In Man and E. B. Gaston and the Origins of the Fairhope Single Tax Colony, historian Paul Gaston relates his grandfather's 1864 founding of the utopian community of Fairhope, Alabama. The twenty-eight "Fairhopers" hoped to realize an "equality of opportunity, the full reward of individual efforts, and the benefits of co-operation in matters of general concern," at a time when the economic system of the United State was ravaged by monopoly capitalism. Using family and public records, Man and Mission gives an intimate view of a vibrant moment in the history of Gilded Age America.