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The Assassination of James A. Garfield, Part Three
70 Plays2 months ago
Welcome to part three of our series on the assassination of James A. Garfield! We take a bit of a detour and discuss the Oneida Community, the group that rejected Charles J. Guiteau.
Check out our YouTube channel, Fixate Today: Grey Matters
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Episode Theme
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Fixate Today Gone Tomorrow. I'm Nikki and I'm here with my Aunt Joy. We are two neurodivergent ladies who obsess about various topics. Joy is autistic and I have ADHD and we are letting our hyperfixations fly.
00:00:14
Speaker
Today we are fixating on the assassination of President James A. Garfield. Music
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody.
Exploration of the Oneida Community
00:00:30
Speaker
we are on episode three of our series on the assassination of President Garfield. Today, we're going to take a mini detour that's still super important.
00:00:39
Speaker
We are going to talk about the Oneida community, the group that basically rejected Charles Gatteau. And yeah, we just I wanted to do a mini deep dive on this community because it is 45 minutes away from where I live, and it is super interesting and weird and And some parts are okay. And some parts are bad.
00:00:58
Speaker
And so it's just super interesting. Well, and I think what makes this whole story interesting, right, are all these tangents which are in and of themselves entire stories that are interesting and pulling them all together. Because, yeah, this in and of itself is amazing beyond just um being directly linked or indirectly linked to the assassination.
00:01:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. i think you're I think it's directly linked. i think So I think you're right. It's almost like a whole bunch of things for completely different groups and people had to align for ah everything to play out the way it did. Even like the trial, what which which we'll get to and things like that.
00:01:41
Speaker
A lot of... Yep. Really big pieces had to align to for this to happen how it did. Exactly. And you also have to get pretty like fixated on it to get to the point where you're in researching or in obsessing about this topic. that You expose these other areas that are so interesting.
00:01:59
Speaker
And if for anyone who listened to our podcast regularly, we did the Micah Miller. Kind of the same thing. There's the surface story, but then when you get research, there's so much more. Yeah. yeah And that completes the picture. And there's so many things just to learn from ah the related issues. Yeah.
00:02:17
Speaker
yeah Yeah, definitely. Before we start, I'm going to apologize now for my voice. We're probably going to record two episodes. A little peek behind the curtain. We're going to record two episodes today. However, last night, I went to a thing called a Broadway rave with my friends Chrissy and Megan.
00:02:33
Speaker
And it was basically a huge Broadway dance party. And I scream sang Broadway music for three hours. And so about 1130 last night, I was like, oh, I have to record two episodes tomorrow.
00:02:49
Speaker
So I've got i ahead i got a little i got a little text with a little ah snippet from her already wording that there might be some voice issues. i I'm going to say this sounds like hell to me.
00:03:00
Speaker
Love Broadway. Love Broadway. I'm there, but the whole rave screaming part. Not for you. Not for me. But not for you. It was so fun. I danced for three hours. Everything hurts.
00:03:13
Speaker
My voice is scratchy. Yeah. You had a great smile. And it was it was worth it. I wore hot pink lipstick. Oh, my God. I think that was worn off by the time you sent me a picture. Probably. So I've made a literal carafe full of tea and I have all of my normal ADHD, multiple beverages around and I'm going to do my best. But apologies in advance.
John Humphrey Noyes and His Ideologies
00:03:34
Speaker
All right. My main sources for today's episode, Susan Wells' book. and the book An Assassin in Utopia, Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell, The New York Times, WhiteHouse.gov, The Dollop Podcast, Crimes of the Centuries Podcast, and Wikipedia. All right. Today, I would like to talk to you about John Humphrey Noyes and the Oneida community. We're going to start with the history of John Noyes. Let's do it. He was born September 1811 Brattleboro, Vermont.
00:04:04
Speaker
in bratleborough vermont I love the name of that city. His father was also named John, was a minister, teacher, local businessman, and member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
00:04:17
Speaker
Okay, real quick. So John Noyes, so let's remember, like the Oneida community was the community Guiteau to Was part of for a while?
00:04:27
Speaker
Correct. He had joined this community um or attempted to join the community. He drove everybody bananas and they kicked him out. Okay. And this was kind of cult-like? Oh, we will get into it. I say it's very cult-like.
00:04:40
Speaker
Okay. The people who currently, and don't know if it's own or have ownership of the Oneida Mansion House, do not like you to call it a cult. But it was started by this done or John Noyes.
00:04:52
Speaker
And just side note, Noyes is spelled N-O-Y-E-S. Yes. I don't know. I find that interesting. I do too. Because i I keep saying noise like sound and I think it's yeah noise.
00:05:04
Speaker
Okay. But that's really hard to say. So I'm sorry. I don't, I'm doing my best. I'm sorry. Okay. So that's how we get to him. Yes. um His mother, Polly, was actually Rutherford B. Hayes' aunt.
00:05:19
Speaker
And this is just coincidence? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But it's the thing of like politics at this time was very insular. And it it was like the country was young enough that everybody knew everybody type of thing. You know, like there's a connection everywhere. i guess when you have a ah the population of that day and the geography of that day of what the United States was made up of, it's just small enough that you have more.
