Analysis Of Without Sin, The Life And Death Of The Oneida Community By Spencer Klaw

Without Sin, the Life and Death of the Oneida Community by Spencer Klaw is a historical monograph about one of the most famous religious experiments in U.S. history. After the unsuccessful revival of the Second Great Awakening in the U.S. about 40 utopian communities were established. Most of these communities were to be spiritual communities except for one, but most of these communities were attempting to create the kingdom of God on earth. The state of New York was home to many of these experiments and cults. Of all of the utopian communities, Oneida was the most successful. Oneida Community was established in 1848 by John Humphrey Noyes. In 1880 it disbanded and was henceforth named as Oneida Community, Ltd., a manufacturer of silverware.

I think these are the historical questions he’s trying to answer because he goes through the process of how the community was run. For example, on pages 58 and 176 the text states, sexual relationships were controlled by Noyes himself and his handpicked leaders, but most of the girls were introduced to sex by Noyes through various sessions (Klaw 58, 176). Lots more information was presented through descriptive information. Through this information process, he also tells us that there were many reasons why Oneida voted itself out of existence. Some of which were spiritism a spiritualistic doctrine, secularism, disunity, attacks on the community from neighboring Christians, and difficulty and ultimate inability to replace Noyes as the leader. Once again he provides tons more information on these two historical

This method of research affected the argument by making it biased because they’re from the people who were involved in the community or who were around them. Gathering mostly primary documents allowed for the argument to be shaped based on the evidence presented in those documents. In which those documents basically talked about the highs and lows of the Oneida Community and what the residents and self-proclaimed leader went through on a daily basis. This made the argument more focused on how the community became so successful and what led to it becoming a silverware company through the eyes of Oneida’s