Podcast Summary

Overview

Episode: Michelle Christine Smith, "Utopian Genderscapes: Rhetorics of Women's Work in the Early Industrial Age"
Podcast: New Books Network – New Books in History
Host: Jeanette Cockcroft
Guest: Michelle C. Smith
Recorded: November 9, 2025

This episode delves into Michelle Christine Smith's book "Utopian Genderscapes," focusing on how women's labor and gender roles were framed, contested, and reimagined in early industrial-age utopian (intentional) communities. The conversation covers Smith's academic journey, the origins of her research interests, her approach to historic intentional communities, the centrality of women's work, and the contemporary relevance of these histories.

Guest Introduction & Academic Origins

[02:20] Michelle C. Smith:

• Grew up in Marietta, Ohio; parents were political science professors.
• Studied English and Women's Studies at the University of Richmond; entered rhetoric and composition through writing center work.
• Completed Master's and Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition at Penn State.

Quote:
"...I got interested in what became my field of rhetoric and composition by working in the writing center at Richmond as a tutor." ([02:20])

Origins of the Book

[04:10] Michelle C. Smith:

• Interest in utopian/intentional communities began with undergraduate research, a college women’s studies class visit to Twin Oaks (VA), and living in Blueberry Hill co-housing near DC.
• Encountered firsthand the impacts of intentional communal design: shared spaces, communal meals, and safety for children.
• Combined with gender studies background, led Smith to focus on intentional communities through a feminist rhetorical lens.

Quote:
"I was really struck by what was possible when you made intentional choices like this, not only for yourself or your immediate family but with other people who had shared goals with you." ([05:18])

Defining “Intentional” and “Utopian” Communities

[08:42] Michelle C. Smith:

• Uses “utopian” and “intentional community” largely interchangeably, though explains their modern and historical connotations.
• In the 1840s, members might have called their efforts "communal living" or even "communism."
• Stresses that intentional/utopian communities arise when people seek to realize aims that can’t be achieved alone, emphasizing the importance of communal resources and shared objectives.
• Notes and problematizes the stigma now attached to "utopia" as implying impossible or authoritarian perfection.

Quote:
"The concept of an intentional community is based in the idea that some things you might want for your life can't be achieved solely on your own or in family units, but must be achieved by living amidst other people who share those goals." ([10:53])

Communities Examined & Methodology

[12:19] Michelle C. Smith:

• Harmony Society: Chosen due to proximity of archives near Smith's graduate school; features a notable female leader (Gertrude Rapp) and a long communal lifespan.
• Brook Farm: Draws on Smith’s English/literature background; renowned for transcendentalist roots and involvement of women in the movement.
• Oneida Community: Added for archival richness and explicit gender experiments. Initially included, then replaced Frances Wright's short-lived, poorly documented Neshoba community.

Quote:
"Once I got into [the Harmony Society]...there were really interesting things happening there, particularly with the granddaughter of the founder of the community." ([13:18])

Why Focus on Women’s Labor?

[18:29] Michelle C. Smith:

• Smith’s dissertation began with an interest in space and gender, which she realized was truly about labor: what activities are considered legitimate "work" and whose labor gets valued.
• Saw a gap in rhetorical studies: much attention was paid to women's public roles (suffrage, temperance) but little to their economic power and labor.
• Came to see labor as central to the configuration of gender and power in utopian communities.

Quote:
"When we talk about gender in space, we end up talking about labor. Spaces are really understood in terms of what kinds of bodies we think are supposed to be there and what kinds of practices, labor or leisure, we think they should be doing there." ([19:21])

Women’s Work in Each Community

Brook Farm: Housework, Labor, and Class

[23:09] Michelle C. Smith:

• Focused on the rhetorical value of housework; challenged the notion that only paid or male-coded work "counts."
• Women took pride in remunerative, market-facing work (e.g., making "fancy goods"); preferred it over housework, often trying to delegate domestic chores to working-class women.
• Class hierarchies were thus reproduced, even in communities committed to equality.

Quote:
"They made little fancy things, fancy bags, fancy purses...if we could just find some nice working class women with experience doing some hard domestic labor, that would free us up to do that, and wouldn't that be better for everybody?" ([25:29])

Harmony Society: The Silk Industry and Female Leadership

[27:26] Michelle C. Smith:

• Gertrude Rapp led the Society’s silk production, using it both as economic engine and as a claim to American refinement for an immigrant group.
• Demonstrates transition from handcraft/home-based to industrial forms of production.

Quote:
"It had this whole aura attached to it because silk was a fin and had often been imported from Europe. And so it was part of...proving that America wasn't this backwoods place dependent on Europe." ([27:30])

Oneida Community: Childcare, Gender, and the Division of Labor

[32:18] Michelle C. Smith:

• Noted for its practice of "male continence" (birth control); communal childrearing freed women to pursue nontraditional labor.
• Women participated in skilled manufacturing (e.g., metalworking, which would later become Oneida cutlery), publishing, and teaching.
• Archives reveal a far wider range of women's occupational possibilities than in most contemporary or conventional settings.
• Smith is attentive to both the emancipatory and the restrictive (sometimes eugenic, sometimes coercive) sides of these innovations.

