Frances Wright, Developmental Communalism and the Evolution of a Social Activist

This article will illustrate how developmental communalism and transformative utopianism played out in the activism of Owenite Frances Wright.In 1989, Donald Pitzer presented an idea he had been working on for some time, his concept of developmental communalism; reimagining communalism as a tool that is always available and therefore as a means rather than an end. 1 Pitzer encourages us to shift our focus to "the origins, objectives and achievements of entire movements" 2 rather than longevity.This allows us to reconsider short-lived communities in terms of how and whether they achieved their goals and what they did with the values and lessons learned in community as they moved back into the world.Pitzer's approach was to not just look at the communal phase of a movement but also to look at how that phase fit into the larger picture of a group's overall achievements and goals.Developmental communalism offers a remedy to Rosabeth Moss Kanter's popular but often frustrating