April 09, 2003
How About Those Who Lollygag?
Stacy is studying to get a Ph.D. in archaeology. In picking a focus for her work, she's settled on intentional communities in turn-of-the-century North America. Back in Canada, she had studied a group delightfully named the Doukhobors, Russians who had split away for the Orthodox church.
Now that she's here in the states, her interests have turned more secular. At first considering studying the Icarians, who had a community in Cloverdale, in Sonoma County, she has since paid more attention to the Kaweah Co-operative Colony (PDF), which settled just east of Fresno, in what is now Sequoia National Park.
Stacy visited there last week, and brought back a copy of the Kaweah Commonwealth. The KC was the newspaper of the colony way back in the day, and even though the co-operative has gone, the periodical lives on. As does it's delightful nameplate, unchanged for over a hundred years (except for the word "online"):
If you can't make out the script in the banner, it reads
A JOURNAL FOR THOSE WHO LABOR AND WHO THINK.
Which I just love.