Albert Chavannes
| Albert Chavannes | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | Albert Chavannes February 23, 1836 Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Died | May 3, 1903 (aged 67) Knoxville, Tennessee, USA |
| Resting place | Spring Place Presbyterian Church Cemetery Knoxville, Tennessee, USA 36°01′50″N 83°51′43″W / 36.03046°N 83.86189°W |
| Occupation | Author, farmer |
| Genre | Utopian fiction, nonfiction |
| Notable works | Vital Force and Magnetic Exchange (1888), The Future Commonwealth, or, What Samuel Balcom saw in Socioland (1892), In Brighter Climes, or, Life in Socioland: A Realistic Novel (1895) |
| Spouse | Cecile Bolli |
|
|
|
| Signature |  |
Albert Chavannes (February 23, 1836 – May 3, 1903) was a Swiss-born American author, philosopher, and sociologist, active primarily in the late 19th century. He is best known for his two utopian novels, The Future Commonwealth and In Brighter Climes, which discuss a fictional futuristic society, "Socioland," where the economy is governed by socialist ideals rather than capitalism, and where morality is based on social scientific experimentation, rather than traditional religion. Chavannes was also one of the earliest social theorists to extensively discuss exchange theory, and his ideas on "magnetism" influenced writers such as J William Lloyd and Ida C. Craddock.
Chavannes was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, one of six children of the Reverend Adrian Chavannes and his wife, Anna Francillon. In 1848, the Chavanneses migrated to East Tennessee, which had been advertised as having ample farmland and a climate similar to that of Switzerland. The family initially settled in Wartburg, Tennessee, atop the Cumberland Plateau, but finding the land unsuitable for farming, soon afterward moved to northern Knox County. By 1855, the Chavanneses had been joined by several other French-speaking Swiss families, comprising one of the county's largest immigrant groups.
Albert Chavannes married fellow French Swiss immigrant Cecile Bolli in 1857, and the two settled down to a life of dairy farming. One of Chavannes' earliest writings was an article entitled, "How Manure Is Made in Switzerland," published in the agricultural journal, The Cultivator, in 1858. This article was inspired by a trip Chavannes had made to his home country the previous year.
During the Civil War, Chavannes supported the Confederacy. He was part of the citizens-guard that defended Knoxville from a raid by Union general William P. Sanders in June 1863, and later provided an account of this raid in his book, East Tennessee Sketches. In 1864, following the occupation of Knoxville by Union forces, Chavannes moved to Berkshire, New York, where he opened a woodworking shop. His experiences in New York would later inspire his novel, Lizzie Melton, A Self-Reliant Girl. In 1870, he moved back to Knox County, where he established a new dairy farm in the Adair Creek area north of Knoxville.
...
Wikipedia