Dictionary.net

a communistic industrial and literary establishment founded in Massachusetts, in 1841, by George Ripley and other persons of socialistic tendencies. It was suggested by the schemes of Robert Owen and the writings of Fourier. The farm was bought and stock assigned on a communistic basis, and labor, manual or mental, received compensation on a time basis. The establishment failed in 1846, one of the largest buildings being destroyed that year by fire. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Horace Greeley were among those interested in the scheme.