00:05:43
Speaker
connection And also the access that yeah you have more access to these public figures um because nobody thought that they would need protection. Yeah. Yeah. In 1831, when John was 20 years old, he had a religious conversion and dedicated his education to become a Christian minister, dropping plans to study law.
00:06:07
Speaker
So we can kind of tell this guy's a little bit on a... And I think we'll see over and over again, ah search to find himself. Yeah. Or even ah purpose and not like a greater purpose than his own. Like almost like Guiteau was, like thinking kind of grandiose that he was going to be this big influential change. Yeah.
00:06:25
Speaker
Not sure how, but going to figure it out. I'm going to be. Exactly. Now Guiteau decided that God was telling him what to do in kind of a cuckoo bananas way.
00:06:37
Speaker
At this point, John Noyes is like, there's something bigger meant for me. It's like the beginning of a musical. And we will get into it. There is. And it's a flatware company.
00:06:49
Speaker
We'll get into that. You're right. In 1832, he entered Yale Theological Seminary to devote more time studying scripture. And while there, he explored. And I said explored because and didn't actually like join or participate too much in. But he was exploring an anti-slavery group on campus.
00:07:06
Speaker
So he was leaning abolitionist in his thoughts. And actually, I found even in between the time, I guess, of his undergrad and going to Yale Theological Seminary, he even went to a different one.
00:07:19
Speaker
He went to Andover um Theological Seminary and then left there to go to Yale, which I just think it's important because you you can start seeing this pattern of so yeah searching for belongings. And my other, you know this just occurred to me because I never saw that. So i I don't even know like how much of a blip being at the Andover location was.
00:07:40
Speaker
But going from Andover, Vermont to Yale, it's going from like, oh, i there is greater for me. I'm going to Yale. yeah. yeah And I mean, he had to be a fairly intelligent man. yeah.
00:07:55
Speaker
Yeah. So while he was at Yale, he became convinced that the second coming of Christ had already happened in 70 AD. And he deemed this or He said, quote, mankind was now living in a new age.
00:08:10
Speaker
So he saw like a big, like a almost like b split from like pre 70 AD historically to 1830s where he is now. So my note I put on this is, I put what does that mean? I know what it means, but how would that impact your sense of religion? And I don't know, what do you, ah to me, ah for him, i mean, he became anxious about being perfect.
00:08:35
Speaker
about staying completely sin free because if Christ has already come back, he's starting to like, just not decide, but people who are dying are now going like heaven hell, there's no in between.
00:08:45
Speaker
And so he's like, I have to live perfectly. How am I going to get to heaven? Like this has already happened. Judgment day has happened. This is an interesting theory to me and an interesting way of interpreting it. Also, you know, we've done a lot with religion. For anyone who doesn't know, I am not terribly religious.
00:08:59
Speaker
And again, we see that concept of second coming of Christ. But in most other religions that we've looked at, it's ah a factor yeah for the future and almost a negative.
00:09:13
Speaker
some Well, I shouldn't say that. Most of them kind of think they're going to be the saved, right? if the In the second coming. They will be the saved people. So it's a little different way of looking at the second coming, I think.
00:09:25
Speaker
Yeah. and And it leads to, and I think this is like kind of a fervor of I'm going to be saved, but I have to do the saving. I'm called to do the saving. I'm preparing. and Yeah.
00:09:38
Speaker
And I i am a Christian and i go to church and ah all the things. And like that's not actually what we have to do. like It's not our job to save anybody. It's our job to like live a good life and apologize when you mess up and things like that. Yeah.
00:09:54
Speaker
And live in a way that's a demonstration of a Christian person and, you know, be a display of the gospel, basically. But if if a person decides not to but become a follower also, that's not any bearing on us, and like on me as a person, as a Christian. If somebody decides, like, if i i' I'm like, read this Bible and they're like, not a fan, it's not on me.
00:10:17
Speaker
type of things Living your good life in and of itself is what will give you give you ah get you to heaven. You don't necessarily need to prepare yourself and have as the motivation for getting yourself to heaven and thinking that there will be a second coming.
00:10:30
Speaker
You should have been leading that life. Right. And that's kind of the key. And I think that's a big thing we see in a lot of higher control communities. Christian claiming groups is like, well, the numbers of converts we get reflects well on me.
00:10:44
Speaker
of yeah And that's not true at all. and um I also think that's a good cover for for like megachurch pastors who are making millions and millions of dollars. And they're like, oh, it's not about the money. It's that I got all these converts. like pet All these people follow Christ. And yeah,
00:10:59
Speaker
They tithe to me, but that's just because I got a lot of numbers. So in this, um as I said, he became worried about salvation from sin and being perfect. He believed only perfect people are true Christians.
00:11:12
Speaker
And this leads to like a further conversion for him where it's instead of try not to sin, do your best not to sin. It's I do not sin. And so it's almost like it steps it up. Right. It's not I'm a human. I've done something i shouldn't have done. And I have atoned
Complex Marriage System in Oneida
00:11:28
Speaker
for that and learned from it. It is I'm perfect. I don't sin.
