halt!

Finally tracked down William Alfred Hinds’ American Communities and Co-operative Colonies. Hinds was a lifelong devotee of my main 19th century radical man John Humphrey Noyes, and in many ways his work is the companion of Noyes’ History of American Socialisms.  I have many questions regarding not only the content of these works, but the details of their composition, especially the men’s cross-country travels to the communities in question. I look forward to visiting Syracuse University’s archives to examine Hinds’ papers and discern the particulars of his journeys, the notes he felt worthy to be penned, and the initial impressions he took away.

’til then, some words from the wise:

“While the author’s experiences and observations have given him an abiding faith in Communism as the ultimate basis of human society, they have also given him a lively appreciation of the losses and miseries resulting from ill-considered and ill-conducted social experiments; and he would cry ‘Halt!’ to every one proposing to found or join a communistic, semi-communistic or co-operative colony without the fullest consideration.”   -Hinds, Feb. 5, 1902