Hello, and welcome to the Season 5, Episode 01 of the Bones & Bobbins Podcast!
If you’re looking for this episode’s show notes, options for listening, and ways to connect with us, you’re in the right place. Welcome, creepy, vintage-y friends!
Listen:
The Bones & Bobbins Podcast, Season 5, Episode 01: Putting the Cult in Cutlery
S05E01: The Oneida Cult.
Hi, Creepy Crafters! We’re back, somewhat rested, and ready to kick off Season 5!
Ever wonder if your silverware was once in a questionable cult? No? Just us?
The Oneida Cult had some truly ahead-of-its-time views on sex and sexuality. And, if their community hadn’t also included a dark shadow of appalling abuse towards its teenage members, this could have been a very different podcast episode. (Alas, no.) But, it may surprise you to know that, even today, this strange cult’s legacy continues to live on in a very unexpected place: our cutlery drawers.
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Curiosity Shop Show Notes:
Here are links to the sources and resources we used while researching this episode.
Links to research materials:
Natali: The Oneida Cult
- The Journal of Urology: HF01-03 SEXUALITY AND SILVERWARE: THE STORY OF MALE CONTINENCE IN THE ONEIDA COMMUNITY: https://www.auajournals.org/doi/10.1097/JU.0000000000003243.03
- Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries Social Welfare History Project: https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/religious/the-oneida-community-1848-1880-a-utopian-community/
- Syracuse University Oneida Collection: https://library.syracuse.edu/digital/guides/o/oneida_comm.htm
- The Oneida Community Mansion Page: https://www.oneidacommunity.org/
- Oneida: From Free Love Utopia to Well Set Table by Ellen Wayland-Smith (a descendant of Noyes): https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250043108/oneida
- American Communities and Co-Operative Colonies: https://archive.org/details/AmericanCommunitiesAndCo-operativeColonies
- Today I Found Out Article: https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2016/07/oneida-silverware-socialist-sexual-polygamous-religious-community/
- New York Post Article: https://nypost.com/article/president-garfields-assassin-charles-guiteau-was-one-of-historys-first-incels/
Further Reading:
- Nothing to see this time!