Warren, Josiah

Josiah Warren - Wikipedia

research notes:

Josiah Warren had been an successful inventor and Industrialist^[4] before he became interested in the idea of utopian communities. He was fascinated with New Harmony, Indiana, which Robert Owen had founded in 1825, as a socialist community.^{[5]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-5) In 1825 Warren sold his factory and took his family to live in New Harmony^[6] which then failed within two years.^{[7]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-7) Warren felt that the reasons for its failure were the authoritarian nature of the community and the socialist idea of holding all property in common.^{[8]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-8) Out of this experience, he came up with the idea of individual sovereignty which can be expressed as “the moral or natural right of a person to have bodily integrity and be the exclusive controller of one's own body and life.”

Warren also realized that individual sovereignty must extend to economic matters and that owning property in common^[9] had been detrimental to New Harmony. He also developed the idea "cost the limit of price."^{[10]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-10)Warren believed that goods and services should trade according to how much labor was exerted to produce them and bring them to market, instead of according to what individuals believed them to be subjectively worth.^{[11]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-11) Therefore, he proposed a system to pay people with certificates indicating how many hours of work they did.^{[12]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-12) They could either exchange the notes at the local time stores for goods that took the same amount of time to produce; or they could exchange their labor notes with other residents for an equivalent amount of labor.

Modern Times begins[]

Steven Pearl Andrews met Josiah Warren in 1851 in New York City. Andrews was a lawyer and an abolitionist. He had varied interests that ranged from American Shorthand to being conversant with over 30 languages.^{[13]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-13) Andrews was so fascinated by Warren’s ideas that he wrote a book about them in order to give them a wider audience.^{[14]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-14) In 1851 they decided to start their experimental village of Modern Times located in what is now Brentwood. Warren and Andrews sold the land at cost to the new settlers with the stipulation that the buyers had to wait at least five years before they could sell the land at a market price.^{[15]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-15) Sales before that time had to be at cost.

Life at Modern Times[]

William Metcalf was the first person to put a home up in the spring of 1851.^{[16]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-16) In the next year 10 more families moved in. The ability to swap labor notes for other people’s labor and Josiah Warren’s ingenious method of making bricks out of sundried mortar insured that the home prices would be affordable.^{[17]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-17) By 1855, the NY State census reported 85 people living in Modern Times. In 1860 the federal census listed a total of 126 residents.^{[18]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-18)

While Modern Times, in theory, was designed to operate as a self-sufficient labor for labor exchange, the reality was that soon the residents had to go out to work in the outside world in order to procure money to purchase a good deal of the things that were needed to live.^{[19]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-19)

Modern Times became a town with no government or laws or police, and which could be referred to as anarchistic, yet there was no crime or violence during its 13 year history. ^[20]

Modern Times becomes Brentwood[]

Different reasons are posited for the inability of Modern Times to continue beyond its fourteen-year life span. Vern Dyson wrote that “the economic panic of 1857 undermined the business enterprises of the village and the civil war completed the task of annihilation.”^{[21]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-21) William Bailie also stated his opinion about the deleterious effects of the Panic of 1857 on Modern Times.^{[22]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-22)Roger Wunderlich felt that Bailie exaggerated the impact of the 1857 crash on Modern Times and states that after the crash a slow but steady influx of settlers continued. ^{[23]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-23) Wunderlich further says that even before 1857, more of the skilled workers of Modern Times “were beginning to be disinclined to trade their skills at par without financial gain,” and so worked outside of Modern Times.^{[24]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-24) Charles Codman who was a resident of Modern Times, wrote many years later that the lack of a charismatic leader who was able to spread the ideas about Modern Times to a wider audience and the fact that a good deal of the settlers were not dedicated to the ideals of equitable commerce led to its inability to continue as a utopian village.^{[25]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-25) Finally, Roger Wunderlich wrote that the Civil war presented the residents of Modern Times with a situation and choices that were contrary to their personal beliefs. Could one be believer in individual sovereignty and join the army to fight or pay taxes for the war effort?^{[26]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-26) In the end, out of the 168 men from Islip town who enlisted in the Union Army, 15 of them were from Modern Times. Modern Times had sent a higher proportion of its men to serve than did the Town of Islip as a whole.^{[27]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_Community_of_Modern_Times#cite_note-27)

In 1864, the members of Modern Times decided to change the name of their town to Brentwood in order to cut down on the amount of unfavorable publicity that the name of Modern Times had created.

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Josiah Warren (1798-1874)

reformer, inventor, musician, writer

An interesting account of Josiah Warren's life and work was written by his son, George W. Warren. Parts of George's boyhood were spent in New Harmony, and he served under David Dale Owen, geologist from New Harmony, in Owen's epic survey of portions of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota (1847-1849). Later, George moved to Evansville and became the leading 19th century band leader there. George Warren's account has not previously been published. Permission to publish it here, gratefully acknowledged, was given by the Labadie Collection, University of Michigan. A link to the Labadie Collection is provided below. The account was probably first written in hand and undated, then typed, probably by a librarian, with two inked-in corrections of dates. The account is presented here in its entirety, with no changes except for correcting a few typographical errors, dividing long sections into paragraphs, and inserting headings.

Warren's Birth; Patents Signed by Presidents My father was born in Boston, Mass. in 1798. He and his brother George joined the "Old Boston Brigade Band" while very young. In 1821 my father came west, settled in Cincinnati and followed the profession of music for some time.

The same year, he invented a lamp for burning lard, as the only artificial light then used was the tallow candle. As tallow was twenty-five cents a pound, and lard only three cents, this invention was a revelation, this being before lard oil was known. The patent documents for the lard lamp were signed by President John Quincy Adams. The patents on the printing presses invented by my father were issued under the signature of Andrew Jackson, and B. F. Butler, in 1835. The lard lamp invention developed into a large lamp manufactory located in Cincinnati, where the lamp business was carried on for years.

