Sunrise-It Was Utopia 95 Miles From Detroit
By CHARLOTTE HYAMS
Today it would buy 1/35th of a
house in Southfield. In 1933, $1,000
bought a share in utopia, 95 miles
from Detroit.
It was called Sunrise.
To some of the 350 who par-
ticipated in the Sunrise Coopera-
tive Farm Community, it is like
a dream—to be sure, there is no
evidence of its ever having existed
in the Saginaw Valley 30 years ago
—but a few still talk of it fondly,
and there is a book to commend it,
respectably, to history.
Depression was a time of ex-
periments. New Deal meant the
CCC, PWA and an entire alpha-
bet of bureaus designed to bring
an ailing America back to health.
A Russian-born anarchist living
in New York had another idea: a
self-help collective colony in which
its members would build
"A new world, a heaven on earth,
a kingdom of justice for all who
would join and do their share. No
one would ever be rich there, nor
would anyone be p o o r, or go
hungry so long as Mother Earth
sent forth her abundance of food.
"Man, woman and child would be
free to live their own lives, and
to develop to the full their inborn
abilities. Women would be placed
in a position of real equality with
men; they would be free not mere-
ly in the legal and political sense,
but also economically, socially and
sexually. The wife would not de-
pend on the earnings of the hus-
band, nor the child on the bounty
of its parents.
"The community would take care
of all alike, of the sick and the
well, the aged and the young, the
weak and the strong; all would be
treated with the justice and kind-
ness that prevail in the best of
families."
The words were Joseph Cohen's,
as he looked back on his glorious
experiment in the book "In Quest
of Heaven." Published posthumous-
ly in 1957 by the "Sunrise History
Publishing Committe e" in New
York, the book recounts the col-
ony's successes and *feats from
its birth as a vision in 1932 to its
death, with the sale of property
to the government, in 1939-40.
*
There had been other attempts
to organize Jewish agricultural col-
onies in the state. In 1891, a group
of Russian and Polish Jews founded
the Palestine Colony at Bad Axe.
Sponsored by the Hebrew Relief
Society of Detroit and financed by
the Baron Maurice de Hirsch Com-
mittee, the Palestine Colony also
had support from such citizens as
the late Martin Butzel.
The 15 families who settled there
led a religious lie, observing all
Jewish holidays. However, one mis-
fortune after another led to its
demise four -years later.
The founders of Sunrise vowed
that social experiments such as
these would be their textbook;
they would not make the same
mistakes. But years after, it too
would be relegated to the lessons
of history. The Sunrise History
Publishing Committee wrote in
a foreward to Cohen's book: "As
far as we know, it Was the last
experiment of its kind in the
United States."
"A Project for a Collectivist Co-
operative Colony" first appeared
in the Yiddish anarchist weekly
Cohen was editing in New York,
the Freie-Arbeiter Shtimme.
It was a grand plan for commu-
nity ownership of land, means of
production and other objects of
common use. Each family — and
there would have to be 150 of them
to provide minimum skills required
for a balanced economy—would
contribute $1,000 toward its estab-
lishment.
In 1932-33, $1,000 was no mean
sum. On the other hand, the day-to-
day uncertainty of Depression con-
vinced many a breadwinner of craz-
ier schemes than this in hopes of
preserving their last savings. They
had little to lose.
From Cohen's point of view, the
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
14—Friday, May 6, 1966
(0,1-
$1,000 per family was a crucial
element:
"The colony must buy only those
things and machines for which it
can pay cash. Under no circum-
stances should the colony permit
itself io get involved in debts,
mortgages, installments or similar
complications which ruin every
enterprise that is burdened by
them:'
around for years till they rotted.
Or, for $15, the truckload of old
leather bus seats, without legs,
backs or supports, for a nonexist-
tent auditorium that Yoine could
foresee in the glorious future.
Or the two truckloads of nar-
row-necked bottles he bought to
preserve the colony's large sur-
plus of tomatoes one summer.
The bottles were so useless, a
junk dealer refused to take them
as a gift.
"In the end," writes Cohen, "we
had to dig a large hole in the
ground and bury Yoine's great bar-
gain."
In all fairness to Yoine, he had
once been president of the Jewish
Farmer's Federation.
*
*
Before the summer of 1933 was
over, 14 states were represented
at Sunrise. They brought problems
with them, chiefly housing.
For example:
The colony's sole carpenter was
asked to rebuild a large shanty into
a model house for six families. In
one sense, he succeeded at his
task: with its small rooms and im-
possible access, the new facility
became "a model of how not to re-
build shanties."
They called it the Muddle House.
