It almost sounds like a bad sit-com: A French aristocrat moves to rural Kansas to start a silk-making commune. But it really happened, more than 150 years ago, and although—spoiler alert—the commune failed, it can still tell us much about what life in the United States was like back then—and what it’s like today. KPR’s Matthew Algeo reports on the life, death, and lasting legacy of an American commune: Silkville.
A Silk-Making Commune in Kansas
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Ernest de Boissière was a French aristocrat who founded the Silkville commune in 1870.
Franklin County (Kansas) Historical Society Archives & Research Center
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Lowell Anderson, manager of the Silkville Ranch, standing in front of a mulberry tree planted by the Silkville commune around 1870. Mulberry leaves were used to feed the silkworms.
Matthew Algeo/KPR
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The Silkville schoolhouse.
Matthew Algeo/KPR
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This was the home of Claude and Benoite Clair, who moved to Silkville from France around 1870.
Matthew Algeo/KPR
