Oneida is a vaguely familiar name for some. They make silverware. I know this because they once has a storefront in New Orleans while I stil
Oneida is a vaguely familiar name for some. They make silverware. I know this because they once has a storefront in New Orleans while I still lived there. But like Celestial Seasonings there’s a great, big freaky story behind those forks.
The Oneida Community was founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848. The commune settled near Oneida, New York and settled on that for their name, apparently. They were religious, in the protestant slant, with perfectionist flair for added flavor. The main line of belief was that Jesus Christ had already returned in 70 A.D. Because of this, somehow, they believed it was possible to bring about Jesus’s millennial kingdom all on their lonesome, and that they could be free of sin and Perfect in this world, not just in Heaven. To be fair, they didn’t come up with this concept, it’s an aspect of the definition of the term “perfectionism”.
For all that bluster, the commune was quite typical for the majority of communes in a lot of ways. They practiced a standard of communal property and possessions, group marriage, male sexual continence, and mutual criticism.
The community began with 87 members and, at its largest, grew to 306 as of 1878. Smaller splinter communities set up shop around New England. By 1881 the Oneida Community was dissolved and converted into a joint-stock company. This became the silverware company that some may know as Oneida Limited.