Warren Attracted to New Harmony

But when Robert Owen's Community was started at New Harmony, Indiana my father became interested in the Owen movement. He sold out the lamp factory and moved to New Harmony, Indiana. "The citizens of the Owen Community were of the most elegant, well educated and refined class of people," but my father soon saw that connected interests, in ownership of property, annihilated individual interests, and also destroyed individual responsibility for short-comings. Very soon this sacrifice of personal liberty to transact business as he chose, proved the fallacy of the communistic scheme.

Mr. Owen was a man of pure, liberal and honest motives, and while scores of pages have been devoted to his abuse, not a person who wrote this abuse ever knew what purity was compared with that of Robert Owen and his family of four sons - Robert Dale, William, David and Richard.

Cincinnati; "The Peaceful Revolutionist"; Cholera

Seeing the great mistake of the connected interest system, my father left New Harmony for Cincinnati, and followed again the musical profession, at the same time musing over the problem of "true civilization" and "labor for labor" doctrine.

In those days to print a paper was an expensive undertaking and, as my father had no money, the question was how to get his ideas before the people. After a long time he managed to get into the type-casting department of the Cincinnati Type Foundry at the corner of Vine and Fifth Streets (where it is still in operation). By close observation he caught the idea of the type-mould, and going to work, he succeeded in making a type-mould and all his patterns, with everything appertaining to the different fonts of type. Well I remember, in [dated obscured], then I was a little chap, I watched my father making type at the same fireplace at which my mother cooked the meals. For days, months and years did my father work to enable himself to publish his paper - "The Peaceful Revolutionist."

Then in 1832 the cholera first made its appearance, and I well remember how my father set up his type and printed hand-bills cautioning the people how to live during the prevalence of that disease. These bills described the symptoms and how to treat them. Then I was allowed to go with my father to scatter the bills of caution along the streets, and I remember how proud I was when those who saw what my father was doing, shook hands with him so warmly.

What with his work of printing precautionary notices and attending a large number of funerals with masonic lodges, firemen and other organizations requiring bands, my father was kept busy for days and weeks and months; there was scarcely an hour that a funeral didn't take place. Time went on, so did deaths, but our family lived through it. Fortunately the writer, being only six years of age, could not realize the state of affairs, nor the horror of the situation—he trotting along, scattering [and] broadcasting the "caution" notices, proud of telling how many papers he had given to the people each day.

If the city records of 1832-1834 were not destroyed during the destruction of the court house some years ago, the thanks of the city alderman to him will be found recorded to Josiah Warren if I mistake not.

Lease on Property Returned; "Labor for Labor"

I should have stated that when my father left New Harmony and went to Cincinnati in 1827 he leased from Mr. Longworth (a gentleman well remembered by old inhabitants of Cincinnati as one of the largest real-estate oweners of the city) a tract of land lying between Elm and John and from 5th to 9th, for 99 years. Had he not become a "reformer" of the labor question and a student of the problem of "Peaceful Revolution," he might, with his knowledge of business, have lived and died a rich man, but as his convictions as to the rights and liberties of the laboring classes generally became more confirmed he concluded this purchase of land to hold for a profit, all wrong, so he returned the 99 year lease to Mr. Longworth.

Time went on. Finally some friends, who were interested in his "Labor for Labor" ideas, joined in his movement, and he was induced to move to Trenton, Ohio, with the idea of starting a community to be run on the "Labor for Labor" system, but after building a comfortable residence within a mile of Trenton, and living there for some three years, he found we were too remote from those who were interested in these things, so in 1838 we moved back to New Harmony, and he applied himself to simplifying the art of printing.

World's First Continuous Sheet Press

About this time he found that in order to build such a press as he contemplated and his ambition dictated, it was necessary for him to go to Cincinnati so that he could have his work done, and some time in March he went to Cincinnati, taking me with him. He soon had his work room for the iron work and machinery, also cabinet shops, office and printing office for job work such as business cards, advertisements, etc. The writer, then only 13 years of age, did the typesetting and card-printing; this work was done on one of my father's job presses. The building where this work was done, and where the first continuous sheet press was ever built and worked, was in the middle of the magnificent block facing the splendid fountain on Fifth Street. The block at that time was considered a splendid structure, being two stories high.

The work of building the press progressed rapidly for those times, and job printing was carried on by the writer. Finally the great and beautiful press was finished, and fully tested. It proved capable of striking off from forty to sixty copies per minute—an achievement in printing never before heard of or imagined. As it was the intention to use this mammoth press for the presidential campain of 1840 as soon as it had been thoroughly tested, this magnificent printing press was placed on board the steamboat Rover on New Year's Eve, 1840—I shall never forget that night.

Moving the Press to Evansville

It was cold, and a terrible wind, snow and a hail storm [were] in full blast as we pulled out from the wharf. As the Rover was the last boat which was expected to leave for some time, she was well crowded with passengers. It got colder and colder, and the ice was forming rapidly. Finally we cut our way to shore several miles from Madison, Indiana, or 57 [miles] above Louisville.

In the morning we were informed by the Captain that the prospects were very flattering for a starve-out or a walkout of seven miles to Madison, and all hands started on a dismal walk through the snow, the beautiful snow. We made the trip, got to Louisville, stayed three days, and it kept freezing harder. As no stages were running, my father made arrangements to go in a sleigh, got up at 4 A.M., took the sleigh, rode three hours, stopped for breakfast, and finding we were nearly frozen, we concluded to walk the balance of the way home—one hundred and seventy five miles. This distance we made on foot in six and a half days to New Harmony. It took the Rover over two months to do it [to Evansville], as she was icebound all that time.

Trouble in Evansville; Time Store in New Harmony

Finally the press was placed in the office at Evansville. This beautiful machine opened up splendidly, but no sooner had my father returned home than the platen press jammers commenced their anarchistic devilment. They had never seen a press that would print more than four to six copies per minute and they were going to be d--m if any bloody press should take the bread out of their mouths by doing the work in no time. So these scoundrels kept my father in hot water, till one day he engaged some wagons and had the press hauled home and broke it up.

