Category Archives: Fruitlands The Alcott Family and Their Search for Utopia by Richard Francis

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Fruitlands through the years in sight and sound

Recently a reader (thank you Michelle!) sent me a wonderful interview with Richard Francis, author of Fruitlands: The Alcott Family and Their Search for Utopia. Francis does an excellent job of clarifying a complex situation (anyone who has studied the Fruitlands experiment in depth knows what I mean!). It was presented on The Woman’s Hour on BBC, hosted by Jenni Murray.

Richard  Francis Interview

Fruitlands then and now

I thought too that you might enjoy a tour of Fruitlands through the ages. I combined photos from Clara Endicott Sears’ book, Bronson Alcott’s Fruitlands with photos I took on my last visit there:

Upper photo courtesy of Harriet Lothrop Papers, Minuteman National Park

Front of the house

Foyer

Kitchen

Dining room

Dining room

The study

Alcott’s bedroom

Charles Lane’s bedroom

The heart of the story

And here are pictures of the attic. I think these pictures bring home the human drama of Fruitlands more than anything. When you actually see it, you just want to sit there and ponder what went on in that dark, cramped and cold room:

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The unknown players of Fruitlands – finally hearing their voices

What was it like to live at Fruitlands?

Serious Alcott biographers have devoted much ink to the family’s experience during this six-month utopian experiment. Sometimes thoughtful, often absurd and always dramatic, Fruitlands is credited with both the shaping of the famous daughter, and a change in the power structure of the Alcott marriage and family life.

Richard Francis’ exhaustive study, Fruitlands The Alcott Family and Their Search for Utopia reveals extensive excerpts from the writings of Charles Lane whom, with Bronson Alcott, created the community.

bronson alcott's fruitlandsBut what about other members?

In Bronson Alcott’s Fruitlands, Clara Endicott Sears reveals the lives and writings of two such members: Joseph Palmer and Isaac Thomas Hecker. It is a rare view of Fruitlands from those who simply lived it.

Isaac Hecker

Isaac Hecker was a seeker. Feeling an urgent inner call to an ascetic spiritual life, he came over from Brook Farm to join the Fruitlands community. Born in New York in 1819 to a well-to-do merchant family, his long and winding road would eventually lead to the priesthood and the founding of the Paulist Fathers. These progressive priests dedicated themselves to spreading the Catholic faith in America using the modern methods of preaching on the road and the printing press. They stressed the personal holiness of each individual, believing that the European Church placed too much emphasis on the routine side of religious observance (Wikipedia, Isaac Hecker).

Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands

Isaac Hecker went through much torturous soul searching before deciding on the celibate life of a priest. He found separating from Brook Farm to be excruciating but the call within for the spiritual life was too strong. He writes:

“I can hardly present myself from saying how much I shall miss the company of those I love and associate with here. But I must go. I am called with a stronger voice … Here are refining amusements, cultivated persons – and one whom I have not spoken of, one who is too much to me to speak of, one who would leave all for me. Alas! Him I must leave to go.” (pg. 76-77, Bronson Alcott’s Fruitlands by Clara Endicott Sears).

Hecker’s biographer, Walter Elliot in Life of Father Hecker, attempts to clarify the use of the word “Him,” indicating that Hecker appeared to have originally written “Her,” then changed it to “Him.” Whatever the nature of the relationship, it was an attachment that Hecker felt he must break in order to achieve spiritual perfection.

He hoped to find that at Fruitlands. He adjusted well to the diet and clothing requirements and at first, seemed to be finding the life he sought. He describes conversations amongst the members:

“This morning after breakfast a conversation was held on Friendship and its laws and conditions. Mr. Alcott places Innocence first; [Samuel] Larned, Thoughtfulness; I, Seriousness; Lane, Fidelity.” (Ibid, pg. 78, from July 12).

