About Oneida

The Oneida Community:
The Nineteenth-Century Utopian Society of John Humphrey Noyes

To state it briefly, the old Oneida Community was a religious and social society founded in Oneida, New York, in 1848 by John Humphrey Noyes and his followers. In the beginning, most of them were Vermonters, almost all were New Englanders.

The Community was founded on Noyes' theology of Perfectionism, a form of Christianity with two basic values; self-perfection and communalism. These ideals were translated into everyday life through shared property and work. Noyes' solution was a society where the interest of one member became the interest of all - the enlargement of the family. They called themselves Perfectionists and, being logical and literal, they proceeded to substitute for the small unit of home and family and individual possessions, the larger unit of group-family and group-family life.

The Oneida Community canned fruits and vegetables; they made traps and chains; they made traveling bags and straw hats and mop sticks and sewing silk and, last of all, they found out how to make silver knives and forks and spoons.

This is the beginning of what has grown to become Oneida Silversmiths and the Oneida Ltd. of today.

Learn more about the history of the Oneida Community and the heritage of Oneida Ltd.
Visit Mansion House (www.oneidacommunity.org), where you can learn more about on-going activities at this historic property, the first home of the Oneida Community.