Critically praised for her new insider’s history of the Oneida Community’s evolution into Oneida Ltd., Ellen Wayland-Smith will talk about her new book, research and intimate connections to the Community in a program at the Oneida Community Mansion House co-sponsored by Oneida Public Library on Tuesday, July 26, at 7 p.m.
Wayland-Smith’s book, “Oneida: From Free Love Utopia to the Well-set Table,” was published by Picador last May. It tells the story of the founding of the Oneida Community by the Perfectionist John Humphrey Noyes, his radical religious and socialist beliefs as well as the community’s scandalous practice of “complex marriage.” Wayland-Smith, herself a direct descendent of Noyes, spares no punches in relating the controversies surrounding Noyes and the Community.
Wayland-Smith’s history then focuses on the Community’s transformation after its break-up in 1880 into Oneida Ltd, which in the 20th century successfully manufactured and marketed silverware while espousing propriety and paternalistic capitalism.
Copies of “Oneida: From Free Love Utopia to the Well-set Table” will be available at the Mansion House program for purchase and signing by the author.
Wayland-Smith, who received a doctorate in comparative literature from Princeton University, is a professor of writing at the University of Southern California. She is currently working on a new book called “What Women Want: The Life and Times of Jean Wade Rindlaub, a Cold War Adwoman.” According to the author, the book is “a cultural history of post-war America through the lens of women’s advertising.”
The Oneida Community Mansion House, located at 170 Kenwood Ave. in Oneida, was built in stages from 1861 on by the Oneida Community (1848-1880). The 93,000-square foot complex housed the “Bible Communist” society, which at its height had more than 300 members. Today the Mansion House, run by a not-for-profit organization, is on the National Historic Register and functions as a museum, a bed and breakfast and a private-apartment complex.
Free parking for the book talk is available at the rear of the former Oneida Ltd. Administration Building at 163 Kenwood Ave., a 5-10 minute walk from the Mansion House.
For more information, call the Oneida Library at 315-363-3050 or the Mansion House at 315-363-0745.