Icarians
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The Icarians were a French utopian movement, founded by Étienne Cabet.
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[edit] American Settlement
In 1848, a group of 1500 Icarians, followers of Cabet's books and principles, joined Cabet at Le Havre, France, to settle in the United States. They landed at New Orleans. They came to America to establish a communal settlement based on Cabet's ideas, and they came at this time to occupy the community at Nauvoo, Illinois formerly inhabited by the Mormons. They chose Nauvoo because it was built for communal living and dining, In the 1850s, political disagreements divided the Icarians. Cabet himself and some followers went to St. Louis, but most of the community moved west to Corning, Iowa to establish a colony of "New Icaria". The colony at Corning was granted a charter of incorporation by the state of Iowa in 1860. This group officially disbanded in 1878. A new colony was established in California, but it also disbanded by 1886. A related group in Iowa continued to stay together, but they too finally disbanded in 1898.
[edit] Communal Living
The Icarians (in German, Ikariens) lived in communal dwellings of dormitories that shared central living and dining areas. Children were raised in a community creche, not just by their own parents. Tasks were divided among the group; one might be a seamstress and never need to cook.
[edit] Political Context
Cabet was strongly influenced by events of the Revolution of 1830, in which a democratic uprising forced the restored French monarchy to grant a new constitution respecting civil rights. These rights were diminished over time, and Cabet wrote a utopian work about an ideal society. When the Revolution of 1848 established the Second Republic, it became clear that Cabet's utopian ideals could not be implemented with all the baggage of French history, so he struck out for America to start a new society from a completely blank slate.
Victor Hugo's Les Misérables describes the events of 1848. Karl Marx's vision of a perfect worker's utopia was strongly influenced by both Cabet's idealism and by the proof of it as a working reality in Illinois and Iowa.
