Utopia
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional ...
n social planning, written by
King Camp Gillette
King Camp Gillette (January 5, 1855 – July 9, 1932) was an American businessman who invented a bestselling version of the safety razor. Gillette's innovation was the thin, inexpensive, disposable blade of stamped steel. Gillette is often err ...
and first published in
1894
Events January–March
* January 4 – A military alliance is established between the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire.
* January 7 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film in the United S ...
. The book details Gillette's theory that replacing competitive corporations with a single giant publicly owned trust ("the United Company") would cure virtually all social ills.
The plan
One-third of the book is devoted to Gillette's plan for an immense three-level metropolis (called "Metropolis") on the site of
Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, ...
. Designed to accommodate a population of tens of millions of inhabitants, the mega-city would draw its electric power from the Falls. (A photograph of the Falls served as the book's frontispiece.) The first large electrical generating facilities at Niagara Falls, utilizing the new
alternating current
Alternating current (AC) is an electric current which periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time in contrast to direct current (DC) which flows only in one direction. Alternating current is the form in whic ...
George Westinghouse
George Westinghouse Jr. (October 6, 1846 – March 12, 1914) was an American entrepreneur and engineer based in Pennsylvania who created the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry, receiving his first patent at the age of ...
, were being constructed at the time Gillette wrote.
Gillette's city was to possess "a perfect economical system of production and distribution," run by the United Company; it would in fact be the only city on the North American continent. Economies of scale would mean that a single one of every necessary facility — one steel mill, one shoe factory, etc. — would exist. Advances in mechanization would generate ever-greater efficiencies, and ever-greater wealth for the whole society. Social progress would be natural and inevitable; gender equality would be the rule.
Gillette gives a highly specific picture of his metropolis: it is shaped in a perfect rectangle, 135 miles on the long side and 45 on the short. Even with necessary farming and mining, most of the rest of North America outside Metropolis would be a natural environment. Gillette saw the city as containing the full population of the United States at that time, sixty million people; he also thought that the city could accept another thirty million in future population growth. Gillette wanted the buildings of Metropolis to be built of porcelain, for endurance and cleanliness. (His thinking on this point may have been influenced by the famous "White City" of the
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordi ...
of 1893.) Gillette favored circular buildings, even for residences (25-floor apartment complexes), and a hexagonal street plan.
(Though the details of his plan were highly specific, Gillette was not rigidly committed to them; in a future revised version he would switch to a circular shape for his city, and raise the apartment buildings to 50 stories.)
The text of ''The Human Drift'' was accompanied with abundant illustrations and plans, a graph of the "Educational and Industrial Pyramid," and other features of Gillette's scheme.
"His book is important for the attention it received in its time," though today it is "a curiosity."
Later books
Gillette continued his Utopian argument in two subsequent books, ''World Corporation'' (1910) and ''The People's Corporation'' (1924). Other works also propounded his views.
Echota
Nothing approaching Gillette's Metropolis has ever been attempted; but the Niagara Falls area was the site of one planned community, a model workers' town named Echota (which means "town of refuge" in the
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
language). It was designed by the architectural firm of
McKim, Mead, and White
McKim, Mead & White was an American architectural firm that came to define architectural practice, urbanism, and the ideals of the American Renaissance in fin de siècle New York. The firm's founding partners Charles Follen McKim (1847–1909), Wil ...
in 1891 and built by the Niagara Falls Power Company.Ginger Strand, ''Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies'', New York, Simon & Schuster, 2008; pp. 260-1.
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
California Digital Library
The California Digital Library (CDL) was founded by the University of California in 1997. Under the leadership of then UC President Richard C. Atkinson, the CDL's original mission was to forge a better system for scholarly information management a ...