July 14, 2014:

California’s Utopian Communities:  from Fountain Grove to Haight-Ashbury

Robert V. Hine, author of California's Utopian Colonies, defines a utopian colony as  “a group of people who are attempting to establish a new social pattern based upon a vision of the ideal society and who have withdrawn themselves from the community at large to embody that vision in experimental form." These colonies can, by definition, be composed of either religious or secular members… expresing the idealism of a utilitarian creed expedient to establishing human happiness, with a belief in the cooperative way of life.”