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Equality Colony

Equality Colony was a United States socialist colony founded in Skagit County, Washington by a political organization known as the Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth in 1897. It was meant to serve as a model which would convert the rest of Washington and later the entire continent to socialism.

Freeland[edit]

In autumn 1904 the colony was visited by Alexander Horr, a proponent of Theodor Hertzka’s "Freeland" concept.[19] He returned next year with more of his followers and soon the colony's population grew by 30%. By the summer of 1905 Horr was able to change the BCCs constitution drastically to adhere to the Freeland concept. A new "local union" was established in New York, and five others in the near vicinity. The changes were not appreciated by the colony's older residents who started to resist the conversion of the colony to the new scheme in late 1905 and the colony became bitterly divided between the two factions, sometimes resulting in violence.[20]


The final factor in the demise of the colony occurred on February 6, 1906, when an unknown person or group of people set fire to several buildings at night. The worst loss was the barn, which burned completely to the ground, killing most of the colony's cattle. The perpetrator was never identified, but each faction blamed the other for the arson. A suit was filed in Skagit County to dissolve the colony[21] and the BCC went into receivership; its history ended when its land was sold for $12,500 to John J. Peth on June 1, 1907. A few families stayed in the area on plots of land that they owned individually.[22]

The Cooperative Brotherhood

LeWarne, Charles P., "Equality Colony: The Plan to Socialize Washington," Pacific Northwest Quarterly, vol. 59, no. 3 (July 1968), pp. 137-146.

In JSTOR

LeWarne, Charles (1995). Utopias on Puget Sound, 1885-1915. Seattle: University of Washington Press.  9780295741055. OCLC 47010928.

ISBN

Pelton, G.E. Industrial Freedom, whole no. 55 (May 27, 1899), pg. 2.

"Equality's Struggle for Existence,"

Quint, Howard H (1953). The Forging of American Socialism. Columbia, SC: Howard H.  B000GJHY72. OCLC 988670668.

ASIN

Smith, Frederick E., and Lowe, Florence M. Equality Colony. [F.M. Lowe?], 1988.

, Brotherhood Co-operative Commonwealth, ISSN 2333-8466, OCLC 7500268 – via Chronicling America « Library of Congress

Industrial Freedom

. Archives West. Orbis Cascade Alliance. Retrieved 2021-07-24. A page describing the collection that links to the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections.

"Peter L. Hegg Equality Colony photographs"

. University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections. Retrieved 2021-07-24.

"Photos of the Equality Colony"