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From the late seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, America emerged as the primary setting for the establishment of various utopian communities. These communities were generally founded by individuals who were courageous enough to ignore accepted patterns of behaviour and willingly endure hardship and censure for the sake of ideas and ideals which they considered as true. Included among these cooperative colonies were the societies of Shakers, Rappites and Zoarites. All three communities saw their …

…their type on U.S. soil. The Zoarites also came from Germany, where they experienced a denial of their civil and religious privileges. In the United States they founded a community that although admirable in its pursuits of the common good, floundered amidst internal dissention. All three of these communistic societies were enviable in their distinctions as true believers in charity and restraint and are to be admired for their selfless wills and Utopian ideals.