Katie Shore
(Image of Julliard Flatware from Oneida)
The silverware pictured above is the exact set of silverware my parents received as a wedding gift nearly twenty years ago, and it is sitting in a drawer in my kitchen. Before listening to an episode of NPR’s “Planet Money” podcast, I had no idea what Oneida was, let alone that my family’s silverware was manufactured by the company.
Oneida silverware has an interesting and complex history. Before Oneida became a successful flatware company, it was just a “free love” commune. How did a group of people in a spouse-swapping commune become owners of a multimillion dollar company?
During the Industrial Revolution and the Second Great Awakening in the 1840s, a man named John Humphrey Noyes decided that he and some of his companions were going to start a commune in upstate New York. This community was composed of Christian Perfectionists. Perfectionists sought to perfect themselves by eliminating fear, sin, and other impure things from their lives.
Initially, the commune began producing animal traps since fur was in high demand. They mechanized this process and built nearly 200,000 fur traps per year. The commune also worked in other industries to see which would bring them the most income, and this eventually led them to the flatware industry.
Clearly, the Perfectionists had capitalist tendencies. Ellen Wayland-Smith, the great-great-great-grandniece of Noyes, describes his views about capitalism and Perfectionism in the podcast: “He thought capitalism was going to be a way of uniting humans into one sort of global market and that this can only bring good.” Contrastingly, the author of Major Problems in American Business History, Philip B. Scranton, defines capitalism as “a relentless drive for improvement, expansion, and control, defined and channeled through economic institutions (usually firms) and their interactions, and involving technological change” (9). The Oneida commune was a fusion of both of these ideas: the commune desired expansion and was innovative for the sake of profits, but capitalism also united the people to work together for the success of the company.
Despite his capitalist views, Noyes also avidly supported “Bible communism,” meaning that the business’s profits were shared, and everything was owned by everyone. Essentially, it was a form of religious socialism. This idea of “Bible commune-ism” was implemented because Perfectionists had to be unselfish; sharing was caring. Members of the commune even shared spouses!
The idea of “free love” made people uncomfortable. The podcast discusses America becoming more religiously conservative around this time too. In the late 1800s, the government became more suspicious of so-called unconventional religious groups, including the Mormons and Perfectionists. Rumors also got out that Noyes was having sex with and raping underage girls. Before any charges could be brought against him, he fled to Canada in 1879.
Without their fearless leader, the Perfectionists decided to close the commune and stop sharing spouses beginning in 1880. Since everyone owned part of the business, they decided to establish a joint stock company called Oneida Company Limited in which the adult members had stock.
Not only did these men and women have to adjust to a new way of life, but this new company had to succeed as many changes took place in the United States economy because of the Gilded Age. Luckily, Noyes’s son Pierrepont emerged and decided that Oneida needed to specialize. With the growth of the middle class, he thought that producing silver-plated flatware was the best option; it looked nicer than steel utensils and wasn’t as expensive as those made of sterling silver. Additionally, he engraved many of the pieces to increase their perceived value. Pierrepont also heavily emphasized marketing and advertising, selling his flatware using innovative new ads that included artwork and images.
(Image of a 1924 Oneida Advertisement from The Oneida Community House)
As time went on, Oneida struggled as tastes altered and cheaper imports began to emerge. The company even went public in the 1960s, despite its history of being family-operated. About ten years ago, Oneida filed for bankruptcy, but today, you can still buy Oneida silverware. The brand now exists within a group known as The Oneida Group.
Throughout Oneida’s history, we can see the interactions between business, state, and society. Oneida went from being just a spiritual-based commune to forming a very lucrative business within this community. The state and society significantly affected Oneida’s behavior from causing them to abandon their practices of “free love” due to governmental suspicions to causing the company to respond and adapt to consumer demand. In particular, Oneida Company Limited’s success came from understanding society’s desire – especially the middle class’s desire – for attractive, yet affordable, silverware and their ability to market their products to the masses.
It’s fascinating to think that one man’s desire for spiritual perfection led to the creation of a socialist commune and a brand of flatware. The next time I eat using our Oneida silverware, you can bet I’ll be thinking about Oneida’s intriguing past…