The Amana Utopia and Patriot Missile

TRACING THE PATH PODCAST

This story traces the surprising evolution of two American communal societies, the Amana Colonies and the Oneida Community, from their utopian, anti-establishment religious roots to their unexpected commercial successes.

Both groups, inspired by ideals like those found in Thomas Moore’s Utopia, initially practiced a form of communism but were forced to transition into joint-stock companies due to economic necessity. This commercialization led to the Amana Colonies becoming a major appliance manufacturer, later acquired by Raytheon, and Oneida dominating the silverware market.

IN a surprising turn, the trajectory ultimately connects the pursuit of communal perfection to the development of the Patriot missile guidance systems. The narrative highlights the ironic journey from religious dissent and communal living to the embrace of American capitalism and military technology, using figures like appliance pioneer George Foerstner and inventor Vannevar Bush to bridge this historical gap.

Pietistic Lutheranism

In 1516, Thomas Moore wrote a book called “Utopia” about an island where gold wasn’t important, where there were no class distinctions, where no one owned property, and where there was no crime.

And he visited the place with the man credited for finding North America, Mr. Amerigo Vespucci.

But that was just a book, not a real place.

Then in real life, one year later, in 1517, Martin Luther left the Catholic Church, starting a revolution, starting Lutheranism.

But neither Moore nor Luther could have ever foreseen how the story would end with precision guided patriot missiles. That was unexpected for sure.

Our story begins in 1714, about 200 years after Martin Luther and the book Utopia.

We start with Ebhard Gruber and Johann Rock. Similar to The way Martin Luther had felt Catholicism was going the wrong way, Gruber and Rock felt that way about Lutheranism. They believed in God and felt the personal relationship with God far surpassed the rigid workings of organized religion.

As such, they started a community called The Community of True Inspiration. The group traveled around Europe teaching, but their religion, their refusal to join the military and refusal to join Lutheran schools caused controversy.

Nevertheless, the community existed in Europe for 130 years before they no longer wanted to be judged for their beliefs. Plus, the promise of America with its freedom of religion was too good to pass up.

So, in 1842, they left Germany and landed in New York.

There was truly no better time for for the community of true inspiration to move to America than the 1840s.

Communism in New York

The 1830s had brought a wave of revivalism to the states and many were looking for alternative lifestyles already. In fact, others had already started creating their own communities and what would become the Chattaqua movement had begun as well.

Our Community of True Inspiration bought 5,000 acres of land from the Seneca Indian Reservation near Buffalo and began their settlement, which they called Ebenezer, taking the name from the book of Solomon in the Bible.

There 800 community members would start their new life in America.

Not far from Buffalo, New York, near Syracuse, another community had formed, in a town named Oneida.

This one was started by John Humphrey Noyes, a graduate of Yale, who had equally grown disillusioned with Protestantism and felt the need to be closer to God instead of closer to religion. 

Unlike the leader of the Community of True Inspiration, John Humphrey Noyes actually felt God spoke to him, instructing him to create a more perfect place that would be free of sin, would promote equality and eliminate selfishness.

He called this new religion ‘Perfectionism’.

And while it was attractive to everyone put off by strict Puritanism and by the coldness created by the industrial revolution, it was also awkward.

Both communities were real life manifestations of Thomas Moore’s “Utopia”, but 200 years later. Noyes’ community in Oneida had a second level. In his, marriage itself was looked down upon. He felt loving one person all by yourself was akin to ownership.

So Noyes promoted free love and harmony, a trait that would characterize the Oneida community forever. New York, however, would be a fortunate place to settle.

Back over to Buffalo and the Community of True Inspiration.

They actually began to dislike where they had settled. Not only was Buffalo extremely cold, but its ports on the Great Lakes made it a mecca for industrialization, and soon it got too big for the comfort of the community.

So in 1854, they headed west. The new Kansas Territory seemed an ideal place to scout for new land. And they found that new land in a remote section of the prairie next to the Iowa River. This place deserved a new name as well.

So they chose another from the Book of Solomon, Amana.

While it was remote, railroads were already being built to serve the area. In fact, cemeteries were being moved to make way for progress.

The colony bought 26,000 acres, set up seven villages, and named it The Amana Colonies. 

By 1864, everyone who’d gone to Buffalo made the trek to Iowa. There were 1,800.

Which brings us to the 10,000 lb word, communism.

Perfect Communism

For most of us, communism describes a political system that characterizes the enemies of the United States.

But it has a second meaning.

For the most part, the second meaning is what Thomas Moore described in “Utopia”. In fact, Karl Marx redefined it as well. He redefined it as a society where you give according to your abilities and you receive in accordance with your needs.

Perfect communism has existed very few times on earth and then only in small places like the kibbutzes in Israel.