In the meantime, between the 1840 presidential campaign and the destruction of the continuous sheet press (it was used, I believe for about two years) my father started the "time store." It was located in the building that stood contiguous to where the magnificent New Harmony Institute [was] just erected (which is the generous gift of Dr. Murphy). [Here, we surmise that G. Warren wrote his account not long after 1894, the year the construction of the present Workingmen's Institute was finished.]

The time store was started by my father for the purpose of illustrating the labor-for-labor system. The goods he bought principally of Evansville merchants. The customers would come in and ask for what was wanted. The time dial was set to correspond with the minute hand of the clock and when the customer was through with his purchase, the time required in waiting on him was figured up; this labor was paid by the customer in labor notes, and the cost of the goods was paid in cash. There was no profit added to the first cost of the goods, except the amount expended in freight, bills, and other incidentals. The labor notes, of course, represented all classes—merchants, farmers, doctors, and every description of laborer, and the rates per hour were regulated by the cost to the person of having to spend the time in learning the business in which he was engaged. I remember that a large number of the citizens of the town and country contiguous used to meet once every two weeks at the "Hall," fitted up in a large building called "No. 1" which belonged to my father. In this [building] were also the shops where the library printing presses, type cases, etc., were being made.

The friends of the labor movement met, and the question was discussed, the prices of different kinds of labor suggested, and acted upon. This was continued for a time, but of course it being only an illustration of the "labor for labor" idea, in about two years this was dropped, and, as father had received from his friend Robert Dale Owen a large amount of property in buildings and land for an interest in the undertaking, and as my father concluded that his friend, Mr. Owen, had not gotten value received, he decided to deed back to Mr. Owen the whole of that property. How many men would have done this?

Stereotyping; New Music Notation; Concluding Remarks

He then bought property about a mile out in the hills and building a residence, devoted himself to a new method of stereotyping, spent time and money, and his work was the first of the kind which developed into the present system of electrotyping.

Being a fine musician, he saw that the art of music was much retarded by the intricacy of the present method of musical notation. His method was all right: it dispensed with the sharp and flat signatures, and the tier and length of the stem gave the length of the note, and the piano or forte power [i.e., dynamic level] was designated by the size of the note itself.

But the fallacy of the introduction of any new method of musical notation is prominently apparent when we are cognizant of the fact that the whole world has but one system of musical notation, also the whole world has used no other since the art developed into an art. [Actually, some of Josiah Warren's ideas are manifest in many 20th century musical scores.]

My father, however, spent a great deal of time in making plates by means of his own invention, to print his system of musical notation, previous to his going to Boston. He went there in 1850 and interested himself in developing a printing process by which the type plate was on a cylinder; this system of printing was used in Washington City, I believe, the surface of the plate being a composition of Gum Shellac with other ingredients.

Devoting himself to the advancement of civilization, he died in Boston in [1874], having gone through a checkered life, and for many years a fine musician. I never know him to use profane language or to touch liquor of any kind, or use tobacco in any form. He was strictly temperate in every respect.

Many of the aspects of Josiah Warren's life and works remembered by his son in the foregoing account are examined in some detail in

Frederick D. Buchstein, "Josiah Warren: The Peaceful Revolutionist," Cincinnati Historical Society Bulletin 32 (1974) 61-71.

Buchstein notes that John Stuart Mill called Josiah Warren "a remarkable American" and in his own Autobiography adopted Warren's phrase "Sovereignty of the Individual." It is interesting that the words "individual sovereignty" stand in sharp contrast to Robert Owen's utopian principles for communitarian living. Perhaps the months Warren spent as a part of the Owen experiment sharpened his notion of individual sovereignty.

One might ask how Josiah Warren was able to finance his high speed press. According to Richard Leopold's biography of Robert Dale Owen (p. 139), the enterprise was a $6,000 investment by the sons of Robert Owen, who lived in New Harmony.

Details about the use of Warren's press in Evansville and New Harmony are as follows: The South-western Sentinel, started by Jacob P. Chapman, in its first issue, dated February 28, 1840, carried the following paragraphs:

"The first number of The South-western Sentinal is the first newspaper probably in the world which was ever printed on a continuous sheet. Our press or printing machinery is the invention of Mr. Josiah Warren of New Harmony. He has brought a series of experiments extending through nine years to a successful close, and this machine, which he calls his speed press, is one of the results.

It receives the paper from a roll, prints it by means of a roller, and winds it as it is printed. It is worked by a man and a boy, or, at somewhat slower speed, by a man alone. It is supplied with self-inking apparatus by which the ink is strictly under control. Its construction throughout is very simple. It has not a single geared wheel about it. It is chiefly composed of rollers, twenty-three in number, with several pulleys. Its form is elegant and its appearance substantial.

The paper use...is cut into sheets after it is printed... Should the experiment, which has succeeded admirably thus far, cause the introduction of Mr. Warren's printing machines throughout the Union, the printers' vocabulary will be somewhat changed. We order not so many reams, but so many yards, of paper, which comes to us like cloth in rolls.

The South-western Sentinel closed in 1840, but the press remained in Evansville for the opening of another paper, named Indiana Statesman, published every Friday by Alexander Burns, Jr. (a cousin of the poet Robert Burns). The first issue was dated May 13, 1842 and until Sept., 30, 1842 (vol. 1, no. 21), the press ran in Evansville.

However, because of the problems already described by Warren's son, the press was moved, and beginning with vol. 1, no. 22, dated Oct. 22, 1842, the Statesman was published very Saturday morning, from the east end of the Hall in New Harmony until the final issue, dated March 7, 1846. During all these years, 1842 to 1846, the paper carried much local news from both Evansville and New Harmony. Several issues carried examples of Warren's newly invented "universal typography". (See the link below.)

The octagonal schoolhouse, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, was constructed in 1857 by the residents of Modern Times, a utopian free-thinking settlement that existed from 1851 until 1864 in what is now Brentwood.

