American Utopia tells the story of the Oneida Community, a radical 19th century free-love experiment in communal living. Building on his own research as well as interviews with top historians, host Dan Greenstone illuminates the fascinating lives of the liberated women and men who overturned society’s conventions about marriage, love, sex, work and childrearing. Subscribe now.
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We've launched a new YouTube channel — The Fringe — bringing together all of our documentary films and podcast series in one place.
Currently available:
🎬 Last Believer: the story of Ron Taylor, the story of the sole surviving member of the House of David commune 🎬 Far Out West: Inside California's Kerista Commune — full feature documentary, free to watch 🎬 Surviving Zendik Farm — trailer for our newest film, Official Selection Chicago Film Frenzy 2026 🎙️ American Utopia — podcast series on the Oneida Community.
Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT_8XOwxWWClj6crZdTVVcw (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT_8XOwxWWClj6crZdTVVcw)
More films and episodes coming regularly. Thanks for listening — and for helping spread the word.
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16 Sept 2022
: Madness on Trial: Dan's New Podcast Series
Introducing Dan's new podcast series, Madness on Trial. (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/madness-on-trial/id1644545571)
Have you seen that John Hinckley Jr. is starting a music career? For real. He's planning a "Redemption Tour." When I first saw this, it kinda broke my brain and sent me down a research rabbit hole. Well, I've come out the other side with a new podcast called Madness on Trial. It's a deep dive into Hinckley's trial (the most important insanity defense case of the last century) and the history of the insanity defense. We've just released the trailer, and regular episodes will begin coming out next week. It's available on Apple, Spotify, etc. I hope you enjoy it!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/madness-on-trial/id1644545571
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31 Mar 2022
Communes USA! New Podcast Series
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/communes-usa/id1616896543 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/communes-usa/id1616896543)
Hey folks, I'm co-hosting a brand new limited podcast series that, if you like this one, is for you. It's called Communes USA! I co-host it with Christian Goodwillie of Hamilton college--he's a leading scholar of communal studies and was one of the experts on this show. Together with a mix of guests that includes former commune members and several authors, we explore the past and present of communal living experiments, including one in Florida where they believed the earth was concave and we all live on the inside of the globe. I learned tons doing this project and we had lots of laughs, too.
Here's a link to the show on Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/communes-usa/id1616896543)
Here's a link for Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/episode/1md0sQV5SddOVlyCdzTr9D?si=WW1-8OvcTCCpW1cfv4sSPQ)
If you enjoy, we'd appreciate it if you rate, review, and subscribe.
Thanks!
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26 Aug 2021
Check Out Dan's New Documentary Film--Far Out West
Hey folks, I just wanted to let you know about my new documentary film, Far Out West: Inside California's Kerista Commune.
It's available now on Amazon, (https://www.amazon.com/Far-Out-West-Californias-Kerista/dp/B099CTCTWL/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=far+out+west&qid=1626883446&s=instant-video&sr=1-2) (or for iTunes, Google Play, and Vudu click here (https://geni.us/FarOutWest)).
The Kerista Commune (1971-1991) is the closest thing we have to a modern day descendant of Oneida. Kerista was a group marriage, that had a charismatic leader, a form of Mutual Criticism (which they named Gestalt-o-Rama) a successful company. And the parallels are even more erie--they raised children together, and suffered an exquisitely painful breakup when the company made them wealthy.
The Keristans are fascinating, intelligent people, who have been reluctant to share their story until now. My co-director and are the first people to be given access to the more than 250 hours of home movies that the Keristans made to document their utopia. Far Out West utilizes this footage and over 50 hours of interviews with the former Keristans to tell this amazing story.
So, go ahead and rent it, and let me know what you think of it-- dangreenstone@yahoo.com
Or, better yet, leave a review for the film on Amazon or iTunes, which helps us get the word out.
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4 Apr 2018
Episode 8: Remember Oneida?
