NO COMPROMISES 

Jessica's Humanist orthodoxy went beyond the fundamental principle of avoiding all genetic modification of an embryo.   She was determined that the Humanist communities at Tuckers Corner and elsewhere in the world would put into practice all the theories and ideas laid out by Julius Schumacher in his book, On Being Human.  This meant that the community's culture was inextricably woven around the respect for the indigenous spirit-based cultures that Julius had described so ardently in his book.

Jessica Goodrich got her way.   The Humanist community that she had established at Tuckers Corner made no compromises.   In the first few years of the community's existence, there was a fair amount of coming and going.   Idealistic young couples would move into the community, driven by a desire to keep their human souls intact and to pass this treasure on to their next generation.   Just as frequently, embittered young parents would leave Tuckers Corner as they became conscious of the great sacrifice they were being asked to make to keep their offspring's humanity intact.  

SHARED COMMUNITIES

Early on, Jessica realized that the values and habits of the Humanist movement were so incompatible with modern society, that the only way the movement could survive was for the Humanists to live their lives together within shared communities.  

She used a great deal of her personal wealth to buy tracts of land close to the regions with the highest concentrations of Humanists, and then spent many years organizing the laborious process of building the infrastructure for these communities: obtaining local planning permission, laying utilities, paving roads, and ultimately, building houses.  

Over the years, communities were established in Tuckers Corner in New York State, the Russian River in Northern California, and along the Pojoaque Creek, between Santa Fe and Taos in New Mexico.   Worldwide, other communities were established in Wales, Brittany in France, Argentina and Australia.

[Click here for Humanist community locations.]

The total number of committed Humanists who moved into these communities peaked at around fifty thousand, but as the years passed, many people found themselves unwilling to maintain a radically different lifestyle, and the worldwide numbers ultimately stabilized at around thirty thousand.

[Find out more about the indigenous legacy Jessica collected for the Humanists]