The community, one of 100 unrelated villages formed as social experiments before the Civil War, was the only such colony on Long Island and one of the more successful attempts at founding an ideal model village in the United States.

''We should be proud we had such a community on Long Island,'' said Barbara Van Liew, editor of Preservation Notes, a publication of the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities. ''It was a source of great amazement and amusement in the mid-19th century.''

The 150 residents of Modern Times lived on a 90-acre tract in the center of present-day Brentwood in a state of what they tried to make near-perfection. Their society, based on principles of complete individual liberty and absence of greed, had no jail, judge, money or taxes. Everyone had shelter, food, clothing and unlimited freedom of expression, until the notoriety of some members' beliefs brought its dissolution.

''Mind your own business, do your own thing'' was their motto, Martha Stepsis, curator of the Modern Times Collection at the Brentwood Public Library, said.

''Modern Times was not socialistic as much as social,'' said Dr. Roger Wunderlich, editor of the Long Island Historical Journal, based at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. ''They had a nonstop kaffeeklatsch as they discussed how to live and what sort of morality should prevail,'' said Dr. Wunderlich, whose dissertation was on the community.

In June the Town of Islip paid $15,000 to move the schoolhouse to the grounds of the Anthony F. Felicio Administration Center of the Brentwood public school system. ''We're resurrecting Modern Times,'' said Anthony Felicio, president of the Brentwood Board of Education. ''We're bringing back the history and tradition of it by preserving this school house.''

At present, the 132-year-old structure conveys an impression not so much of modern times as of hard times. Moved when it was replaced by a new school in 1907, the octagon was sold and used as a residence until the early 1970's, then left to molder in a heavily wooded lot. Frank Olivieri Jr., whose family was the building's owner before he donated it to the school board, said it was the last wish of his mother, who died a year ago, that the schoolhouse stay in Brentwood.

''Wherever she is,'' Mr. Olivieri said, ''she'll be happy it went where it belongs. It meant a lot to me. I hope to see future generations enjoy it.''

Preservationists and town officials had coveted the architecturally significant schoolhouse for some time before the transfer took place. ''We always had our eye on it,'' said Islip Town Supervisor Frank Jones. ''We weren't going to let it go.''

The principal planner of Islip Township, Eugene Murphy, worried as he watched the building deteriorate over the years. ''The longer it stayed empty,'' said Mr. Murphy, ''the greater the chance it would be lost forever. Now the community has it forever.''

Only eight octagon buildings survive on Long Island from the period of their heyday, 1850-60, making the unusual structures an endangered species. ''An octagon was not only the cheapest way of enclosing space,'' said Zachary Studenroth, preservation services coordinator of the antiquities society, ''it was a novel form associated with visionary characters, a visually impressive new way to do things.''

Originally one large room, with a glass roof for viewing the stars, today the octagon is divided into five rooms on the first floor and two upstairs. ''A family with six or seven kids lived in it,'' said Mr. Olivieri. ''It was surprisingly big inside.''

Though its original cedar exterior is ''solid as a rock,'' according to Robert Sasso, Brentwood Historical Society president, the interior, a victim of vandalism, is dilapidated and damaged by fire.

In late June, to stabilize the structure, workers replaced the roof, rebuilding the cupola. An additional $70,000 will be needed, Mr. Felicio said, to restore the schoolhouse to its original condition. The Brentwood Historical Society has undertaken to raise the funds through grants from state and Federal agencies and private donations. Assemblyman Paul E. Harenberg has promised to lobby in Albany for state money.

''It's remarkable it's stood the ravages of wind and rain to which it was exposed,'' said Carl A. Starace, Islip Town historian. ''It had its mission in life. It educated a lot of kids.''

[ New York Today Newsletter

If the school board has its way, the schoolhouse will once again educate students. Field trips to the restored facility are planned to integrate the building into the Long Island history curriculum.

''We want to make it a museum for the community at large,'' said Mr. Felicio, ''and an educational experience for our young people in Brentwood, so they can see what school was like 132 years ago.''

''I'd like to see it used as a living classroom,'' said Mr. Sasso. ''Let's face it, the building's 900 square feet. If it's just a museum, a tour would take 15 minutes.''

Residents can already learn about Modern Times at the Brentwood Library's permanent exhibition of photographs, artifacts and documents.

''We have the most interesting history on Long Island,'' said the curator of a collection on Modern Times, Mrs. Stepsis. ''People come in and they almost fall over, saying, 'Where'd you get all this?' ''

Visitors learn that in a time of increasing industrialization, Modern Timers tried to turn the clock back toward a kinder, gentler way of life. ''It's important that Long Islanders know there was a group of intellectuals who tried to create an ideal human community here, a scale model of liberty within the belly of the beast,'' Dr. Wunderlich said. ''There was this terrible trend toward greed, acquisition, mass production and dehumanization. These people tried to change that.''

Rich in ideas but poor in output, due to its anarchistic philosophy and abhorrence of the profit motive, Modern Times ultimately proved impractical. ''A beautiful bird that can't fly,'' Dr. Wunderlich called it.

Yet the community did have a formative impact on Long Island. The first community built by the tracks of the Long Island Rail Road, Dr. Wunderlich described it as an early version of a commuter suburb.

It was a source of affordable housing. Since land, labor, and materials were sold at cost, many settled there because it was their only opportunity to own a home. Planting apple and cherry trees along the roads so that travelers would never go hungry, the colonists proved that the pine barrens, then considered an agricultural wasteland, could be cultivated.

The community also created a Mechanical College that was one of the nation's first vocational and arts schools. Laboratory of Social Reform

But Modern Times's most lasting contribution was as a laboratory of social reform. ''A crack in the wall of Victorian morality,'' Dr. Wunderlich termed it. Its doctrine of individual freedom attracted non-conformists who deplored the unequal marriage laws of the day, which treated women as their husbands' chattel.