How should we remember Oneida? Was John Humphrey Noyes a cult leader, akin to David Koresh? Did the communards of Oneida achieve their goals? Were the people who lived there happy? What can we, today, learn from the experience of Oneida? In this, the final episode of American Utopia, we answer these questions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Thanks to Ellen Wayland Smith for sharing her experience as a descendant of Oneida. You can buy her excellent book here. https://tinyurl.com/y7kapfmw
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28 Mar 2018
Episode 7: Breaking Up
On a summer night In 1879, wearing socks but no shoes, John Humphrey Noyes crept out of the Oneida Community Mansion House, and fled to Canada. He never returned to community he'd created. And soon after his escape the remaining residents of Oneida voted to end Communal living. This is the story of why.
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21 Mar 2018
Episode 6: Sticky Love
At the Oneida Community, everything was meant to be shared, including sex and love. And becoming too attached (or sticky) to another person, especially a lover, was regarded as sinful. But it turns out that sharing love is really, really hard. Even if, like John Humphrey Noyes, you're perfect.
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14 Mar 2018
Episode 5: The Assassin and the Prophet
In 1881, an Oneida Community alumnus named Charles J. Guiteau, shot and killed president James A. Garfield. And in many ways, Guiteau’s trial centered on the six year period that Guiteau had spent at Oneida. Guiteau’s lawyers, who mounted one of the first uses of the insanity defense, argued that the tyrannical policies and leadership style of John Humphrey Noyes had sent their client over the edge. And while Guiteau’s portrait of Noyes was hyperbolic and self serving, there was some truth to his critique of Noyes. And despite their many differences, these two men, one an assassin, the other a prophet, were surprisingly similar.
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7 Mar 2018
Episode 4: Building Utopia
In 1848, when word of his free-love practices spread in his hometown of Putney, Vermont, John Humphrey Noyes and a few followers fled to Oneida Creek, in central New York state. There, bucking terrible odds, a harsh climate, and the nostalgic pull of the agrarian past, Noyes, and his followers managed to build a flourishing, vibrant community of 300 people who lived and loved together under one giant roof. This is the story of how they did it.
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28 Feb 2018
Episode 3: First Comes Marriage
Dan and historian Stephanie Coontz talk vibrators, graham crackers, and female orgasms, as they try to make sense of Oneida's Complex Marriage system, in which 300 adults were (heterosexually) married to each other. This (complicated!) arrangement grew directly out of the wide ranging, and sophisticated, critique of 19th century marriage and family structure put forth by John Humprhrey Noyes, Oneida's founder. Dan and Stephanie evaluate both Noyes' critique of 19th century sex, love and marriage and the commune's attempt to improve all three. So, yeah, this one might not be for kids.
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28 Feb 2018
Episode 1: Harriet Worden's Whiplash
In the first episode of American Utopia, we meet Harriet Worden. After Harriet's mother died, Harriet's father, in a decision that would profoundly shape her life, brought his 9 year old daughter to live in the brand new Oneida Community. Through Harriet's eyes, we learn about the excruciating process of Mutual Criticism, what it was like to grow up in the Children's House, the vibrant cultural pursuits that made life joyous, and the complicated, and sometimes painful sexual practices of the Community.
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28 Feb 2018
Episode 2: A Perfect Man
In this episode we meet Oneida's founder, John Humphrey Noyes, a painfully shy boy whose life and character are transformed after he attends a wild, four day religious revival. We watch as Noyes becomes a religious and sexual revolutionary so extreme that Yale College expels him. Still, Noyes manages to convince himself, and others, that he's actually perfect. And with the help of historians Christian Goodwillie and Ellen Wayland Smith, we compare Noyes’ ideas to those of other fringe religious visionaries of the 1830s and 1840s.
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20 Feb 2018
Preview: American Utopia
American Utopia tells the story of the Oneida Community, a radical 19th century free-love experiment in communal living. Building on his own research, as well as interviews with top historians, host Dan Greenstone illuminates the fascinating lives of the liberated women and men who overturned society’s conventions about gender, marriage, love, sex, work and childrearing. Subscribe now and be sure not to miss the first episode, which comes out on Wednesday, February 28th.
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4.7 / 5
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