00:11:32
Speaker
Which obviously is a problem because in whose eyes is a sin defined. Right. And that what that's going to lead to is with the start of the community, he he starts.
00:11:43
Speaker
It's his eyes because he's already deemed himself perfect. So he judges others. And this had a negative ah impact already in in his university where friends think he's completely unstable and professors call him a heretic. Fair.
00:11:57
Speaker
He said, quote, new relationship to God canceled out. He didn't say this. Sorry. I think this quote was Susan Wells books, and I'm sorry, I didn't actually write it down and I don't know why. Quote, new relationship to God canceled out his obligation to obey traditional moral standards of the normal laws of society.
00:12:15
Speaker
So he he started acting impulsively and while without concern of consequences, which I understand, I don't understand. I understand because he's decided he's perfect and he can do whatever he wants now, but it's like, but you're acting sinfully and like,
00:12:29
Speaker
doing things outside of the laws of society. Like, that's also a sin. So February 1834, he officially declared himself perfect and free from sin.
00:12:41
Speaker
And with that declaration, he was expelled from Yale His ministerial license was revoked, and he returned to Vermont to start preaching. Okay. In 1838, he married a woman named Harriet Holton, and they had what would be deemed a traditional Christian marriage.
00:12:57
Speaker
She gave birth five times, four of which were premature, and only one child survived. And I think the trauma of this led to the following things, that John began studying sexual intercourse in marriage. Okay.
00:13:13
Speaker
I mean, I have to think that this man who believes he has a sinless life, yet many people would attribute ah these their bad fortune to maybe retribution for past sin or for not living the right life.
00:13:29
Speaker
And maybe I could see how maybe within him that could be an internal battle. Or he might be so cocky that He transcends it. I think it's a little bit of both that that he recognizes like something terrible keeps happening and there must be a reason. And so instead of being like, well, it's the 1800s and there's no prenatal care, he says there's something in the design of marriage that is flawed.
00:13:54
Speaker
And that's why this is happening. There must be a reason. Right. All right. The religious fervor is ratcheting up. We're going start getting a little bit more out there in some of the beliefs. So we're going talk about lots of sex and masturbation. So buckle up.
00:14:09
Speaker
So to me, this part is not necessarily about the religion. To me, this part is about creating a reason to justify some things that were probably going on with him personally that would otherwise be considered by most at that time as sins. Yeah, like taboo. Yeah. He's got to work them in into um his overall ideology so that they're not But I think it has to do with his personal desires. But so much of that, too, is cult leaders.
00:14:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Like over and over. Develop. Yeah. They develop like these like rules and beliefs because think they really wanted to just do it and get away with it. It's almost every one of them. Yep. Absolutely.
00:14:54
Speaker
So in 1846, John becomes attracted to the wife of George Cragen. It makes me crazy we don't have her name. She was just known as the wife of George Cragen. Is George Craig at anyone special or are we just... He was just basically an early convert to what John was talking about in life. Like he... With a hot wife? Yeah, apparently.
00:15:14
Speaker
And so this is when John starts kind of shifting his ideas of marriage. um And he called it complex marriage where both men, George and John, were married to both wives, both of the women. And they basically moved into a shared house together.
00:15:30
Speaker
It's ah polyamory. It's... Early polyamory. was going to say early swinging, but I guess in swinging, you don't like marry the Yeah. No, but polyamory, I believe, is like complex marriage. It's agreed upon.
00:15:44
Speaker
Spouses are sharing one another and it it doesn't matter gender. and But polygamy is there's one man and multiple wives. And I forget the mel the switch of that. I can't remember when there's one wife and multiple husbands.
00:15:56
Speaker
But gotcha. The other thing that Noyce started researching, i guess, is male continence, which is sex without ejaculation within ah partner. Now, this is kind of weird.
00:16:12
Speaker
this is kind of different. Keep going. Yes. Yep. Noyce and his male converts began extending complex marriage to include other female converts, regardless of age. So widows, very young women, guessing teenagers is included in the very young women.
00:16:28
Speaker
October 1847, he was indicted for, quote, adulterous fornication. Okay, which I had to look up. Like, is this really like a law? it's Yeah, 1800. I mean, I'm sure in some places it still still could be.
00:16:43
Speaker
Like, there are a lot of places that there are laws still on the book that you're like, wait, what? My husband and I can't do that thing? Not in this state.
00:16:55
Speaker
So after his arraignment, he, i wrote feels, but it should be flees, to Oneida, New York. This is where we start the building of the actual Oneida community.
00:17:07
Speaker
Once he fled to Oneida, his converts came with him, his complex marriage partners came with him and they started working
Economic Contributions of the Oneida Community
00:17:15
Speaker
to create a perfectionist communal society and we use the word fled i'm assuming he's running from something yeah yeah because he never like he got indicted for the adulterous fornication okay okay he was arraigned and after the arraignment he was like yeah i'm gonna go to jail i'm gonna i'm gonna get out of here
00:17:35
Speaker
So Oneida, New York, like I said, is about 45 minutes away from where I live. When we get into the goods that they created, you mentioned the flatware. It's still used.
