied...of the Oneida philosophy was John Humphrey Noyes's particular version of Perfectionism...there was little cause for John Humphrey Noyes to rule in a tyrannical manner...
Without Sin.
Magazine article from: National Review; 1/24/1994; ; 700+ words ; ...Community was the inspiration of John Humphrey Noyes, who was born in Vermont in 1811. As a bright young man, Noyes planned to be a lawyer, until...sinless. Under the old covenant, Noyes explained, God said, "Do according...
Making sense of failure: from death to resurrection in nineteenth-century American communitarianism.(Essay)
Magazine article from: Utopian Studies; 3/22/2007; ; 700+ words ; ...illusions may not be repeated forever. (Noyes 353) ********** With these words, John Humphrey Noyes concluded his account of the demise of...significantly more enduring Oneida Community, Noyes devoted most of his History of American...
At Oneida, `complex marriage' proved too complicated.(INSIGHT)
Newspaper article from: Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, MA); 4/15/2007; 700+ words ; ...sexual customs was found at Oneida, N.Y., where John Humphrey Noyes established the Oneida Colony in 1848. Curiously...carefully lest I give some editor palpitations. John Humphrey Noyes (1811-1886) was a Perfectionist, and thus a...
Oneida Ltd. keeps with tradition
Magazine article from: The Business Journal - Central New York; 2/22/2002; ; 700+ words ; ...community-based upon the preaching of John Humphrey Noyes. Noyes's philosophy was one of...flatware, with no close second. John Maxwell, who works on a computer...growth and success goes to Pierrepont Noyes, son of the founder, and his executive...
HOUSE A HOME TO HISTORY; MANSION HOUSE TELLS STORY OF 19TH-CENTURY UTOPIAN COMMUNITY.(Neighbors Madison)
Newspaper article from: The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY); 11/15/2001; 700+ words ; ...volunteers in the bookstore. "John Humphrey Noyes offered them a different kind...great-great grandmother was Noyes' sister. "It provides a critique...flatware. One night in 1879, John Humphrey Noyes, fearing arrest on fornicati
"Wives of High Pasture": Worth Tuttle Hedden and her novel of the Oneida community.(Critical essay)(Biography)
Magazine article from: Utopian Studies; 3/22/2006; ; 700+ words ; ...Oneida community established by John Humphrey Noyes. This article is intended...Northern religious heretic John Humphrey Noyes, whose every pronouncement...characteristics of Oneida founder, John Humphrey Noyes. From all accounts, D. H...
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