Both of our communities, Amana and Oneida, lived with this philosophy.

However, despite their best intentions, neither could subsist in perfect communism. Instead of being able to produce everything the community needed internally, they had to work with the outside world to purchase some of their needs, which meant they also had to sell what they produced to earn money the outside world valued.

The Oneida community sold jarred fruits, veggies, and made jelly with the name Oneida Produce on the jar label. And the Amana colonies found an audience for its Westphailia ham and its cheeses.

One of the members of the Oneia community that had been a neighbor prior to joining was Sewell Newhouse. Sewell had been a blacksmith and a hunter. He hunted for his family’s food and uses blacksmithing skills to make and sell animal traps.

In looking for more ways to generate income for the community, Sewell showed the community a design for an animal trap he couldn’t make alone. So together, they made this improved new house animal trap and made $100,000 in 1860.

One of the keys to their success of selling animal traps was created when John Humphrey Noyes’s son went to Chicago to visit the Hibbard and Spencer hardware store. When he showed Hibbard and Spencer the trap, they were so inspired by the design and craftsmanship, they wanted as many as Oneida could make.

By 1870, the demand for their products was so high, they had to incorporate outside labor. Not only that, but they had to open facilities in other locations. 

And it wasn’t just produce, jelly, and animal traps. Oneida grew to producing silk thread, metal chains, high purity metal, and tablewear.

But the new operation didn’t support the original utopia concept any longer.

So in 1881, they dismantled the utopian community in favor of a joint stock company.

The allure of capitalism was too strong.

But that brought on new problems they hadn’t had before. In 1899, a union came calling with hopes of unionizing the labor, but the leadership said no and even held out during a 10-day long strike.

Not because they didn’t like unions, but because they already had promising plans for the labor force. For instance, they had already been dividing up the company’s profit and giving it back to the employees as dividends.

They were first to offer paid vacations, and they offered full pay if you enlisted in the Spanish/American War.

And then to thank them for ending the strike, they created an employee managed sick benefits plan.

That was the only and final problem they had ever had with the employees. Which brings us to the next hero of our story.

George Foerstner

George Foerstner was born in the Amana colonies in 1908, about the same time the Wright brothers were taking flight. He grew up in the community getting experience in all areas.  After grade 8, he worked in his father’s store where he had a sales route selling car tires, batteries, radios, and bicycles. 

Despite being an enclosed utopia, the Amana Colonies also relied on the outside world to purchase their products. Thus, when the Great Depression hit in 1929, Amana suffered with everyone else.

So like the Oneida Colony, they had to terminate the communal way of life and give everyone a chance to work for wages.

And to make sure everyone benefited, they figured out the value of everything Amana had and then incorporated as a joint stock company, with everyone getting an equal share. The members began working for wages for a dozen businesses created by the society, including a woolen mill, a furniture factory, Westphailia hams, numerous farms, and an open hearth bakery.

And so at 24 years of age, George Foerstner became a traveling salesman for one of their woolen mills.

While Amana was making changes because of the depression, the US government was also working to break the depression.

One of those things was recalling the 18th amendment, which had prohibited alcohol. They did that in 1933 by passing the 21st amendment, the repeal of prohibition.

On one of his sales calls, George got into a discussion about this new future with alcohol. And a local biz guy, knowing the craftsman talent at Amana, challenged George to build a walk-in beverage cooler.

Refrigerators had been around since 1755, and electric ones debuted back in 1913. For households, the Sears Catalog had already sold more than 6 million refrigerators, so George knew it was possible.

But none of the companies making them had the artisan and quality craftsmanship that Amana did.

So George used $3,500 of his own money to start an electric equipment company, to which they started building and selling walk-in coolers to beverage centers, butchers and farmers.

He started with two employees in the corner of a small furniture shop.

And then when World War II came around, George broadened their production options and won contracts to provide and install walk-in coolers and freezers for the government.

It was the government contracts that gave George the confidence to go even bigger.

After the war in 1947, they started producing home appliances, introducing the first upright freezer. His growing confidence made him believe he could train more people and produce even higher volumes.

So he started advertising.

He used celebrities like Groucho Marks, Gary Cooper, and Bob Hope in his advertisements. He also used professional golfers and was one of the first to pay celebrities to put his logo on their shirt or hat.

The result was a booming business.

Remember back in 1933 when Amana originally became a joint stock company? Well, each person got one share of stock worth $50. But by 1953, George’s innovations made the value increase to $3,300 a share.

Which brings us back to the Oneida community. But that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten about the unforeseen, Patriot missile. That unexpected step is still coming.

Silver Spoons

If you recall, Oneida had found its groove making silk thread, jarred fruits, jelly, animal traps, chains, and table wear. They also figured out how to make high purity metals, which the Wright brothers and Katharine had used.