And

“… there was held a conversation on the Highest Aim. Mr. Alcott said it was Integrity; I, Harmonic being; Lane, Progressive being; Larned, Annihilation of self; [Samuel] Bower, Repulsion of the evil in us. Then there was a confession of the obstacles which prevent us from attaining the highest aim. Mine was the doubt whether the light is light; not want of will to follow, or light to see.” (Ibid, from July 13)

It did not take long for Hecker to realize that Fruitlands would not meet his spiritual needs:

“… I cannot live at this place as I would. This is not the place for my soul … My life is not theirs.” (Ibid, pg. 82, from July 23)

While he admired Charles Lane’s unselfishness, he suspected Bronson’s motives: “I suspect he wanted me because thought I would bring money to the Community. (Ibid, pg. 84). He noted the enormous work load Abba and her daughters carried while “Mr. Alcott looked benign and talked philosophy.” (Ibid)

Hecker would move back home to New York with his family and maintain the ascetic dietary life he discovered at Fruitlands. In six years he would become a Roman Catholic priest.

Joseph Palmer

Palmer was the practical support for Fruitlands. He provided animals to plow the fields when Bronson and Lane realized they could not break the earth themselves. In fact, those animals caused somewhat of a scandal when it was learned that Abba was taking milk from the cow to give to two year-old Abby May.

Although Joseph Palmer went back and forth from Fruitlands to his farm in No Town, he was fully committed to the community, providing farming skills and tools. He also provided practical and moral support to Abba when the community was collapsing and they faced starvation and the cold of winter. He was to eventually take over the property and turn it into his own community, the Leominster and Harvard Benevolent Association (Wikipedia, Joseph Palmer).

joseph palmer

What is perhaps most remembered about Palmer though was his attachment to his fine, luxurious white beard. He was mocked and openly persecuted for it in the 1830s and was even imprisoned for a time. Relishing the opportunity to fight for his right to wear it, he remained in prison longer than was necessary until he was asked to leave. A man of principle, he never wavered and kept the beard till his dying day.

After finally leaving jail, Palmer heard about Fruitlands and being a reformer at heart, was eager to join. He offered to run the farm pro bona and provided furniture for the house. Without his practical help, Fruitlands would not have survived as long as it did. He was much more a doer, while Bronson and Lane especially, preferred to just “be.”

The legacy of Fruitlands preserved, thanks to a visionary

Clara Endicott Sears did a great service by providing her book and purchasing the property to preserve for the ages.  Looking over the beautiful vista, one can imagine the community living in the house, the girls running through the fields and the meaningful and often challenging conversations that took place. There was hope in the valley.

But one can also sense the ghosts of broken promises, the oppression of poverty, the bone-chilling winter cold, the desperation of certain starvation and the tensions that tore away at a close family. These were the things that molded and fueled a certain impressionable, highly creative little girl with great talent to dream big dreams that would take care of her family for the rest of their lives, and impact generations of women after her.

For a mere six month experiment, Fruitlands was indeed important. Thank goodness Clara Endicott Sears had the vision and the means to preserve it.

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A visit to Fruitlands where Louisa took up the family cross

at the bottom of a steep hill

at the bottom of a steep hill

Back in October I took a trip to Fruitlands in Harvard, MA, only about 40 minutes from my home. That visit sparked a long period of binge reading on the subject which is why, in the dead of winter, I’m only getting around to writing about that visit now.

A paradox

Having immersed myself in Louisa’s life over the past two and one half years, Fruitlands is pregnant with meaning. It’s a paradox – beautiful and open yet oppressive as I reflect on past events. In the summer of 1843, a new kind of family representing the hope of Utopia moved into the then red, ramshackle farmhouse nestled in a valley, at the end of a primitive and steep drive, deliberately isolated from the outside world.

The players

Accompanying Bronson Alcott and wife Abba were their daughters: Anna, Louisa, Elizabeth and May. Charles Lane came with his young son William. Other members of this “consociate” family were Joseph Palmer, Isaac Hecker, Samuel Larned, Abraham Everett (aka Abraham Woods or Wood Abraham) and Samuel Bower. The only other woman to join, Ann Page, came later.

23-joseph-and-nancy-palmer.jpg

22-charles lane and isaac hecker

The books

Clara Endicott Sears is the foundress of the now Fruitlands Musuem, having bought up the land in the early 1900s and written a book about the experiment, Bronson Alcott’s Fruitlands. Her book is one of the few (if not the only one) that includes the journal writings of different members of the group beyond Alcott and Lane.

bronson-alcotts-fruitlands-cover-and-inside-with-copyright

It also includes Louisa’s take on the experiment, the satirical Transcendental Wild Oats, plus diary entries from Anna and Louisa during their time there.

atkins-francisThese books led to a young adult novel, Becoming Little Women: Louisa May at Fruitlands by Jeannine Atkins (see previous post) and finally Richard Francis’ tour de force, Fruitlands: The Alcott Family and Their Search for Utopia. This last book is densely packed with information and as a result, riddled with sticky notes which I still have to sort through.  Eventually I will share what I learned from this marvelous book (see previous posts).

