BROOK FARM

Brook Farm was an experimental commune and agricultural cooperative in West Roxbury, Massachusetts (now part of Boston). It was established in 1841 by Unitarian minister and author George Ripley (1802–80), a leader of the Transcendental movement. Transcendentalists rejected the conventional doctrines of the Calvinist Church and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church. They were influenced by German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) as well as English poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) and William Wordsworth (1770–1850). Transcendentalist philosophy held that an individual's intuition, as opposed to the five senses, is the highest source of knowledge. The senses are therefore to be transcended. They also emphasized self-reliance and intellectual stimulation. These beliefs spawned an American literary movement, which flourished between 1836 and 1860, and was epitomized by the works of American writer and former Unitarian minister Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) and his protegee author Henry David Thoreau (1817–62). The movement's philosophy was also captured in the transcendentalist journal The Dial.

At Brook Farm the transcendentalists strove to establish social harmony. They followed French philosopher Charles Fourier's (1772–1837) ideas that small communities (preferably of 1,620 people) should form an economic unit, share a communal dwelling, and divide work among themselves. Since labor was shared each community member was theoretically allowed ample time for artistic and literary pursuits. But the utopian experiment was short-lived: Brook Farm's central building caught fire and was destroyed in 1846; by the following year the commune had disbanded.

Other notable figures who were associated with Brook Farm included American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64), whose novel Blithedale Romance (1852) was inspired by his years at the commune; and American feminist and writer Margaret Fuller (1810–50), editor of The Dial. The utopian community was also visited by American newspaper editor Horace Greeley (1811–72), founder of the highly influential New York Tribune.

See also: Utopia, Utopian Communties