00:17:45
Speaker
Like you can go to restaurants and use Oneida flatware around here. People have it like in their drawers. It's yes. So it's very close to me. My library has a pass that you can go tour the museum. Is there an Oneida flatware museum?
00:17:58
Speaker
It's part of the mansion house. Oddly enough, like I would totally go do that. Even for this, the flatware part. It's so interesting. That's like one of the best rooms of the tour. i Because I am fascinated by this part of the story, which I'll get into. it Yeah.
00:18:12
Speaker
So the basic tenets of the community they're attempting to begin was communalism. group marriage, male continence, a form of eugenics called, sorry, I tried so hard for months to say this word, stirp, stirpiculture.
00:18:30
Speaker
It is not a real word. Stirpiculture, S-T-I-R-P-I, culture, and mutual criticism. So mutual criticism is nothing new and it is still used to this day. Any of those ah documentaries you watch about um the teen wilderness camps, they use the mul the mutual criticism technique.
00:18:49
Speaker
It's like back to the days of Synanon and the beginning of AA, which AA is fine now, but how it started, the mutual criticism thing, it is really a form of control no matter how you lay it out, but we'll get to it.
00:19:01
Speaker
It's just another one of like the huge things that's like cult. I was getting very much Scientology-y. vibes from that. They call it something. I don't even know what they call it. but It's a thing still.
00:19:14
Speaker
So other locations of the community popped up as well in Wallingford, Connecticut, Newark, New Jersey, and Putney and Cambridge, Vermont. But we're specifically going to be talking about the Oneida location. I don't know that much about the other locations. And what other communities being created means is that like two families were like, yeah, we'll do this too.
00:19:36
Speaker
or You know what i mean? Yeah, I was going to say, I'm like slightly impressed.
00:19:42
Speaker
It's a very organized, logical, in some ways, organization. I mean, I know there's a lot of bad things, but that that little part of me, I mean, they are successful and Yeah. in ah In a lot of ways, too. Yeah, they were.
00:19:58
Speaker
At the height of the Oneida community, it reached about 300 people. They practiced complex bureaucracy. Basically, nobody was officially on paper and charged. Everything was voted for. Everything was – no decision fell on one person.
00:20:13
Speaker
Members of the community worked to their abilities. They were actually, regardless of gender, If they were good at something, you did it. Members rotated through the unskilled jobs, you know, the basic things to run a community or even just a home that have to get done. It was never one person's job to, I'm only thinking this because I just did it. It's not one person's job to empty the dishwasher every morning.
00:20:36
Speaker
like Everybody shares those responsibilities. And they even hired 200 employees by 1870 for the industries that they started in the community. They actually began manufacturing leather bags, palm frond hats, garden furniture, game traps,
00:20:54
Speaker
And even encouraged tourism. And this is probably the biggest reason why the group was pretty much left unchecked in Oneida. Because they did really good things in terms of its economy.
00:21:05
Speaker
And they were an important part of, like, Oneida overall. I want to say the Oneida community, but talking about the community within the community. Like, the town and the city of Oneida really flourished because of this group. Yeah. I don't know. I find that really...
00:21:20
Speaker
Really think that's so interesting because so few of these groups are able to achieve this aspect. So, you know, it makes me think, I mean, maybe it wasn't Noyes himself, but yeah but somewhere in that group, we've got some good business people, some good entrepreneurial minds. Yeah.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yeah, who just who believed in what this guy was saying. And because nobody was painted into a corner of like, this is your job, you collect wood every day.
00:21:50
Speaker
and he's like, but I'm a CPA, you want me collecting wood every day? Because they were able to use their abilities, I really think it benefited the greater Oneida community. it almost seems like, yeah, the Oneida community was built around them to some extent. Yeah.
00:22:06
Speaker
And I know it feels like I'm defending them a lot. And obviously there are parts of this. i know. Do not defend. But I do think you need to give credit to um other parts that were successful. Yeah. Also wondering what the palm front hats look like. know.
00:22:21
Speaker
I bet there couldn't have been one of their big sellers, but. i i I do think I'll have to look at pictures that I had. I took pictures of like the old older pictures they had hanging. And I do. I'm remembering.
00:22:33
Speaker
People in big hats. So i' have to look I'll look back to see if those were the palm frond hats. I'm picturing ah Hawaii little stand set up on the side of the road.
00:22:44
Speaker
Yep. Yeah, right. So all those industries started, but the biggest industry was they made silverware. The Oneida Flatware Company exists today. They started manufacturing in 1877. The building that did the manufacturing is across the street from the mansion house.
00:23:01
Speaker
We weren't able to tour that building. I think it's actually used for something still, like somebody else bought it or something like that. But in the Oneida mansion house, there's a whole huge... Oh my gosh. I can't think of the word for like a part of a museum.
