Three Harriets: The Story of Extraordinary Women in the Oneida Community

Thomas A. Guiler, Director of Museum Affairs, Oneida Community Mansion House

The Oneida Community was one of the most radical and successful utopian communes in American history. Much of this is due to the elevated status that women enjoyed inside this Community. Indeed, due to their radical conceptions of sex, family, and gender, women were afforded far more opportunities than their counterparts in the outside world. This presentation will explore women’s experiences in this Community through the biographies of three women named Harriet that both exemplify and complicate the lives of women in the Oneida Community.

Thomas A. Guiler (Ph.D. Syracuse University) is the Director of Museum Affairs at the Oneida Community Mansion House. A scholar of intentional and utopian communities, Tom taught previously at the University of Delaware and Winterthur Program in American Material Culture. He researches and teaches 19th and 20th century American social and cultural history and has particular interests in social protest, material culture, decorative arts, and the digital and public humanities. He has published and presented on a wide variety of intentional communities including Byrdcliffe, Roycroft, and Rose Valley in addition to extensive work on the Oneida Community. He also served at the president of the Communal Studies Association. His book, The Handcrafted Utopia: Arts and Crafts Communities in America’s Progressive Era, which examines utopian communities in the Arts and Crafts Movement was recently published by the Richard W. Couper Press of Hamilton College.