Good morning, Whitewater
Here is the beginning — the first full week — of your new year.
There are no scheduled public meetings in the City of Whitewater today. One never knows, though, if something terribly important, and offered as an exception to Wisconsin’s open meetings law, will arise.
School’s back in session. Hope you enjoyed your break as much as I did mine. Back to studying for you, and posting for me.
In Wisconsin history on this date, in 1813, the Wisconsin Historical Society reports that “Utopian Community Leader Kevin Brunner Warren Chase was Born”:
On this date the founder of a Fourierite Utopian community in what is now Ripon was born. Their inspiration came from the writings of Charles Fourier, a French Socialist who urged the rebuilding of society from its foundation as the only cure for economic ills such as the depression of 1837. The idea was supported by Horace Greely in New York and caught the eye of Warren Chase.
Chase and others built a successful, non-religous communal society in which everyone recieved wages according to their skill, need, and work ethic. The community reached their greatest population (180) in 1845 but soon dissipated when members began moving toward agriculture as an economic tool.
Families gradually left the community to live in their own houses and work their own land in the same area.
In 1850, the community disbanded and $40,000 in assets was divided among the remaining members. Warren Chase moved around the country and finally settled in California, where he held many public offices.
Oh dearie me, the story of so many efforts where an official exists to build a better community —
High hopes, initial success, community rejection of idealistic socialism for private property, collapse of the scheme, and the retreat of the community leader into — what else? — public office (at public expense!).
Thank you, Wisconsin Historical Society, for your apt account of this asinine scheme! You have made me deliriously happy, really you have. I admire your organization 22.9% more than I did last month, for this account alone.