Editing Oneida Community (section)

=== Stirpiculture ===
{{Main|Oneida stirpiculture}}

Stirpiculture was a proto-[[eugenics]] program of selective controlled reproduction within the community devised by Noyes and implemented in 1869.{{sfn |McGee |1891}}{{sfn |Woodhull |2012 |pp=273–283}}{{sfn |Herndon |1989}} It was designed to create more spiritually and physically perfect children.{{sfn |Richards |2004 |pp=47–71}} Community members who wished to be parents would go before a committee to be approved and matched based on their spiritual and moral qualities. 53 women and 38 men participated in this program, which necessitated the construction of a new wing of the Oneida Community Mansion House. The experiment yielded 58 children, nine of whom were fathered by Noyes.

Once children were weaned (usually at around the age of one), they were raised communally in the Children's Wing, or South Wing.{{sfn |Youcha |2009 |pp=110–114}} Their parents were allowed to visit, but the children's department held jurisdiction over raising the offspring. If the department suspected a parent and child were bonding too closely, the community would enforce a period of separation because the group wanted to stop the affection between parents and children.{{sfn |Matarese |Salmon |1983}}{{sfn |Heim |2009 |p=59}} The Children's department had a male and female supervisor to look after children between ages two and twelve. The supervisors made sure the children followed the routine. Dressing, prayers, breakfast, work, school, lunch, work, playtime, supper, prayers, and study, which were "adjusted according to 'age and ability'."{{sfn |Noyes |1937 |p=}}{{page needed|date=April 2020}}

Stirpiculture was the first positive eugenics experiment in the United States, although it was not recognized as such because of the religious framework from which it emerged.{{sfn |Prince |2017 |p=96}}