Talk:La Reunion (Dallas)

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Anyone have a citation or list of the "40 similar colonies in various parts of the United States of America during the 1800s" mentioned in the article? I'm finding nothing. Another related thing: I remember reading something in the early 1980's about the founder of the La Reunion killed in a saloon shootout after the commune was absorbed into the town and the ideals had been abandoned. Must have read it in a Dallas library but can't remember. Jolomo 04:22, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Jonathan Beecher, in his definitive book on Charles Fourier, says "some two dozen Fourierist experimental communities were in existence by 1846". The book is "Charles Fourier, The Visionary and His World", published in 1986 by the University of California Press.
Beecher also mentions the La Reúnion community specifically near the end of the same book
After his participation in the abortive uprising of June 13, 1849, [Victor] Considerant (a French disciple of Fourier) was obliged to leave France. Subsequently he emigrated to the United States, where in the 1850s he led an unsuccessful attempt to establish a Fourierist community on arid land overlooking the west fork of the Trinity River in Texas. Just about all that remains of this last significant venture into practical Fourierism is a graveyard. The chalky bluffs on which the Phalanstery was supposed to rise have been dug out by a cement plant, and in the place of seristeries and street galleries stand the shopping centers and drive-in theaters and tract housing ofo a suburb of Dallas.
--Srainwater 05:22, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


Okay, just checked one of my other books, "The Utopian Alternative - Fourierism in Nineteen Century America" by Carl J. Guarneri, published by Cornell University Press in 1991. It contains detailed maps, listings, and population demographics of all known North American Fourierist Phalanxes. It lists a total of 29 that actually had members, land, and existed for some period of time. It lists a further 10 that never went beyond the planning stage for one reason or another. So I think we can definitively say the claim of 40 is bogus. 29 is the highest number I can find referenced in standard Fourierist works. Is it possible the reference you're thinking of was referring not to Fourierist colonies but to either Utopian colonies in general or communist colonies in North America?
The same book also describe what becaame of Victor Considerant. He was not killed in a saloon shoot out.
Accused of mismanagement at La Reúnion and of discouraging French emigrants from joining the colony, Considerant resigned the presidency in July 1856 and left the domain. When reports reached Paris of the disastrous situation, the directors of the Colonization Society officially dissolved the Reúnion experiment and began settling individual claims. But Considerant was not through: he wrote a long and elaborate defense of his actions, urged the directors and shareholders to undertake a new colonization at Uvalde, and even went to Paris to plead his case. <...> The directors refused to support a new venture, and in 1859 began the long process of selling the lands Considerant had purchased. Considerant himself returned to Texas, bought a farm near San Antonio for his family, and settled down to ten year on the Texas prairie.
It's possible some other resident of La Reúnion was killed in a shoot out but I can find no documentation.
--Srainwater 06:08, 3 December 2007 (UTC)