Searching for paradise in the rain : Oregon's communes and intentional communities of the 1960s and 1970s
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Date
1997-08
Authors
Vanneman, Brian Robert
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University Of Oregon
Abstract
In the late 1960s, the United States' expanding counterculture gave
rise to thousands of communes, or intentional communities, which
sprouted up across the nation. Many of these communities chose
Oregon to be their new home because of the state's progressive politics
and social climate, fertile farmland, and proximity to California, at the
time a hotbed of political activism. Magic Farm and Alpha Farm, two
Oregon communities described in detail in the thesis, exemplify some of
the many approaches to the institutional, economic, and social
challenges posed by communal living. Ultimately, the tale of these two
settlements explains in part the reasons that some intentional
communities continue to prosper even today, while others collapsed in
the middle 1970s. Regardless of their final fate, Magic Farm and Alpha
Farm, as well as their many companion communities, are part of
Oregon's very rich recent history filled with those who have searched for
paradise in the rain.
Description
v, 65 p. : ill. A THESIS Presented to the Department of History and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Arts, 1997. A print copy of this title is available through the UO Libraries under the call number: SCA Archiv Vanneman 1997
Keywords
Communal living -- Oregon -- Case studies, Collective settlements -- Oregon -- Case studies