00:23:14
Speaker
I totally know what you're thinking. Usually it's a temporary. Yep.
00:23:26
Speaker
When you said temporary, got there. Keep this all in. We do the same thing. There is a a room that's like a dedicated exhibit to the history of the all the manufacturing, but specifically the flatware.
00:23:39
Speaker
and And even like the advertising, there's like old posters from the 50s and stuff like that. It's really cool. So we're going move away from that a little bit. And we're going to talk about... the complex marriage system, which this is what he's still really, really pushing.
00:23:54
Speaker
John is. And it's basically can be described as a system of free love. Exclusive or possessive relationships were frowned upon. And the practice of the male continence was kind of because the community couldn't support children at first.
00:24:09
Speaker
There wasn't a way to support them. But also women didn't want to be pregnant all the time. And I'm this not sure which way to go on that. Like which way to think it's progressive in a way.
00:24:20
Speaker
yeah I don't know. It's an, but yet it's the opposite of what most religions strive for because most are striving to grow. Also for the times, you know, a lot of families were large,
00:24:34
Speaker
to So the children could become um could work and help help on the farm or help. Right. So that i I think that is somewhat unique. Yeah.
00:24:45
Speaker
So he defined different. kinds of sex basically he called sex sex for love omative love and sex for procreation he called propagative love so he's even getting down to like reasons i guess for sex being included in the community but he doesn't necessarily think people should only um focus on the proper i can't say the word On the sex for procreation. I know.
00:25:15
Speaker
that He's not exactly saying that. It's just to define the different types. Exactly. And maybe even the different motivations to justify them.
00:25:26
Speaker
Yeah, Exactly. um So this also brings us to the male continence of it all, which Noyce identified as a form of self-control. He said ejaculation, quote, spends the spirit and calls it a spirit.
00:25:43
Speaker
like the actual act of ejaculation, spiritual ejaculation, because you're sending your spirit away. You're wasting your spirit. He said that ejaculation, quote, drained men's vitality and led to disease. Do we think maybe he had a...
00:25:59
Speaker
Sexual problem himself. I think that's very likely. I've not seen anything that confirms that 100%, but you we're not the only people who think that. This is pre-Viagra. Yes, very much so.
00:26:11
Speaker
Yeah. However, in addition to that, pregnancy and childbirth, he said, quote, levied a heavy tax on the vitality of women, which like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's like there's contradictions in there about being progressive society, but maybe not always for the – Yeah, it feels like the male continence thing feels very like puritanical.
00:26:32
Speaker
Yeah. And really controlling. But then it's also like, but like be good to women. It's like, what? You're saying both things? Mm-hmm. And with that, women's sexual satisfaction was valued and male continence aided in this.
00:26:46
Speaker
And I even i put in the notes that this super unusual for high control groups. And it was to the point that if a man failed, so I'm guessing that means if a woman accidentally got pregnant in the community, the man was ostracized.
00:26:58
Speaker
Very different. Yeah. Right? Now, we're going to start getting uncomfortable. Uncomfortable-er. But this is where things start to get, the questions are going to start coming up. Women over 40 were assigned to be mentors to adolescent boys.
00:27:15
Speaker
This was basically to, in a non-sexual way, well, I suppose possibly even sexual ways, but not, but through description for the women, how to be a husband and how to be a man but ah ah but but it seems to me like could this be women in a post-menopausal way so that they couldn't get pregnant so they were good to practice on i think that's possible really sad really sad yep yep and then we see the flip which this is what we see more of i mean obviously the other the women older women younger boys that happens but
00:27:54
Speaker
Older men began introducing sex to the adolescent girls as young as 12 years old. Of course. ah Are we teaching them? Yeah. Is there a reason for this?
00:28:05
Speaker
Educational. Yeah, their complex marriage-free love system. They gotta learn. where yeah John Noyce actually raised his own niece with the intention of marrying and impregnating her.
00:28:16
Speaker
And... He actually, he didn't end up impregnating her. He did, though, his, her sister, his other niece. I want to say even, like, other members of his family participated in this. Yeah. we Yeah. Whoever was there was convinced that this was correct.
00:28:32
Speaker
Now, this seems like a one-off, though. It doesn't seem, or at least it's not mentioned that other members of the group this wasn't necessarily doctrine of the group. Seems like a little bit more. It didn and it is because it ah it's how the younger members of the group were supposed to learn about the tenants of the community in terms of the complex marriage. It was their system of like,
00:28:57
Speaker
teaching the younger people. Keeping it within the home. So then we get to another very culty thing that happens is John Noyce started deciding partnerships.
00:29:08
Speaker
And in a way to kind of encourage growth, he encouraged relationships with people outside of the group to change the attitudes of the area that they lived. So people loved like the economic growth that the community brought, but there were also like some A lot of kids there doing inappropriate things with grown people.
00:29:29
Speaker
so they So they started being like, well, yeah, go and
Charles Guiteau's Rejection and Community Practices
00:29:33
Speaker
talk to this, you know, to single woman, go and talk to this man and and try to get him to like you and involved with you. And we can try to change their minds about people thinking we're crazy.