Revealing writings

Louisa’s diary entries reveal a ten year-old girl who was already reform-minded, introspective and conscious of her faults. There are numerous references to her quick temper and deep regret as in this passage from September 1, 1843:

“I felt sad because I have been cross to-day and did not mind Mother. I cried, and then I felt better …” (pg. 107, Bronson Alcott’s Fruitlands by Clara Endicott Sears).

And yet in the same passage, she shows her astuteness:

“Father asked us what was God’s noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad; babies never are.” (Ibid, pg. 106)

Louisa was not afraid to speak her mind and possibly earn the disfavor of her father; Anna however always wanted to please him.

The same passage also demonstrates how reform-minded she was becoming in her reaction to a story read to her by Bronson which demonstrated why the rich need to be kind to the poor. Louisa wrote, “I liked it very much, and I shall be kind to poor people.” (Ibid)

She finds a moment at bedtime up in her cramped attic room to appreciate the natural world: “As I went to bed the moon came up very brightly and looked at me.” (Ibid, pgs. 106-7)

Playtime

The girls would often pretend they were fairies or go berry picking.

The girls would often pretend they were fairies or go berry picking.

Other journal entries describe hours of play spent running up and down hills, gathering nuts and berries and pretending:

“I ran in the wind and pretended to be a horse, and had a lovely time in the woods with Anna and Lizzie. We were fairies, and made gowns and paper wings. I “flied” the highest of all.” (Ibid, pg. 107)

Change of weather

views of Mounts Monadnock and Wachusett

views of Mounts Monadnock and Wachusett

When the climate was agreeable, Fruitlands was a paradise (except perhaps for Abba who had to do the lion’s share of the work). Beautiful mountain vistas, rich forests, sparkling streams and long walks in the fields complemented the sense of warmth and community that Bronson and Charles Lane wanted to cultivate. Despite the rigors of living at Fruitlands (among other things a totally Vegan diet without the benefit of coffee, tea, sugar and butter; scratchy, lightweight linen for clothing so as not to rob the sheep of their wool or use cotton created by slave labor; sparse usage of animals for farming; strict rules and an over-abundance of “high-minded talk” along with an under-abundance of hand to the plow) and the difficult personalities involved, the community appeared to be thriving.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, after visiting during the summer wrote, “They look well in July; we will see them in December.” (Ibid, pg. 69) He had provided financial help though later commented that “Their whole doctrine is spiritual but they always end with saying, Give us much land and money.” (Wikipedia, Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Emerson was prophetic in his assessment of Fruitlands; when the temperature cooled and the snows came, life grew unbearably austere due to a lack of food, heat and warm clothing (although there was still an abundance of “high-minded talk”). One by one, the residents of Fruitlands abandoned the community leaving behind the destitute Alcotts, Charles Lane and his son. Eventually the property would be sold, Bronson and Charles Lane would part company, and the surviving family unit of Alcotts would be sorely tested.

Impressionable child

There is no doubt among Alcott biographers that Fruitlands was a very formative time in Louisa’s life. Nothing escaped the sensibilities of this ten year-old, most especially the burden of Fruitlands on her mother and the mounting tension between her parents which threatened separation.

She saw the amount of work Abba took of, caring for all the residents plus any visitors who dropped in, often unannounced. Bronson and Charles Lane frequently left the farm on trips to promote their utopian community (which provided no monetary income). One time they left when the grain was ready to be harvested. Louisa writes in Transcendental Wild Oats:

512 fruitlands - gathering the grain

Illustration by Flora Smith for The Story of Louisa May Alcott by Joan Howard

“About the time the grain was ready to house, some call of the Oversoul wafted all the men away. An easterly storm was coming up and the yellow stacks were sure to be ruined. Then Sister Hope [Abba] gathered her forces. Three little girls, one boy (Timon’s son) [William, Charles Lane’s son], and herself, harnessed to clothes-baskets and Russia-linen sheets, were the only teams she could command; but with these poor appliances the indomitable woman got in the grain and saved food for her young, with the instinct and energy of a mother-bird with a brood of hungry nestlings to feed.” (Ibid, pgs. 166-167).

