From a reading that was suggested by an online class I am taking. It’s from The Revolution Begins Here Milwaukee and the History of Socialism” by Associate Professor Aims McGuinness, UWM Department of History :
…the first Wisconsinites to call themselves socialists were English-speaking men and women who were born in the United States. In 1844 a small group of idealistic settlers founded an international community or ‘phalanx’ inspired by the works of the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier near present-day Ripon. The community collapsed by 1851, but the place named “Ceresco” was the longest-lived American phalanx in the antebellum period.
Alan Bovay, whom some historians of the Republican Party regard as party’s founder, was also among the pilgrims drawn to Ceresco. Unfortunately for Bovay, the community disbanded shortly before his arrival. Three years later he would organize the legendary meeting in Ripon’s “Little White Schoolhouse” that some scholars regard as the birthplace of the Republican Party.
my apologies for any typos, I couldn’t cut and paste this information.
Just another example that history is never as clear as we think it is and that organizations evolve, devolve, and change in un-imagined ways over time.
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