Vegetarian Utopia Main Menu Vegetarian Utopia A survey of vegetarianism, religion, and community in 19th century America Visual Table of Contents Vegetarian Christianity The arrival of protestant Christian sects from England Amos Bronson Alcott's Fruitland The American Vegetarian Society An organization of the best minds in vegetarian reform - New York, May 15, 1850 Octagon City in Territorial Kansas "Go West, Young Man" The Union Colony and the fall of moral vegetarianism Reference Page List of sources and further readings

Introduction

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The "opening" of the American West from the hands of the native inhabitants brought with it new ideas about individualism, religion, and moral duty. Vegetarianism was a unique feature of post-Jacksonian, 19th-century America political thought, and in some certain spheres, it became intermixed with other moral ideals such as the ethics of slavery, alcohol consumption, and Protestantism. These ideas blended with Fourierism, a theory of social organization, to create new communal settlements in America which focused on the moral duty of citizens.
A number of new townships and colonies were established along the east coast and in the newly "opened" western territories with communal living and vegetarianism as main features of the new towns. These colonies maintained that their citizens be in upright social standing as well as self-reliant, to abstain from alcohol, to not hold slaves, and to practice a vegetarian diet. The Protestant Christians who packaged these seemingly disparate ideals into a singly-prescribed moral vision largely followed the methods of itinerant preachers and others who capitalized off the new individualism of the Great Awakening, fueled by the vast tracts of land now available to the West. 

The vegetarianism that was practiced in the 19th century is different from that of today because by-and-large animal welfare, economics, and environmental concerns were secondary reasons for the plant-based diet, if considered at all. Protestantism, health, and ethical discipline were more widely considered, and this wave of American history created a new brand of moralism that encouraged the formation of these virtuous colonies well into the 1900s.
There are a number of notable founders of vegetarianism, almost all of whom knew each other directly through sharing political and philosophical space in the mid-19th century. Some of these communities were implicated in even more radical ideas, such as phrenology and transcendentalism, while others had more of a focus on Republicanism, individual liberty, and self-sufficiency. Each community forged its own path, with varying attempts at regulating individual members diets. This book will look at a number of vegetarian communities and religions that practiced the diet, eventually tracing chronologically the trajectory of idealist communities in postbellum America.

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  1. Visual Table of Contents Spencer T Little

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  1. Vegetarian Christianity

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