SOURCE: "Nashoba Concluded," in Frances Wright, Columbia University Press, 1924, pp. 111-33.

In the following excerpt. Waterman reviews Frances Wright's published plan for her cooperative community of Nashoba and argues that Wright's advocacy of equal rights and sexual freedom contributed to her reputation as a radical.

Shortly after her return [from England in 1827] Frances [Wright] carried out the suggestion in her letter to James Richardson, and made public her famous "Explanatory Notes, respecting the Nature and Object of the Institution at Nashoba, and of the principles upon which it is founded: Addressed to the Friends of Human Improvement, in all Countries and all Nations."¹ In this remarkable document she plainly stated that it was now the purpose of Nashoba to carry into practice certain principles which had been long advocated by liberal thinkers, but which the world would never receive unsupported by experiment. At Nashoba it was hoped to...