''Our whole existing marital system is a house of bondage and the slaughterhouse of the female sex,'' wrote Stephen Pearl Andrews, a founder of Modern Times.

In response to such an affront to convention, a fierce debate ensued in the pages of The New York Tribune, bringing public attention to Modern Times both around the nation and abroad. William James Sr., the father of the novelist Henry James, wrote in The Tribune that Andrews' views were ''eminently detestable,'' and the paper's editor, Horace Greeley, a proponent of ''indissoluble monogamy,'' denounced Modern Times for ''impurity and adultery.''

''They were not immoral,'' insists Mrs. Stepsis, of the Modern Times residents who advocated cohabitation rather than marriage. ''They were like we are today, but this was all brand new.'' Women's Rights

''It was really a women's rights movement,'' said Dr. Wunderlich. ''Most of the settlers would rather talk about free love than practice it.''

Adverse publicity, however, caused the fall of this 19th-century Eden. ''The residents called it Modern Times, but the newspapers called it a crackpot community,'' said Mrs. Stepsis. ''Naturally, the crackpots came to town.''

A co-founder, Josiah Warren, lamented the influx of eccentrics who flocked to the settlement and paraded their personal idiosyncracies. ''One man began to advocate the plurality of wives; another believed clothing to be a superfluity; a woman with an ungainly form displayed herself in public in man's attire.''

An early visitor, impressed with the other-worldly nature of Modern Times, said it could be reached either by railway or by rainbow. But rumor, ridicule and reality destroyed the rainbow. A Reputation for Oddity

In 1864, townspeople decided to rechristen their hamlet Brentwood to escape their notorious reputation for oddity and immorality. After that, the community began to lose its distinctive character, as many who had no interest in Brentwood as anything other than a nice place to live moved in.

What remains of Modern Times today are the lofty white pines planted by residents along Washington Street. And the octagonal schoolhouse.

''It's important for people to know about the original people who came here,'' said Ruth Rosenthal, a Brentwood school board member. ''They had different ideas and they believed in freedom. We're not a wealthy community, but there's a lot of richness in the respect we still have for each other and for education.''

''The Modern Timers were a remarkable community of free spirits,'' said Mr. Sasso, ''part of our growing up in America.''

''The importance of Modern Times is not that it failed,'' said Dr. Wunderlich,'' but that it tried.''

Labour vouchers were first proposed in the 1820s by*Josiah Warren*and*Robert Owen*. Two early attempts at implementing labour vouchers (called labour notes at the time by their proponents) were made by both following their experiences attempting to establish a utopian community at*New Harmony, Indiana*in which currency was prohibited.*

In 1827, Warren established the*Cincinnati Time Store*where goods could be purchased with labor vouchers representing an agreement to perform labor. However, he folded the store in 1830 in order to devote his effort to establishing communities that implemented his principles of labour-based prices.**^[1]^*

*^[2]^*

Beginning in 1832, Owen and his followers attempted to implement labour notes in London and Glasgow by establishing marketplaces and banks that accepted them.*

The followers of Owen stood for a society of co-operative communities. Each community would own its own means of production and each member of a community would work to produce what had been agreed was needed and in return would be issued with a labour voucher certifying for how many hours he or she had worked. A person could then use this labour voucher to obtain from the community's stock of consumer goods any product or products which had taken the same number of hours to produce.*

Owen believed that this co-operative commonwealth could begin to be introduced under capitalism and in the first half of the 1830s some of his followers established labour bazaars on a similar principle in which workers brought the products of their labour to the bazaar and received in exchange a labour voucher that entitled them to take from the bazaar any item or items which had taken the same time to produce after taking into account the costs of the raw materials. These bazaars were ultimately failures, but the idea of labour vouchers appeared in substantially similar forms in France in the writings of***Pierre-Joseph Proudhon***.*

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As a term, mutualism has seen a variety of related uses. Charles Fourier first used the French term mutualisme in 1822,^{[23]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-23)^{[24]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-24) although the reference was not to an economic system. The first use of the noun mutualist was in the New-Harmony Gazette by an American Owenite in 1826.^{[25]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-25) In the early 1830s, a French labor organization in Lyons called themselves the Mutuellists.^{[26]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-Backer-26)^{[27]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-Wilbur_2018-27)

Proudhon published his own perspective for reform which was completed in 1849, titled Solution du problème social (Solution of the Social Problem), in which he laid out a program of mutual financial cooperation among workers. He believed this would transfer control of economic relations from capitalists and financiers to workers. The central part of his plan was the establishment of a bank to provide credit at a very low rate of interest and the issuing of exchange notes that would circulate instead of money based on gold.^{[26]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-Backer-26)^{[27]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-Wilbur_2018-27)

19th-century United States[]

Mutualism was especially prominent in the United States and advocated by American**individualist anarchists**.[^[37]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-37)While**individualist anarchists in Europe**are pluralists who advocate**anarchism without adjectives**and**synthesis anarchism**, ranging from**anarcho-communist**to mutualist economic types, most**individualist anarchists in the United States**advocate mutualism as a**libertarian socialist**from of**market socialism**, or a**free-market socialist**form of**classical economics**.[^[38]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-38)[^[39]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-39)[^[40]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-40)

Mutualism has been associated with two types of currency reform.**Labor notes**were first discussed in**Owenite**circles and received their first practical test in 1827 in the ******Time Store**of former**New Harmony**member and**individualist anarchist** **Josiah Warren*****. Mutual banking aimed at the monetization of all forms of wealth and the extension of free credit. It is most closely associated with**William Batchelder Greene**, but Greene drew from the work of Proudhon,**Edward Kellogg**and William Beck as well as from the land bank tradition. Within individualist anarchist circles, mutualism came to mean non-communist anarchism or non-communist socialism.[^[41]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-41)

American individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker, one of the individualist anarchists influenced by Proudhon's mutualism

