New Books in History Michelle Christine Smith, "Utopian Genderscapes: Rhetorics of Women's Work in the Early Industrial Age" (Southern Illinois UP, 2021)
Nov 9, 2025
Michelle C. Smith, an author and scholar specializing in rhetoric and gender studies, dives into her book exploring intentional communities like Brook Farm, Harmony Society, and Oneida. She discusses how these communities redefined women's labor amid industrialization and how their legacies shape contemporary gender dynamics. Highlights include varying approaches to domestic work and childcare, gendered ecologies across societal roles, and the nuanced success of these historically significant movements. Smith also hints at her forthcoming work on WWII gendered labor, promising more insights into evolving feminist histories.
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Co‑Housing Sparked Her Research
- Michelle C. Smith described living in a co-housing community called Blueberry Hill after her junior year of college.
- The experience showed her how intentional design (shared meals, common spaces, parking at edges) changed daily life and sparked her interest in utopian communities.
Intentional Community Versus Utopia
- Smith defines 'intentional community' to avoid the stigma of 'utopia' and emphasize chosen, shared living goals.
- She notes modern practitioners prefer 'intentional community' to escape associations with authoritarian perfection.
Space Questions Often Become Labor Questions
- Smith realized that gendered spatial arguments often reduce to questions of labor and who does what work.
- She reframed the project to study rhetorics of women's work rather than only spatial arrangements.