00:29:43
Speaker
So it's like sexual evangelization. Which isn't not a thing. The Children of God cult had a phrase for it.
00:29:54
Speaker
It was ah something fishing. I know it was gross though. But again, I feel like this is a an excuse for behavior or urges.
00:30:04
Speaker
Flirty fishing. Oh. and But like Manson's group did that. The women would would give sexual favors to people outside of the group so they could, you know, have... Lure them in. Yeah. like Well, like they needed a place to live and there was something abandoned. There was an abandoned spot and Manson sent his girls to go do so perform some sexual favors for the owner of the spot and then they got to live there.
00:30:28
Speaker
And converted them, I'm assuming. i They didn't convert necessarily, but... it Oh, really? That wasn't even goal? No, which makes me think that this probably wasn't entirely the goal was to like get converts instead of more like have people like them who would be willing to like maybe look the other way if they were like, get you a good deal on flatware.
00:30:49
Speaker
So through the work that the group did, their jobs within the community, that was how they were expected to earn sexual privileges. So we're seeing control amp up, right? Like John Noyce is like, I need to know all of the relationships happening. I get to decide who's paired up. I'm going to be the one who allows people sexual privileges.
00:31:08
Speaker
And this is where our old buddy Charles J. Gateau comes in. Okay. Okay. Yeah, is he part of this group? like I mean, I know he's part of it at certain times. I know he was um kind of introduced to it by his father.
00:31:24
Speaker
So he is, at this point, I don't know if it's the first or the second time, but I think it was the second time when he returned to the group. This is when he was officially, like, if you'll remember, he joined the group.
00:31:36
Speaker
He didn't like the jobs he was being given. So he left thinking he was better than... Emptying the dishwasher every morning, like I said. But then he returned and they let him return. Pretty quickly, the whole group saw him as dead weight.
00:31:50
Speaker
He still wasn't doing any of the jobs that, you know, people need to do to be an adult and help the group. And he just made them crazy. He was so annoying. Well, and I wonder, okay, so when we talked about earning sexual privileges, you know, we're talking about this community who that was financially...
00:32:11
Speaker
self-sustaining and productive. And i mean, I think Toad like doesn't work hard, doesn't help. And so maybe in that didn't earn his sexual privileges. So he wanted some quick sexual privileges without doing the work. Also could be a reason for maybe they were so so ah successful. this you know This community did achieve your flatware through experiences by the individualist.
00:32:37
Speaker
Absolutely. but and And I think it's even like another level of Guiteau felt like he was above having to earn sexual privileges, that he was owed them, which is what ah today we would call an involuntary involuntarily celibate person who believes that they're owed sex.
00:32:57
Speaker
And so Susan Wells' book does a really nice job of kind of laying him out. Charles Guiteau is like the first documented inel Or I might call him just a general lowlife.
00:33:11
Speaker
Yeah, right. The group nicknamed him Charles Yeah.
00:33:17
Speaker
He was just on top of it, just like annoying. we got to get this guy out of here. He's a bad roommate. The free love sex cult wouldn't even like couldn't even handle him. I just like that's when I do like the quick version of the story. I'm like, he was so annoying that the free love cult was like, we're not giving you love.
00:33:39
Speaker
That's bad. It's really bad. So let's talk about the mutual criticism part. We see this, like I said, today is still being used in some groups. It's basically that members were subjected to criticism from the whole community in meetings.
00:33:53
Speaker
This typically took place in a room in the community hat mansion house that is an actual, like, has a stage, is set up like a theater. So what do you think? Do you think that the goal of this is to lower the self-esteem of the members?
00:34:11
Speaker
Or is it to get dirt on them to be able to Hang over their heads. I think for sure both. Okay. I think it was sold as a way of of helping people remove undesirable traits and be more perfect.
00:34:24
Speaker
But it's for sure like and someone's self-esteem is destroyed. They're more vulnerable and... Yeah, then then Noyce has all this information on you. And if you feel like you're going to leave, it's like, well, if you say anything about what we're doing here, I know this, this and this. And I can, you know, and I also think this, too, because he participated in the mutual criticism, but he had far better treatment than most people were were very gentle in their criticism of John Noyce.
00:34:55
Speaker
Well, and we also have to think about undesirable traits. Who determines what is undesirable? And if he is the person making these determinations, then they obviously weren't the faults he had.
00:35:07
Speaker
The traits he had were not going to be focused on as undesirable. Right, right. Exactly. And so that the desire to remove traits to be more perfect is truly to change who you are to be more like
Child Rearing and Women's Roles
00:35:20
Speaker
him. Yeah. This is still used. I'm actually envisioning, i are you I'm both rereading and rewatching The Handmaid's Tale. So we're in a very dark place right now in my house.
00:35:30
Speaker
But content wise, I'm imagining the scene in The Handmaid's Tale where One girl is in the middle and the rest of the handmaids are all circled around sitting in chairs, just pointing And saying terrible things, like chanting terrible things over and over to the one person before they just break.
