This book explores the intersections of nineteenth-century social reform movements in the United States. Delving into the little-known history of women who joined income-sharing communities during the 1840s, it examines the social activism cultivated within these communities. These communal experiments were inspired by French utopian Charles Fourier, whose ideas prompted the creation of over two-dozen intentional communities. In a period when women faced a spectrum of legal and social restrictions ranging from coverture to slavery, these communities offered opportunities and support for engaging in social activism. Female communitarians helped shape the ideological underpinnings of some of the country’s most enduring and successful reform efforts, including the women’s rights movement, the abolition movement, and the creation of the Republican Party. Instead of analyzing these reform movements as distinct organizations, Amy Hart argues that they were intertwined and interdependent, consisting of many of the same individuals and supported within unexpected settings.weiterlesen