In 1900, at the turn of the century, they decided they really needed to focus on one thing they could sell nationally. It would be too difficult to scale all the businesses at once. The one they thought had the most potential was tablewear: forks, spoons, and knives.

But there was somewhat of a monopoly in the silverware game. A company named Rogers owned the market, with about six competitors able to stay profitable. Others had tried, but they had all failed.

The problem was the general public had no way of really judging quality. Thus, all they really could trust was the brand name.

And up until now, Oneida had made cheaper, less expensive tablewear that didn’t compete with Rogers.

All the competitors that tried to enter the market had done so by offering the same quality at a lower price. But that only left the consumer asking, “What did you leave out to make it cheaper?”

So Oneida decided not to compete.

They would instead manufacture the highest quality silverware using their high purity metals knowledge and they would raise the price over Rogers by just a little. But this approach would also require a change in advertising because taking on the big players required a bigger plan.

Traditionally, Rogers and the others had purchased quarterpage ads or smaller in newspapers and magazines featuring a woman pointing to, looking at, or holding the silverware. But doing that wasn’t going to move the needle.

Instead, they went bold, buying full page ads with full size or larger images of the silverware, including including the statement about the highest purity silver. In some cases, they even featured celebrities in their ads with people like dancer Irene Castle or socialite Mrs. Belmont and even Bob Hope.

The campaign worked, forcing Oneida to sell off their other businesses and focus on silverware alone.

It worked so well, Quaker called and wanted a special cereal spoon made.

It wasn’t long before Oneida silverware was a household name and by 1983 they produced more than half the silverware sold in the US.

The only thing that had slowed them down in their years of growth was the two world wars where they manufactured bullet shells and knives for the government.

Both communities that started out as utopian communes ended up producing high quality products and ended up terminating the original commune idea. Which brings us to the final hero of our story.

Vennavar Bush’s Raytheon

Vennavar Bush was born in 1890 in Massachusetts. He spent his entire childhood in Massachusetts, graduating from high school and attending Tufts University, like his father had.

After college, he got a job at GE testing electric transformers for $14 a week. After that, he worked at Tufts with the American Radio and Research Corporation studying radio waves. In 1917, once the war started, he went to work with the National Research Council, working to develop a means of detecting submarines, to which he successfully invented a device, but it only worked on wooden ships. Didn’t work on metal ships at all.

In 1922, Bush and two colleagues set up a company to market a voltage regulator tube called an S- tube, which enabled device radios to operate from mains power and not from batteries.

Because the electrons in the tube glowed when it was operating, they named the company after a word that means light from the gods, the word Raytheon.

Bush’s work with radio waves led him to also landing a position at MIT.

Being highly tuned in to the radio wave and radar industry, Bush found out in the early years of World War II that physicists in the UK had invented the magnetron. It was a special kind of electron tube that used microwave generating electrons. It marketkedly improved a radar’s ability to detect enemy aircraft.

The US government badly needed this technology.

They needed a way to mass-produce them locally and were directed to Vannevar Bush’s Raytheon. So, they hired Rathon to mass-produce them as well as figure out how to make them work on submarines.

It was during this time that Raytheon employee Percy Spencer was testing magnetrons. On one occasion, Percy found that a chocolate bar he had in his pocket had melted. He wasn’t the first to notice, but he was the first to investigate.

Percy decided to experiment with other foods, including popcorn, which incidentally became the first microwaved popcorn.

He then created the first microwave oven by placing a high density electromagnetic field in a metal box. Raytheon got a patent for this new microwave invention on October 8th, 1945. T

hey then turned it into a commercial product and introduced the RadarRange in 1954.

But sales were slow. Over time, Raytheon knew it needed a bigger partner because they didn’t have contacts in the home appliance world and needed much better distribution.

So in 1965 they bought the biggest household appliance company Amana Appliances and retained George Foerstner as CEO.

George then turned Amana into the world’s leading producer of home freezers, and helped bring microwaves to the world. He stayed with the company until he retired in 1982.

For Raytheon, home appliances were just a fraction of the business.

They also started manufacturing guidance computers for NASA’s Apollo missions.

There always being a threat of war with the actual Communists. The United States government asked Raytheon if they could put their guidance system into a missile so it could shoot down another missile.

Then in 1991, as part of the Iraq War, the Patriot Missile was on the cover of every magazine. It became the superstar of the Gulf War, resulting in skyrocketing increases in sales.

It’s a crazy thing to think that refrigerators and silverware were born out of perfect communism and then marketed by Bob Hope, eventually leading to the Patriot Missiles to fight Communists with Bob Hope motivating the troops.

If only Thomas Moore could have lived to see actual attempted utopias.