Historian Wendy McElroy reports that **American individualist anarchism**received an important influence of three European thinkers. One of the most important of these influences was the French political philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, whose words "Liberty is not the Daughter But the Mother of Order" appeared as a motto on *Liberty*'s masthead.^{[42]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-mises-42) Liberty was an influential American individualist anarchist publication of Benjamin Tucker. For American anarchist historian Eunice Minette Schuster, "[i]t is apparent [...] that Proudhonian Anarchism was to be found in the United States at least as early as 1848 and that it was not conscious of its affinity to the Individualist Anarchism of Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews. [...] William B. Greene presented this Proudhonian Mutualism in its purest and most systematic form".^{[43]^}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#cite_note-againstallauthority.org-43)

Josiah Warren (1798-1874) developed a synthesis of anti-capitalist economics and radical individualism which became a unique, yet highly practical, strand of anarchism in the United States. Far from being a scholar, Warren’s background was in music, printing technology, and general inventiveness. In fact, little evidence can be found of his interaction with other anarchist thinkers, social scientists, philosophers, or scholars whatsoever. Warren’s anarchism is a distinctly practical affair, borne of lived experiences. As such, while certain connections to existing theory stand to be made, an analysis of Warren must emphasize his isolation from the rest of the emerging anarchist movement of his time. This isolation, however, makes his thoughts and experiments all the more fascinating, for they were truly original innovations based in the material conditions of the mid-19th century working class. To explore Warren’s life work, this effort will lean on the well collected and edited compilation of his writings collected by Crispin Sartwell (2011), who additionally provides a comprehensive chronology of Warren’s life. The Sovereignty of the Individual Born in 1798 in Boston, Massachusetts, Josiah Warren first found work as a musician. Crispin Sartwell (2011, 254) explains that by 1816, at the age of eighteen, Warren made a living playing in the Boston Brigade Band and two years 2 on he married Caroline Cutter. The two would leave Boston in 1819, in the midst of the economic depression, and take up residence in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Warren once again found work playing the clarinet. Sartwell (2011, 254) also notes that while living in Cincinnati between 1821 and 1823, Warren successfully prosecuted a patent for a ‘lard-burning lamp” that provided a lower cost form of lighting than the then prevailing tallow-burning lamps.

Not only is this an indication of Warren’s inventive disposition, but the production of these lamps in a factory in Cincinnati would fund many of Warren’s later social experiments and ventures. It was in this context that Warren first encountered Robert Owen, the Welsh industrialist, social reformer, and philanthropist who espoused ideas of utopian socialism. Owen first implemented his ideas in his family’s mill town of New Lanarck near Glasgow, Scotland, and would go on to found communistic communities across the United States. Owen became one of Warren’s greatest influences and helped to set the course for Warren’s life’s efforts. Sartwell (2011, 255) traces their first encounter to Warren’s attendance of a speech delivered by Owen on 10 June 1825 in Cincinnati. In September of that same year Warren relocated his family to the Owenite community of New Harmony, Indiana. Warren quickly established himself as the music director, a teacher at the school, and a worker in the printing facility (tinkering with printing technology remained another 3 of Warren’s lifelong interests). Sartwell (2011, 23) describes the New Harmony community as based upon communal ownership of property, even though the implementation of this provision would prove difficult. Constant disagreement over the use of community resources and the management of the community store served as continuous sources of tension at New Harmony. Paired with a severe shortage of skilled laborers—relative to a large population of “eccentrics” and sycophants (likely coasting on Owen’s wealth)—the experiment in community lasted but two years. In 1827 Owen sold the town to its residents, and the town transitioned into a community typical of the surrounding towns.

However, it is important to note that this dissolution of New Harmony would have a profound effect on Warren, helping to shape much of his future thinking and work. As noted above, Warren passionately engaged with printing technology and was a prodigious self-publisher throughout his life. In one of his many self-published periodicals, The Peaceful Revolutionist vol. 1 no. 4, Warren (in Sartwell 2011, 106) explains that since the failure of New Harmony, he sought to explain why the communal approach espoused by Owen failed. The result can be described as nothing else but a radical individualism, with Warren (Sartwell 2011, 104) arguing that not only do people possess an inalienable individuality which dooms all attempts at its suppression, but that one of the “most fatal errors” of human society has been the creation of legal systems and principles which are 4 not subject to each person’s own interpretation. While Owen’s experiment in New Harmony was distinctly communistic in its philosophy and approach to property, we see here in Warren’s writing an anarchistic rejection of legality and principle— all on the basis of an inherent individuality. This reading is further supported by Warren’s (Sartwell 2011, 108) assertion, in the same publication, that while the state (and its accompanying legal system) purportedly exist to ensure personal security and the security of property, it has failed to do so at every turn, going so far as to claim that such institutions “commit more crimes upon persons and property and contribute more to their insecurity than all criminals put together.” Warren only wrote two full length books in his time—the second largely a restatement of the first.

The first, Equitable Commerce, written in 1846, opens with a discussion of individuality. In this text, Warren (Sartwell 2011, 58) repeatedly employs the term “the sovereignty of the individual,” a phrase which perfectly encapsulates Warren’s individualist philosophy and can be found throughout all his writings. The book seeks to lay out Warren’s reimagined conception of commerce (which will be expanded upon below). To do so, Warren (Sartwell 2011, 56-57) asserts that any consideration of human society must first begin with an understanding of the individual natures and peculiarities of “persons, things, and events,” arguing that this individualism represents the “life-principle of society.” This centering of the individual makes it easy to erroneously read Warren’s 5 sentiment as akin to the “rugged individualism” associated with right-wing libertarianism. While Warren (Sartwell 2011, 85) certainly argues for the importance of individual responsibility, his argument is not one of disregard for other members of the community. Rather, this conception of individuality serves to emphasize individual freedom only in a context of mutual support and equitable access to resources. In response to a question regarding the communities he founded, Warren (Sartwell 2011, 217) stated, "if we do not secure homes to the homeless, we work to no purpose."

