Putney, Vermont

Putney, Vermont is a small Connecticut River town with a history of radical social experiments. In the eighteen forties, John Humphrey Noyes established a religious commune here called the Putney Community, which practiced Bible Communism and a controversial system of shared marriage he called complex marriage. When neighbors complained, Noyes fled to New York in eighteen forty-seven and eventually founded the Oneida Community in upstate New York, which became famous for silverware production.

Putney itself moved on and became known in the twentieth century as the home of the Experiment in International Living, a student exchange program founded in nineteen thirty-two that became a pioneer of the homestay exchange model. The town has kept some of that spirit of trying something different.