John Humphrey Noyes founded the Oneida Community in central New York in 1847, and it was the most successful of the socialist Utopian Experiments of the 19th century. Noyes had developed a theory known as Christian perfectionism which, along with his rejection of monogamy, resulted in his being rejected by his fellow citizens in Putney, Vermont. Noyes and his followers moved to Oneida, New York, and established a community that survived until 1879, when outside pressures, largely religious, brought about its dissolution. Noyes believed that Jesus Christ had returned to earth in A.D. 70, making it possible for he and his followers to achieve the millennial kingdom and be free of sin while living on earth. In explaining the impetus for his community, Noyes stated:
As Unitarianism ripened into Transcendentalism at Boston, and Transcendentalism produced Brook Farm, so Orthodoxy ripened into Perfectionism at New Haven, and Perfectionism produced the Oneida Community.