This reveals a distinctly compassionate and community-oriented dimension of Warren’s philosophy, separating it from the dispassionate and often callous dispositions associated with right-wing notions of individualism. This question, of how to effectively protect and foster individualism while also providing all members of society with the resources they need to flourish, consumed much of Warren’s life and resulted in his proposed alternative to the capitalist economy: ‘equitable commerce.’ Equitable Commerce Serving as both the title of Warren’s most important book as well as the practical economic system which he espoused, equitable commerce is more than a general statement of morality, it is a specific and well developed alternative economic system. The grounding principle of this system, Warren (Sartwell 2011, 73) 6 explains, is the notion of “cost the limit of price.” By ‘cost’ Warren means the price of raw materials and the amount of labor involved in the production of a given good or service. ‘Price’ refers to the amount demanded as payment for a given good or service. Under the rules of commerce which dominated in Warren’s day—and in today’s world still—price is set at what a commodity can fetch: the highest price the market will bear. Warren (Sartwell 2011, 68) uses the example of a starving man to demonstrate the problem with this notion of commerce. Should a starving man be offered a loaf a bread and asked, “what are you willing to pay for it?” the answer will be anything, for in this instance the loaf of bread is worth his life. Warren minces no words in his condemnation of this system, calling it “civilized cannibalism.” Instead, Warren argues for a system in which price is limited to the cost of producing, primarily the number of hours spent laboring though also including associated expenses. Warren (Sartwell 2011, 69) explains that if said loaf of bread cost its producers and vendors one hour of their labor, then in exchange no more than one hour of labor—or something which embodies one hour of labor—should be asked. Warren does qualify this argument by noting that some types of labor are far more difficult and unpleasant than others, and as such the most “disagreeable” forms of labor should be worth more accordingly. This system, then, represents a practical manifestation of the labor theory of value (with minor alterations). By 7 making cost the limit of price, profit becomes functionally impossible. Commerce and exchange may continue freely, but no seller can acquire undue value above their own labor.

Such a subversion of the profit motive derails capitalist accumulation altogether, while allowing individuals to expend or withhold their labor purely at their own liberty, under the sovereignty of each individual. Such a proposition begs the question: would such exchange reduce commerce to barter and all of its impracticalities? Warren acknowledged the need for a circulating medium and responded with the use of labor notes. Borrowing the idea from Robert Owen, Warren (Sartwell 2011, 122) argued for an alternative currency grounded solely in the quantity of hours of labor. Thus, fluctuations in the value of this “money” become impossible as long as hours themselves remain constant. Labor notes may be differentiated for specific forms of labor (as per its disagreeableness), for instance labor notes for hard labor or unpleasant sanitation work may carry more value than the notes of a music teacher who may rather enjoy their work. Because even the materials required for the production of a given good or service will be purchased on these grounds, the exchange through each stage of the production process can be easily represented in labor expended with no room for extracted surplus value. As such, prices fixed by the limit of cost should in fact be far more affordable than those produced under unequitable commerce. Similarly, even if someone has no wealth to their name, they still have labor which 8 can be expended—with just and equitable reward—in order to acquire labor notes and in turn all of their necessities. Warren (Sartwell 2011, 88) estimated that handling the purchasing of land and shelter under this system would allow for the complete housing of the population, in contrast with the crises of homelessness which exist under capitalism. Ever the practitioner, Warren did more than simply entertain these ideas. After some small-scale experiments during his time in Owen’s community, Warren’s first major practical project was the Time Store in Cincinnati which opened in 1827, shortly after the collapse of New Harmony. Sartwell (2011, 255) finds claims that at the time, the Time Store became “the most popular retail business in the city.” The purpose of the Time Store was two-fold. First, it functioned as a general goods store in which all the merchandise was priced at cost. The small markup necessary for the maintenance of the shop was minimal and the compensation for the employees was measured by a timer which the shopkeeper (typically Warren himself) would begin as soon as the buyer engaged them. As such, the shopkeeper was always equitably rewarded for their time and customers were encouraged to come prepared and not waste any time. The second purpose was to function as a hub for the exchange of labor notes. Sartwell (2011, 18) explains how beginning with a simple notice board upon which people could post both their needs and offerings, the Time Store soon evolved into a functional 9 ‘labor bank.’ Those with minimal wealth could easily come and offer labor in exchange for necessities, which, always bought at cost, were quite attainable even to those with nothing to their name.

The Time Store, therefore, became the center of a localized cooperative economy. Because goods sold out of the store could not be sold above their cost, the Cincinnati Time Store inevitably began to undersell its competitors in town. In The Peaceful Revolutionist vol. 2 no. 1, Warren (Sartwell 2011, 119) acknowledges mixed reactions from the existing “store-o-crats.” Some called for the Time Store to be shut down, while others in fact applauded Warren’s efforts and sough to replicate his methods. While Warren’s experiments did tend towards localized alternative economies, the premise itself is highly compatible with expansion and large-scale exchange. The more laborers (and forms of labor) brought into a laborexchange system, the more needs may be filled, the more variety of goods and services may be offered, and the more resilient the system becomes to localized disruptions. With respect to theory, Warren’s notion of equitable commerce bears a striking resemblance to French anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon’s [1863] (1979, 71) idea of ‘mutualism.’ Mutualism, for Proudhon, was a socialist alternative to state socialism which maintained the use of free markets but under a system of mutual reciprocity, not exploitative, capitalist social relationships of ownership. In 10 fact, Sartwell (2011, 45) finds that Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin credits Warren as a precursor to Proudhon’s mutualism, though Warren’s work is often overlooked. Warren’s isolation from any other anarchist thinkers (it is even unlikely that Warren ever used the word to describe himself) offers an interesting case study in the intuitive nature of anarchist thought. For Warren, the creation of a system of equitable commerce simply represented a socially beneficial correction to the flaws of capitalist commerce; the only change being the basic proposition that everything should be exchanged at its cost, no more, no less. Utopia and Modern Times While the Time Store in Cincinnati was certainly a success, Warren’s ambitions extended to establishing ideal communities in the tradition of other utopianists like Owen before him. Over the course of his life, Warren sought to put together a collection of writings on all of his practical experiments and it is from these writings which Warren’s accounting of his ideal communities may be found. The first of these was established in Tuscarawas, Ohio in 1835, although Warren (Sartwell 2011, 202) recounts that the small community of just six families suffered constantly under a number of infectious diseases which forced those involved to abandon the experiment. To recuperate from this loss, Warren opened a new Time Store in New Harmony, now just a town in Indiana, though many of 11 Warren’s old acquaintances from the Owenite days remained there. Warren (Sartwell 2011, 202) explains that while a success, such local measures only offered minimal reprieve to those suffering under the conditions of wage labor.

