Student Housing Cooperatives Communitarianism among American Youth

SCHOLARS HAVE DESCRIBED the first half of this century as being nearly devoid of communitarian activity.As Arthur Bestor wrote, "For most American reformers in an industrialized age, communitarianism was a tool that had lost its edge, probably for ever". 1 Similarly, Edward Spann added that 1920 marked "... the end of a century long effort to recreate society along cooperative lines". 2 But as Timothy Miller's new bibliography of American communes from 1860 to 1960 shows, the convention of dismissing the communitarian activity of this period needs to be rethought 3 Indeed, in terms of cooperative living, this period saw the birth and exponential growth of the cooperative movement on college campuses from coast to coast.Certainly the student co-opers of the 1930's and 40's would be surprised to hear that this era was devoid of communitarian idealism, as their efforts during the depression and, subsequently, the war, were in large part motivated by a spirit of fellowship and egalitarianism.