Soul mates

Louisa and her mother understood each other and leaned on each other. The daughter internalized the anxiety and frustration of the mother and watched as her father failed to provide, leading the family to the brink of starvation. Louisa witnessed the strength of her mother who eventually led the family away from Fruitlands to safety while the father collapsed emotionally (although Richard Francis in Fruitlands The Alcott Family and their Search for Utopia disputes this, claiming that Louisa invented or exaggerated her father’s response to the failure of the experiment to enhance the storyline of Transcendental Wild Oats  – see page 259).

Assuming the family cross

An exchange between Louisa (in 1843, then eleven) and Abba in Louisa’s journal signals the unspoken promise Louisa made to take care of her mother for the rest of her life:

Dear Louy,
I enclose a picture for you which I always liked very much, for I have imagined that you might be just such an industrious daughter & I such a feeble but loving mother, looking to your labor for my daily bread. Keep it for my sake, & your own, for you and I always like to be grouped together.
Mother

Louisa responds with a poem:

To Mother

I hope that soon dear mother, you & I may be
In the quiet room my fancy has so often made for thee,
The pleasant sunny chamber, the cushioned easy chair,
The books laid for your reading, the vase of flowers fair.
The desk beside the window where the sun shines warm and bright,
And there in ease and quiet, the promised book you write,
While I sit close beside you, content at least to see,
That you can rest dear mother, & I can cherish thee.

(pgs. 107-108, Little Women Letters from the House of Alcott, edited by Jessie Bonstelle and Marian DeForest)

It was a promise that would set Louisa on a course that not only achieved its goal but surpassed it beyond her wildest dreams.

Come and visit Fruitlands with me:

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In the next post, I will share the impressions of some of the Fruitlands residents as detailed by Clara Endicott Sears.

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A quick update

I realize it’s been nearly a month since I posted and I wanted to let you know why.

I am hip deep in reading. And it started with a field trip to Fruitlands in Harvard, MA. And it will end there too.

After visiting Fruitlands, I wanted to read more about it. I ended up reading the following:

On top of that, on November 6, two books appeared on my Nook which I had pre-ordered:

And how do these all connect? Eve LaPlante is doing a talk and book signing at Fruitlands on December 1st! You can bet I plan on being there.

Fruitlands by Richard Francis is the hardest book I have ever read. I tried it when it first came out two years ago and was completely overwhelmed by it. Francis is utterly brilliant (and quite droll too – see previous post) but I never thought I could finish that book. I took copious notes and just gave up.

Visiting Fruitlands made me pick it up again. And now I only have 70+ pages left. But you can see how many more notes I will be taking!

Here are some other posts I did on this book way back when:

I need to finish reading this book plus at least Marmee & Louisa before December 1st. Wish me luck!

And I will be sharing many things with you soon.

Click to Tweet & Share: Marmee & Lousia by Eve Laplante, and Fruitlands by Richard Francis – what’s the connection? http://wp.me/p125Rp-1iF

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Book Review: “Becoming Little Women”

An experiment in a utopian community that only lasted seven months should have easily been forgotten in history, even if it included historically important people. Yet the fascination with Fruitlands continues as evidenced by Richard Francis’ book, Fruitlands: The Alcott Family and Their Search for Utopia which came out this year. There is no doubt that Fruitlands was a cathartic experience for young Louisa May Alcott.

Fruitlands for children

Considering the extraordinarily complex and bizarre nature of the thinking behind Fruitlands, I was quite surprised to find a children’s book written about that very subject. Becoming Little Women: Louisa May at Fruitlands by Jeannine Atkins is an engaging fictional account based on the writings of Alcott family members.

The essence of Fruitlands

Atkins presented the philosophy behind Fruitlands in a concise and simple manner that children could understand (and adults could benefit from). Founded by Transcendentalists Bronson Alcott and Englishmen Charles Lane, Fruitlands was meant to help those living in the community to achieve divine perfection through simple living and high-minded thinking. The diet and methods of farming were devised to avoid any action that would support the slavery of humans, and of animals. The community was to live as one family where the children would have many “fathers” and “mothers”; the bonds of human love and family were discouraged in favor of the “consociate” family, meant to achieve a higher, divine form of love.