Quote:
"When childcare doesn’t dominate women's work, or when childcare and housework don't dominate women's work, that women are more able to take on and explore other kinds of pursuits. And women at Oneida do a wider range of industries than at any of the other communities I looked at." ([33:15])

Success, Failure, and Societal Impact of Utopian Communities

Why Are Utopian Communities Framed as Failures?

[39:26] Michelle C. Smith:

• Notes a cultural tendency to define communities by their dissolution rather than their duration or impact.
• Challenges the logic that longevity is the only metric of success; critiques fixation on "inevitable failure."

Quote:
"There’s this idea that continuation is the goal...but what's inevitable is change. These communities changed as society at large has changed...so it's just about trying to sort of take a more nuanced understanding..." ([41:17])

Rethinking Success

[43:23] Michelle C. Smith:

• Their experimental approaches to gender and labor had wider impact.
• Oneida’s reproductive practices influenced birth control debates; Brook Farm pioneered kindergarten; Harmony Society exemplified successful female-led industry to federal authorities.
• What matters is the expansion of the possible, not mere endurance.

Quote:
"I want to think of success in a broader way -- what did they make possible for other people? What was that kind of legacy, regardless of whether they wanted it to be their legacy." ([45:41])

Class, Race, and Gender in the Configuration of Work

[46:39] Michelle C. Smith:

• Gendered advances for privileged women usually depended on offloading less valued labor to poorer, working-class, or women of color.
• Seen repeatedly: at Brook Farm (upper-class women delegating to working-class women), at Oneida (hiring domestic servants, black laundresses), and Harmony Society (trade in German maids).
• Structural inequalities among women were thus replicated in these communities, a pattern that persists into modern feminism.

Quote:
"Improving things for women meant improving things for someone, and often at the cost of other women." ([52:58])

"Ecologies of Gender" – Methodological Notes

[54:26] Michelle C. Smith:

• Explains ecological methodology: studying gender and rhetoric as dynamic networks of texts, spaces, and material conditions, not as isolated abstractions.
• Gender is constructed interactionally with factors like race, class, industrialization, and technology.

Quote:
"As I was working and thinking about rhetorics of gender, it struck me that...gender is...produced and constructed in tension with a lot of other factors." ([55:46])

Closing & Next Research Directions

[57:10] Michelle C. Smith:

• Next project explores the "Rosie the Riveter" image—its misunderstood origins and mythologizing as a recruitment tool for women in WWII, when in fact it served another function.
• Interested in how iconic visuals shape collective gender-labor narratives and why society "needed this icon badly enough to invent it."

Quote:
"I’m really interested in the work that this image does around narratives of gendered labor...why we needed this icon badly enough to invent it when it wasn’t necessarily readily available." ([58:45])

Memorable Quotes & Highlights

• "I try to have a more open and nuanced view about the motivations that might have led people to choose to join these kinds of communities." (Michelle C. Smith, [09:47])
• "Spaces are really understood in terms of what kinds of bodies we think are supposed to be there and what kinds of practices, labor or leisure, we think they should be doing there." (Michelle C. Smith, [19:21])
• "When childcare doesn’t dominate women's work...women are more able to take on and explore other kinds of pursuits." (Michelle C. Smith, [33:15])
• "Success is not mere longevity, but the broader impact—did they expand what was possible for others?" (paraphrased, [45:41])
• "Improving things for women meant improving things for someone, and often at the cost of other women." (Michelle C. Smith, [52:58])

Timeline of Major Topics

• 02:20 – Smith’s background & origin story
• 04:10 – Origins of interest in utopian/intentional communities
• 08:42 – Definitions: “utopian” vs. “intentional” communities
• 12:19 – Research design and case study selection
• 18:29 – Why focus on labor?
• 23:09 – Brook Farm and housework
• 27:26 – Harmony Society and the silk industry
• 32:18 – Oneida and communal childrearing; women’s occupations
• 39:26 – The myth of utopian failure; redefining success
• 46:39 – Intersections of class, race, and gender in labor
• 54:26 – “Ecologies of gender” as methodology
• 57:10 – Next project: Rosie the Riveter

Tone and Language

The conversation is thoughtful, scholarly, yet accessible—Smith articulates complex feminist and historical theories with clarity and useful anecdotes, while Cockcroft provides prompting and affirming questions.

For Listeners

This episode is essential for anyone interested in:

• The intersections of gender, labor, and communal experiment in American history
• How economic and social utopianism impacted women, especially with issues of class and race
• The ongoing influence of historical communal living on current debates around feminism, work, and community
• Methodological innovations in feminist historiography