00:35:48
Speaker
And they're like, yeah, I am horrible. All these people are pointing at me and telling me I'm horrible. And it's a method like Jim Jones used it. Manson used it. It's a cross-the-board method used in high control groups.
00:36:00
Speaker
I mean, Jodi Hildebrand did it. Even when people could do did everything right in, in I'm thinking specifically Jodi. Yeah. everything right in her eyes. She would be like, well, yeah, but you did this too.
00:36:12
Speaker
Or she would give them praise that would be like, she approves of me. She likes me. I'm doing it right. And you start craving that. Yep. Because it it's hard to come by. ah Side note, I think in Scientology, I think auditing is similar to what we're we're talking about here. what yeah That's what they call it You're right.
00:36:30
Speaker
All right. Let's move on to sturpiculture. I know I'm saying it correctly, but I'm like hesitating. So it sounds real dumb. It's a fake word anyway. dirt But is the control of reproduction within the group.
00:36:44
Speaker
Noyce believed that by controlling reproduction, it creates more spiritually and physically perfect children because he's deciding the pairings based on the attributes, the gifts, the talents of the parents, basically. Does this tie back to the incest at all? What do you think? Yeah.
00:37:03
Speaker
I'm sure it does. I didn't actually see anything specifically, but I am sure that blood didn't matter because they were all one big group, right? Like they were all one community and blood relationships probably were like, that's not as important as like our bond as a community.
00:37:23
Speaker
So it doesn't matter. yeah And I'm thinking, keep keeping the genes, keeping the, the, if you have a family that's looked upon as um Having positive traits physically or yeah or otherwise, and intelligence, keeping those traits within the family to produce more people like yes Like it's eugenics.
00:37:47
Speaker
It's eugenics. Just paint it as not eugenics, but it is. So if people in the community wanted to be parents, they'd go before a committee and be matched with a partner.
00:37:58
Speaker
The community ultimately had 58 children, nine of which were John Noyes. The way the children were raised was around the age of one, the children would be raised communally.
00:38:11
Speaker
There is a children's wing which you can also see in the mansion house where the children stayed. Parents could visit, but there was a children's department basically that raised the children.
00:38:23
Speaker
Do you think this had to do with parents not developing the strong spiritual connection with their kids so that their connection to the community was stronger than than that of kids? Because I mean, like a lot of people,
00:38:38
Speaker
who leave cults or these type of groups do so because of their kids to save their kids from something. And I wonder if that is part of this so that they don't want those bonds created.
00:38:49
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. It's, I mean, it's specifically designed to keep bonded parents and children apart under the guise of a community is raising your children, which can be wonderful if you're, yeah like, they always say it takes a village. Parts of That's amazing. Parts of that, yes. But it would also mean that if once a child reached, quote, adulthood, which in the community is 12, if a parent's like, this is wrong, we have to go, the child then doesn't have the strong bond with the parent to decide to also go or to even want to Mm-hmm.
00:39:20
Speaker
Which you also see in Scientology. Exactly. Mike Rinder, who is like one of the super outspoken Scientology, former Scientology people, he's pretty high up. He did a lot with Leah Remini. He died recently not ever having spoken to his adult children again.
00:39:35
Speaker
Like he, they would, they were like, well, no, we're staying. And they went on a whole campaign about how terrible he was. And oh it was that same, like that bond. It was, the bond to the organization was the priority.
00:39:49
Speaker
not to a parent or a child. And that first year is so important to the emotional bonding of a child, their ability to trust and love and, you know, just they need to be held and touched. And so emotionally, they may just not develop as well as completely with um interacting in relationships, trusting,
00:40:10
Speaker
Yeah. So children were raised in the children's wing from the ages of 2 to 12. And they were cared for by both men and women. ah Women wasn't, which I also think is kind of progressive. It wasn't women in the community's job to raise the children. it was everyone's job to raise the children.
00:40:26
Speaker
So again, we see those progressive traits. Yeah. The good and the bad of their children. norm Yeah. But then the control comes back with these kids had strict routines that should not be deviated.
00:40:40
Speaker
It's that like constant dichotomy of like really controlling and progressive. So let's talk about why women were drawn to the group. The group is very beneficial for adult women. They had more freedom within the group than possibly outside of the group, truly.
00:40:57
Speaker
They weren't responsible for raising the children, especially on their own. They could dress and keep their hair how they wanted. At the mansion house, they they have a mannequin with a replica of what kind of the clothing that they wore was. And women had like shorter, like almost shin right below the knee dresses, but they had like, I guess they are pants. They had pants underneath so they could wear pants.
00:41:22
Speaker
It was under a dress, but it was like Noyce recognized that women wearing a dress without anything underneath like that hindered their work. They couldn't do things comfortably and be productive. So he was like, I don't care what they wear.
00:41:36
Speaker
It's almost a little bit about like catering to the women a bit. To increase their – Yeah. The number of female members. And you can see that positively.
00:41:48
Speaker
Or you can see that as increasing the number of workers. And, of course, sexual partners. Yeah. There's never – Like, I feel like everything – John Humphrey Noyce decided to do with this group on the outside looks really, really positive.