Becoming Little Women opens with the Alcotts and Lanes moving from Concord to the Fruitlands farm in Harvard during a dreary rain storm. It is a fitting beginning for an experiment not only doomed to failure, but also perpetrating one of the most traumatic crises to strike the Alcott family.

Louisa at 10

Atkins paints a picture of a ten year-old Louisa, full of life, vigor, imagination and stamina. She sits in an apple tree spinning stories and poems while eating apples. She races through woods and fields with her sisters and William, the son of Charles Lane. She dreams up and performs dramatic plays with her sister Anna as a way of releasing the tension of the experience of Fruitlands which was growing darker by the day. Atkins shows a conflicted Louisa, struggling with her temper and tongue, trying to force the square of a vigorous temperament to fit into the circle of her father’s concept of serenity and perfection.

Tragic character portrayal

Becoming Little Women‘s study of characters truly propelled the story. I appreciated her portrayal of the tragic William, abandoned by his mother to be raised by the remote, grim and self-absorbed Charles Lane. There is little written about this young boy so Atkins takes literary freedom to infuse life into him. The result is a believable and sad portrait of a child whose father has little or no regard for him, and who eventually abandons him to a Shaker community for a time. William fades into history and we never know what became of him, but Atkins makes you feel for him and wonder if he ever knew happiness or love. Louisa, in typical big-heartedness, embraced and befriended him, offering him the sisterly affection he had never known.

Anna as a flesh-and-blood young girl

Atkins also fleshed out Louisa’s older sister Anna. Often portrayed in real life as saintly and the mirror image of her father, Atkins digs into Louisa’s portrayal of her as Meg in Little Women, rounding her out as sometimes vain, envious of others, and competitive with Louisa for the approval of her parents. Anna emerges as a believable girl of twelve with a vibrancy often missing from other accounts.

Marmee’s trial

Abba Alcott or “Marmee” is painted as the endless workhorse, carrying the true burden of Fruitlands while the men wiled away endless hours in high-minded talk. Many accounts of Fruitlands paint Abba as the reason why the experiment failed because of her fierce devotion to her immediate family. Atkins paints a realistic portrait of Abba, heroic in her efforts, yet stressed,  bitter and often desperate as she tried to reach Bronson and bring him back down to earth to face reality. Women being so restricted in their actions as they were in this era, Abba is shown constantly pushing the edge of the envelope to save her family, even considering separating from her husband to save her children.

Grown-up issues for children

I felt vested in these people as they struggled through this experiment in utopian living. Fruitlands was more like Purgatory than Eden, and through these vibrant characters, I felt their joys and conflicts, tensions and traumas.

Atkins deals with the very grown-up issues of family conflict that can lead to separation, the struggle to live up to parental expectations, and the consequences of living with people who have little regard for the needs of others. Most of what happened in the story felt authentic and age appropriate although there was one event which felt a bit too “current” and too adult for a children’s novel.

Learning from children’s books

I enjoy reading children’s novels because of their ease of reading (the big type helps too!) and I often learn a great deal from them. It was, after all, a children’s novel that introduced me to my passion for Louisa in the first place (The Story of Louisa May Alcott by Joan Howard). 🙂

Therefore I highly recommend Jeannine Atkin’s Becoming Little Women: Louisa May at Fruitlands as an enjoyable read and a way to feel the experience of Fruitlands and mid 19th century living.

In my next post, I will share an interview with Jeannine, finding out more about how she fleshed out these characters and came to write a children’s book about a difficult subject.


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One year old today! Celebrating with a special gift for you!

I recently watched again the PBS film Louisa May Alcott The Woman Behind Little Women  and thoroughly enjoyed it.  To see Louisa portrayed on the small screen is just as thrilling as ever. This reminded me of how I started my blog 1 year ago today after reading the book. What a wonderful year it has been with all of you, my readers.

Writing this blog has opened up a whole new world of reading and writing, and has given me, the first time, a way to indulge in my passion for history and biography. My vision is expanded and  my mind sharpened by the exercise. And I’ve rediscovered my childhood love of writing.

