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The collection contains writings and research material on seventy utopian associations compiled by A. J. MacDonald for his proposed volume "The Communities of the United States." The contents range from notes and brief sketches of communities to more extensive profiles based on Macdonald's personal visits, his interviews with residents and colleagues, and transcriptions from contemporary publications. Also included are the printed materials such as prospectuses, constitutions and by-laws, and stock certificates that he collected in his travels, and visual material from published wood engravings to the graphite and watercolor sketches Macdonald made on site. Utopian communities particularly well represented are the Brook Farm Phalanx, the Clermont Phalanx, New Harmony, the Icarian Community, the North American Phalanx, the Oneida Community, the Prairie Home Community, the Skaneateles Community, the Sylvania Association, the Wisconsin Phalanx, and several Shaker settlements. Macdonald also wrote about two communities outside the United States, the Brazilian Experiment and the Venezuelan Experiment of the Tropical Emigration Society, and about the utopian leaders A. J. Davis, Charles Fourier, Orson S. Murray, Robert Owen, Jemima Wilkinson, and Frances Wright.