Happyville

Jewish workers in the Socialist Commune of Happyville, Aiken, SC

Happyville was a short-lived agricultural commune near Montmorceni in Aiken County, South Carolina.  The community was based on socialist concepts, and was sponsored by the South Carolina Department of Agriculture, which wanted to bring in Eastern European Jewish immigrants to work the farmland.  The project was purely racist, with the intent of replacing "less desirable" black farmworkers with Jewish workers.

The Happyville residents didn't succeed.  Unusually harsh weather, inexperience, and racial troubles of their own eventually doomed the colony.  

Here are some of the resources used in this podcast:

• Wikipedia Article
• The Sharing Project - Joel Tauber film
• Interview with Rose Rudnick Rubin
• H Is for Happyvile - Walter Edgar