Brook Farm: Its Members, Scholars and Visitors

by Lindsay Swift

Book by Swift, Lindsay

Genres: History

303 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1973

Reviews

[Tom Schulte · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a letter to Emerson, George Ripley outlined his original vision for the community. He wrote:

Our objects, as you know, are to insure a more natural union between intellectual and manual labor than now exists; to combine the thinker and the worker...to guarantee the highest mental freedom, by providing all with labor, adapted to their tastes and talents...to do away the necessity of menial services, by opening the benefits of education and the profits of labor to all; and thus to prepare a society of liberal, intelligent, and cultivated persons, whose relations with each other would permit a more simple and wholesome life, than can be led amidst the pressure of our competitive institution.

This is a review of the short-lived commune during an era of such experimentation. Growing from informal Transcendentalist gatherings, the agricultural and social experiment became an earnest effort on poor land consuming members' monetary investments. This author takes the opinion that the introduction of the socialist approaches of Charles Fourier, a French philosopher and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Fourier's social views and proposals inspired a whole movement of intentional communities.

Perhaps most interesting here is the biographical details of Association participants, including notables ones such as founder Ralph Waldo Emerson and an initially enthusiastic Nathaniel Hawthorne.

There seems to be bitterness here about Fourierism (socialism) bringing down the experiment without much analysis and reflection on poor choices made before that switch in philosophy:

* Not very arable land chosen for an agricultural venture,
* Insufficient initial financial investment,
* Not insuring an important building which burned down after being built.

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[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, published over a hundred years ago, tells of the history and the people of one of the most famous deliberate communities in America, Brook Farm. The author was fortunate enough to be able to interview some of the still-living participants. Brook Farm attracted the attention of some pretty famous scholars of the time including Thoreau, Emerson, Greeley, Hawthorne, and Fuller.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

First published in 1900. Should be read by anybody wanting to know more about the Transcendental roots of American Democratic Socialism and the eternal quest for Utopia.

"Inspired by a philosophical and speculative enthusiasm, Brook Farm began as an attempt to work modifications in social life. In this direct attempt it certainly ended in disaster. The visible fruits were intellectual, and of the men and women who contributed to the renown of Brook Farm as one of the true seeding-grounds of American letters it is the purpose of this book to speak, not critically or biographically, but rather from the personal side, and, in particular, as each person cinsidered was affected by the associative life at Brook Farm."

Nathaniel Hawthorne later presented a fictionalized portrait of his experience in his 1852 novel, The Blithedale Romance. He acknowledged the resemblance in his introduction, saying "in the 'Blithedale' of this volume, many readers will probably suspect a faint and not very faithful shadowing of Brook Farm, in West Roxbury, which (now a little more than ten years ago) was occupied and cultivated by a company of socialists."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brook_Farm

[Marsha Valance · Rating 3 out of 5]

An in-depth account of the famed Transcendentalist Utopian experiment.