A topless woman is taken from behind, steadying herself against a hay wagon, as if the couple had paused mid-task. Her late-19th-century garb is half undone, but her sun hat unperturbed. This scene — from Death by Lightning , Netflix ‘s new narrative series chronicling the presidency of James Garfield (Michael Shannon) and Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen), the assassin who ended it in 1881 — imagines daily life among the Oneida Bible Communists. Guiteau was involved with the religious sect and intentional community off and on from 1860 to 1866.

As a character in the Netflix series notes, the Oneidans, active in Vermont and New York between 1841 and 1880 and numbering 300 at their height, were considered a “free love” movement. But Guiteau didn’t participate much in that aspect of

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