There were stringent member-
ship requirements: no one over age
45, no large families with many
children, no conservatives and reli-
gious people, no professed commu-
nists. As it turned out, most mem-
bers were Jews, but there was no
such restriction.
Where to found their heaven
on earth?
A Detroit acquaintance of
Cohen's, whom he calls "Yoine"
in the book, found the ideal spot,
a 10,000-acre tract called Prairie
Farm near Alicia, Mich. It had
many buildings, tools, livestock,
fodder, grain. The works for only
$130,000.
For a farm such as this, there
would have to be many more mem-
bers than were now registering.
Cohen knocked down the member-
ship fee. The farm owners raised
their price. Financial problems had
But in a classless society where
begun.
there was to be no "keeping up
Upon closer scrutiny, the new
owners found the farm was not in with the Joneses," there was still
such perfect condition; it took hun- jealousy over who was assigned
the nicest rooms.
dreds of hired men to help rid the
Sunrise had the sympathy of De-
neglected fields of weeds. For 15
cents an hour, they lined up for troit laborers—it paid them too.
their pay checks twice a month— For $2 a day, it had unemployed
"a line as long as a city block." artisans doing masonry and car-
That first summer, in 1933, their
wages came out of the members'
fees.
It was quite a summer at that.
On July the Fourth, the curious
I came out in droves to gape. A few
stayed.
One of them was a young Sagi-
naw physician, Dr. Peter Shifrin,
today a successful Detroit practi-
tioner.
Dr. Shifrin was impressed by
what he saw, so much so that he
offered his services free for the
summer. In a short time, he had
set up a health center and clinic
with a few beds for minor cases.
He arranged for major cases to
be handled at a Saginaw hos-
pital.
In the fall of that year, Dr. Shif-
rin took post-graduate courses in
public health at then-Michigan
State College. It was 55 miles to
East Lansing, but Dr. Shifrin con-
tinued to service the colony.
Cohen writes:
pentry work for the kitchen, and
unemployed plumbers putting up
sanitation facilities.
Visitors came for summer vaca-
tions, paying $1 for board and work-
ing to the point of exhaustion. Col-
lege students gravitated to Sun-
rise as to a latter-day Fort Lauder-
dale.
Even to the well-known socialist
Norman Thomas, it was "a living
and inspiring example of the corn-
ing socialist order that will liber-
ate mankind from its bondage::
But Norman Thomas would be
the first to admit that all that glit-
ters is not gold. Factions
splitting Sunrise.
"Misfits were a handful," Cohen
writes, but they spurred resent-
ment in the willing workers "that
was destined to ripen into chronic
discontent and a tendency toward
mutual spying."
In April 1934, after a winter
filled with setbacks, rife with argu-
ments over procedure, the Sunrise
News was begun as an organ of
information for the colonists.
Foes immediately charged that
the editors were trying to keep
(Continued on Page 15)
Detroit Jewish Folk Chorus
41st Animal Concert
HARVEY SCHREIBMAN,
Conductor
Presents G. F. Handel's Oratorio
JUDAS MACCABEUS
With
SHIRLEY BENYAS, Soprano and
CANTOR HAROLD ORBACH,
Featured Soloist
Guest Artist: HOWARD DA SILVA
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SUNDAY EVENING, MAY 22nd — 8 P.M.
Scottish Rite Cathedral, Masonic Temple
Tickets From All Members of the Chorus
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"We made arrangements from
this time onwards to pay him a
small and almost nominal sum
for his services. In all, he stayed
with us for 2',/2. years and pulled
us through many difficult health
situations."
Young Shifrin saved the day
more than once. And not always
with his medical books. Cohen re-
lates how the colony's members,
forbidden by the irascible leader
Yoine to operate the teams of trac-
tors, were encouraged by Shifrin
to take over that job from workers
on a sit-down strike.
Hired workers were a source
of woe to the colonists—primari-
ly because these "strangers," un-
reasonably to be sure, expected
to be paid each month.
Their importance to the members
was illustrated vividly when the
hired shepherd went on vacation,
leaving his 2,000 sheep and 1,400
lambs to their own devices. A lot
of tall grass is to be found on a
10,000-acre farm; the sheep meand-
ered into it and could not be found
by the most persistent colonist
spending a day in search.
Rumor circulated: the sheep
were lost and dying on the prairie.
When the shepherd returned, he
rounded up all the wayward sheep
in two hours.
Yoine himself was a frequent
source of dismay. An inveterate
bargain hunter, he would buy —
cheaply enough — tops from dis-
mantled buses, then get four men
to spend an entire day bringing
them from Flint 35 miles away.
For ,what? Who knows? They laid
' • • j,
were
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