00:42:04
Speaker
But when you dig a little bit deeper, it's all to benefit his desires for power and leadership. There's different motivations and they're not always just the positive. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's the thing of like, if a woman came out of this community and was like, it was great.
00:42:20
Speaker
Like there was nothing, like I have nothing negative to say. Yeah, that might be true. That's, yeah. Women were allowed, as I said, to participate in all kinds of work. They were involved in shaping the commune policy.
00:42:35
Speaker
They were ultimately equal, certainly not oppressed more than male members. And if a woman refused to have sex with a man, it reflected badly on the man, which brings us back to Guiteau.
00:42:47
Speaker
It sounds like a lot of women were refusing sex with Guiteau, and that doesn't reflect on the women, it reflects on him. But at least they had that opportunity to be able to do that. It wasn't forced on them necessarily. Yeah.
00:42:58
Speaker
Yeah. The community overall was seen favorably in Oneida. They were called good neighbors. They increased tourism. They increased economically.
00:43:08
Speaker
They created jobs. And we talked a bit about this man last time, but Oneida County DA a Roscoe Conkling kept tabs on the group and this is why gato hated conkling because he was related to this group and gato felt very insulted by the group so we talked but about conkling in the last episode he was in that the whole confusing part about the stalwarts and the half breeds I think Conkling was on the side that Guiteau was against and and deemed him a person in his way. So ah when we talk about Conkling keeping tabs, is that in a negative way or in a positive way? I think it's both. I think it's making sure that anything that they suspected could be potentially uncomfortable wrong.
00:43:58
Speaker
out of societal norm was kind of kept at bay within the community itself. I think he had a good relationship. Like he he maintained a positive relationship with them and just kind of was always keeping an eye, making sure everything was was above board.
00:44:13
Speaker
And I would say the other thing is, so does this Gato's hatred, is it the result of or a is that a reaction to Conklin's relationship
Criticism and Future of the Oneida Community
00:44:23
Speaker
with this group? I think probably a result of. He was just once somebody from Oneida County that was even related to the group or related to the running of the group, even outside of the group, was then in his orbit in Washington, D.C. when he was trying to restart his life and do all these things. Now there's this guy who's like, Gato's crazy. Don't let him near you. Yeah.
00:44:45
Speaker
And I feel like also Guiteau has a fluid sense of ideology. Yeah. So in 1870, a man named Dr. John B. Ellis wrote a book against free love. In the book, he laid out that communities specifically like the Oneida community had the goal of ending marriage.
00:45:03
Speaker
So we're looking at a man saying that these groups, they want to end societal norms. They want to end traditional marriage. And it's an attack on the moral order of society. He also attacked the women's clothing. They were allowed to wear pants and called this part, quote, sexual excess.
00:45:19
Speaker
ah Like when they were dressing too provocatively? No, just that they could wear pants and wear what they Oh, okay. Sorry. I wasn't listening long enough that. No, it's all right. Okay. Okay. So I just, here, so interesting because that goal of ending traditional marriage, like we still see that, right? Like with, you know, sex marriage.
00:45:40
Speaker
And it comes back to that same thing of like, ending marriage the way yeah it's always been. But but really, who's... Yep, who cares? not hurting anyone. And if the if the point of that was because, and it was at the time sometimes with same-sex marriage, then you won't procreate.
00:45:55
Speaker
But yet this group wasn't even too concerned about procreation. So there's a whole like other layer of in that of it's called natalism that is obsession of birthing babies that I think also like it it happened it it for sure is happens today.
00:46:11
Speaker
But you're absolutely right. Like this, they say ah history doesn't repeat itself. It's an echo or something. It's something like that. It's a fear that anything outside of what you traditionally have been taught is to be feared because it's coming after you.
00:46:28
Speaker
And that is very rarely the case. ah Now, i don't want i i I hope that doesn't sound like I'm defending the Oneida community because terrible things were happening. But that also is a way that's like ammunition for an attack on the whole idea of anything other than traditional marriage, if that makes sense.
00:46:45
Speaker
It's like, yeah, they can take this example and use it in their like back pocket of reasons why anything besides traditional marriage is wrong. And, you know... I think whenever you're analyzing something, as you say, like, it's not necessarily that you're defending the group. I think you have to ah acknowledge sometimes I think when we analyze something, something's all good or all bad. And I think you can understand right when you are open to the fact that everything's not, it's not black and white, that there's There's a lot. I mean, to there's a mixture. Multiple things can um exist at once. Right.
00:47:16
Speaker
So, yeah. So I want to go on a bit of a side quest in our side quest we're already in and talk about specifically one person um who highlights the negative things that were going on that that weren't really being seen too much, but were definitely there.
00:47:32
Speaker
So I think let's wrap up here today. we will talk more about the group in our next episode. We're going to get into a specific member of the group and then kind of the fall of the community.
00:47:43
Speaker
But we're at an hour. So let's wrap up and we'll come back to it. So thank you, everybody, for listening. And we will see you again next time. Looking forward to it.