Joyful News Co-Operator

Joyful News Co-Operator. Ed. Isaac B. Rumford and Sara W. Rumford. Joyful, CA: Joyful, Kern Co., Association of Brotherly Co-Operators, 1884. 1 vol.

 

"Joyful, a Christian utopian community, was funded in 1884 by Isaac B. Rumford, and his wife Sara Rumford, in Kern County, California. As early as 1880 Rumford had a visionary dream in which he pictured a heaven-like land where Christian love ruled. Already involved in a variety of reformist efforts, the Rumfords now felt inspired to create a community that would express their ideals of a simple Christian life. Integral to their vision was a new "Edenic" diet, a vegetarian diet based on the consumption of raw foods. Rumford had concluded that cooking destroyed the vital life of food substances. The Rumfords adopted the Edenic diet in 1881 and ascribed to it their continuing good health.

The Rumfords took steps to realize their communal vision in 1884 with the publication of the Joyful News Co-operator. "Joyful" was the name they had already given their fruit farm near Bakersfield, California. They also published a constitution for what they termed the Association of Brotherly Co-operators, the corporate name for the colony. Recruitment meetings were held in San Francisco, and a small number of converts moved to the farm. However, the movement never really got off the ground, and by the end of the year, the experiment was discontinued. The Rumfords continued active as reformers and advocates of the raw food diet" (https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/communal-1960).

The periodical comprises only one volume, according to News Notes of California Libraries (1924): 149 (https://archive.org/details/newsnotesofcalif19cali/page/148/mode/2up).

 

Vol. I nos. 1, 3-6, 10-12 (1884)

https://archive.org/details/joynews01rumf/mode/2up?view=theater