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CELO (COMMUNITY)

1937 -
Often referred to as a utopian community, Celo was inspired and founded in 1937 by Arthur Morgan, an educator and visionary who devised a system of land tenure and taxation and established rules for the the community to function which are reminiscent of the consensual processes of the Quaker faith. This intentional community is one of the longest lived communities of its kind in the U.S., though it original framework has changed repeatedly through the years to accommodate cultural change at both the national and local level. 

Arthur Morgan was a Progressive and a Unitarian. He came to Yellow Springs, Ohio in 1919 and took on the Presidency and the job of revitalizing the failing Antioch College, located in the small town. In fifteen years he raised the college to among the top three colleges in the country according to the Carnegie Corporation. In 1933 President Roosevelt appointed him to head the large development project known as the Tennessee Valley Authority. This project which became one of the largest projects to attempt the regional development of natural resources and human beings in the world, was ably managed by Morgan until he encountered crippling political intrigues that resulted in his dismissal in 1939. He returned to Antioch and continued .

Bibliography: Hicks, George L.. Experimental Americans: Celo and Utopian Community
in the Twentieth  Century,
Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001.

Michaels, Laurence. The Tragedy of Modern Education. Senior Thesis, Department of
History, University of NC Asheville, 2003.

Roy Talbert, Jr. FDR's Utopian: Arthur Morgan fo the TVA. (Twentieth Century America Series), Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1987.

Arthur E. Morgan. My World. Yellow Springs, Ohio: Kahoe & Spieth, 1927.

Arthur E. Morgan. The Community Of The Future And The Future Of Community.
Yellow Springs, Ohio, Community Service [1957]   

Arthur E. Morgan. Nowhere Was Somewhere; How History Makes Utopias And How
Utopias Make History,

Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina press, 1946.  

Links Arthur E. Morgan biography: http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/morgan.html