Ceresco, Wisconsin
| Ceresco | |
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| Nickname(s): Wisconsin Phalanx | |
 Ceresco
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| Coordinates: 43°50′54.86″N 88°51′6.12″W / 43.8485722°N 88.8517000°WCoordinates: 43°50′54.86″N 88°51′6.12″W / 43.8485722°N 88.8517000°W |
Ceresco, also known as the Wisconsin Phalanx, was a commune founded in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin in 1844 by followers of the communitarian socialist ideas of Charles Fourier. About 180 people lived in the Association at its peak, farming nearly 2,000 acres. It was one of the three longest-lived Fourierist Associations in the United States, dissolving in 1850, and was unique for having assets which exceeded liabilities at the time of its termination.
Since the Fourierist Association had registered their community under state law, the village of Ceresco, Wisconsin survived the collapse of the utopian socialist experiment of the 1840s. Remaining members of the Wisconsin Phalanx later formed a living cooperative and study group called the Ceresco Union in 1855, espousing the doctrines of religious freethought and interpersonal free love until disbursed by a mob of outraged citizens.
In 1858 the remaining inhabitants of Ceresco were annexed by the nearby town of Ripon, Wisconsin.
In 1832 the son of a wealthy New York landowner, Albert Brisbane (1809–1890), a student of philosophy in search of ideas for the betterment of humanity, was introduced to a newly published short work by philosopher Charles Fourier (1772–1837) entitled Treatise on Domestic and Agricultural Association. Brisbane was an immediate convert to the French thinker's ideas, which Fourier somewhat grandiosely ascribed to universal laws governing the development of society, the understanding of which allowed productive enterprise to be reorganized on a rational basis, production expanded, and human needs more readily fulfilled.
In 1832 Brisbane left for Paris to spend two years studying Fourier's system, taking personal tutelage from the 60-year-old theorist himself. Brisbane would make the acquaintance of other devotees of Fourier's ideas during this initial phase of the Fourierist movement, returning to the United States a committed believer and proselytizer of the Fourier's idea of "Association." Brisbane would soon begin work translating and expounding upon the ideas of Fourier for an American audience, with his first and most famous book, Social Destiny of Man, seeing print in 1840.
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