Here we see plainly Warren’s revolutionary bent, for he argues that while Time Stores demonstrate the possibility for new modes of organizing society, a “great revolution” must eventually be brought about to free the working class from the toils of the wage system. In his efforts to bring about said revolution, Warren committed to further practical experiments in ideal communities. The next effort, Warren (Sartwell 2011, 203) writes, took place in Ohio in 1844. Offering his theories of equitable commerce to a floundering Fourierite community (another sect of utopians, not unlike the Owenites), Warren helped the group acquire a few small plots of land from a nearby landowner, exchanging only the promise that their own labor would develop the land which they would buy from the landowner at a later date. They named the new community Utopia. Within a few short years, according to Warren (Sartwell 2011, 208), twelve families who had never owned homes before found themselves housed in homes and on land purely their own. At the time of Warren’s writing, in 1872, the town had been functioning successfully for over 25 years. It had not grown more, Warren (Sartwell 2011, 208-209) argues, due to both to the fact that the local “mercenary newspapers” could not do it justice (and the 12 townsfolk had no wish to be public figures) as well as the more serious issue of the surrounding land being owned solely by land speculators, who would not part with their holdings on the grounds of equitable commerce.

Nevertheless, the town stands as a striking example of the practicality of Warren’s ideas and their ability to generate sufficient means for those who have little other than their labor, for labor is the sole value honored under equitable commerce. While Warren did not write further on Utopia, Sartwell (2011, 260) finds that the core community was likely displaced by predatory land speculators, though a town called Utopia still exists at the location. After leaving Utopia to carry on as a self-sufficient project, Warren undertook his final practical experiment, the founding of Modern Times on Long Island, New York in 1851 (at the time a plot of undeveloped land 40 miles from the city). Warren (Sartwell 2011, 210) explains how the soil was unfavorable, no lumber or coal was to be found, and the initial few houses could only be built with the support of a sympathetic investor. Nevertheless, overcoming these initial challenges proved doable and soon enough houses began going up quickly under equitable commerce and the destitute were soon able to find housing. A running issue with the town, and a source of great consternation for Warren, was the tendency for all manner of eccentrics to arrive at the town, seeing it less as an experiment in an alternative economic and social system but rather as a place for 13 unlimited explorations in nudism, free love, and ill-fated notions of new medicinal or dietary cures. Warren (Sartwell 2011, 213) explains how such problems are present in any social experiment, though did drive away those of more practical means and dispositions whom Warren desired as community members. Despite these concerns, Warren adhered to his principles of individual sovereignty and never once presumed to intervene or deny anyone the right to live in whatever fashion they saw fit. In fact, to Warren’s credit, despite constant bad press and running tensions with nearby communities, the community flourished under Warren’s principles. Warren (Sartwell 2011, 213-214) notes that the town was the fastest growing in the area, homes and business sprung up rapidly, there existed a well-made road, a post office, a railroad station, and issues of crime were nearly non-existent. Thus, despite an influx of people who grated on some of Warren’s more traditional sensibilities, the premises of the sovereignty of the individual and equitable commerce proved sufficient to produce a well-functioning community capable of meeting its needs. The community lasted into the 1860’s, at which point Sartwell (2011, 43) finds the community dissolved into a more standard town. Conclusion This inquiry has sought to establish that Josiah Warren successfully developed a synthesis of anti-capitalist economics that, combined with a philosophy of radical 14 individualism, became a highly practical and functional system of anarchism. Working in almost complete isolation from other anarchist thinkers—and unlikely to have even self-identified as such—Warren’s anti-government sentiments, best expressed in his discussion of the sovereignty of the individual and the impracticality and injustice of the state, and his system of anti-capitalist economics known as equitable commerce, founded on a practical application of the labor theory of value, resulted in a functioning social and economic model.

What makes Warren especially noteworthy is his disposition towards experimentation and implementation rather than theory. While managing to write two books and a number of self-published periodicals, these are best seen as reluctant—though necessary—undertakings by an individual who saw his true goal as implementing his ideas, not theorizing them. Warren’s success in doing so, having founded a number of successful Time Stores and ideal communities, represents the intuitive nature of Warren’s ideas and the relative ease with which he managed to convince others of his ideas; not through rhetoric, but by example. Throughout all of this, however, one must not forget or disregard Warren’s revolutionary disposition. His despise for the capitalist economy and wage system are evident throughout his work, as is his vehement condemnation of the state and its violence. Similarly, his notions of individualism should not be conflated with conservative or right-wing notions of atomized individuality, for Warren’s philosophy was one of compassion 15 and mutual support. His idea of individualism left no one behind to suffer in poverty or abandonment, but rather guaranteed their empowerment to meet their needs free of coercion from either the state or the community. Warren was a truly practical anarchist, whose ideas and experiments have failed to receive their due attention, but from whom we today stand to learn a great deal.

Modern Times was a Utopian community existing from 1851 to 1864 in what is now Brentwood, New York, United States. Founded by Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews , the community based its structure on Warren’s ideas of individual sovereignty and equitable commerce.^[1]^ Modern Times existed until 1864 when its citizens decided to change the name of the town to Brentwood.^[2]^ A few writers have cited different reasons for the community’s failure.^[3]