During the 1840s, utopian communities sprang up throughout the United States. The largest utopian movement was that of the Associationists, whose communities, or "phalanxes," were based upon the teachings of the French social scientist Charles Fourier. The man responsible for bringing Fourier's theories to the United States for publication and dissemination was Albert Brisbane. Brisbane disapproved of the trial communities of the Associationists, however. Since they were far smaller than the prototype outlined by Fourier, Brisbane believed them incapable of achieving the social harmony of Fourier's model. In his lifelong interest in and support of Fourier's writings, Brisbane was attempting to carry out a search for mathematical laws, which he believed undergirded not only the hard sciences of astronomy and mechanics but also the social sciences of philosophy, sociology, and economics.

Albert Brisbane was born 22 August 1809 in Batavia, located in the western portion of New York State. His...