Sylvania Colony
Lackawaxen Township, Pike County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
The site of Horace Greeley''s Utopian colony modeled on Brook Farm and the ideas of Fourier, French Socialist, was located here. Based on common property holding and equal labor, it failed in 1845 after July frosts had killed all crops.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In the reform-charged 1840s, newspaper editor Horace Greeley helped bankroll a utopian community on this ground, inspired by the French socialist Charles Fourier and by New England's Brook Farm. The Sylvania Colony pooled property and shared labor equally, betting that cooperation could build a better society. Killing July frosts wiped out its crops, and the experiment collapsed in 1845.
Why it matters
Sylvania was part of a wave of antebellum utopian experiments through which Americans tested radical ideas about property, labor, and equality on the land itself.
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Related people
- · Horace Greeley
Themes & tags
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