I have loved reading, writing and learning about Louisa,  members of her family, and the Concord Transcendentalists. The more I read, the more I want to know!

I would never have guessed that in the span of a year I would meet and/talk to/correspond with authors and scholars like Daniel Shealy, Harriet Reisen, Amy Belding Brown, Gabrielle Donnelly, Susan Cheever, Kelly O’Connor McNees, Richard Francis and Jeannine Atkins. Meeting Jan Turnquist, executive director of Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, and Nancy Porter, director of the aforementioned film, was a tremendous pleasure too.

And I’ve found wonderful blogs such as A Room of One’s Own, Silver Threads, Joyfully Retired and many  more, introducing me to the Classics. I will never forget the thrill of reading Gone With the Wind. :-).

I never would have dreamed that I would have had the opportunity to attend the ALA workshop for the Louisa May Alcott initiative  and meet so many other Alcott enthusiasts and scholars. And I will never forget the day I held in my hands letters written by my favorite author. Being able to touch her handwritten words is frankly, beyond words.

This blog has certainly opened up my life. Thank you so much to all of you who have read, commented and supported this blog. My learning deepens, my joy grows fuller and my reading binge continues. Thank you!!

168 posts, 14,337 views, 615 comments . . . Happy 1st Birthday, Louisa May Alcott is My Passion! May there be many more to come.

A birthday gift – for you!

And as I celebrate this day, I would like to give away a gift to one of you – this beautiful notecard from Orchard House featuring a painting by May Alcott Nieriker of a screech owl baby, painted over the fireplace in Louisa’s room (I learned on my last trip that there used to be a big tree outside Louisa’s window that house a family of owls – May painted one of them).

Simply comment on this post and I will pick a winner at random. Contest ends Monday at noon.

Long live Louisa May Alcott!

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The essence of Fruitlands: a return to the Garden of Eden

Note: the following post is based upon the introduction to Fruitlands: The Alcott Family and Their Search for Utopia by Richard Francis, pages 2-11). Anything that has been italicized is my own conclusion, not Francis’. I will be including thoughts that I have as it relates to my understanding of Christianity and how it relates to Transcendentalism. Remember that I am no expert! Your thoughts and comments would be most helpful to my understanding and the accuracy of these posts. Thanks!

Continuing my study (and struggling to understand) in this public forum . . .

Fruitlands was an effort to create Utopia by returning to the Garden of Eden. Transcendental thinkers Bronson Alcott in Massachusetts and James Pierrepont Greaves in England both felt that man could achieve the Garden of Eden (redemption) again through diet and high-minded ideals (note that this is totally bypassing the whole idea of the need for God’s grace with regards to redemption). In essence, man comes back to total union with God entirely through his own efforts, the complete opposite of what Christianity teaches.

How did Alcott and Greaves see the story of the Garden of Eden? Francis in Fruitlands: The Alcott Family and Their Search for Utopia maintains the following:

  • The story of Genesis was taken literally. Adam and Eve were real, they were our first parents.
  • The world of Genesis was depicted as perfect, where man was pristine, innocent and one with nature (notice no mention of being one with God)
  • The Fall of Man took place because (are you ready?) man ate the wrong food! If this dietary slip-up could be rectified (by avoiding cooked food such as meat; dairy products, tea, coffee and alcohol; only living on fruit, raw vegetables and water), the Garden could be reinstated and people would become perfect again. (There is no mention of the fact that Adam and Eve broke relations with God because they did what He asked them not to do – eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. There is no mention of the pride of Man nor his desire to become like God (the essence of the temptation from the serpent)).
  • Society as it stood was not worth replacing; it had to be reinvented. Thus, the idea of a Utopian society (a new Garden of Eden) was born.
  • Eden then was to be reclaimed by an austere manner of living, eating and thinking. (It was not achieved by depending upon the grace of God, but upon the will of the individual).
  • The desire was to become one again with nature as the belief was that all things are interconnected. Connection with nature equaled connection with God.

The question I have is this: did Transcendentalists like Alcott and Greaves feel that being one with nature (and thus one with the Divine) made them equal with the Divine because they were one?

Why did people such as Bronson Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson explore this entirely different way of thinking? Francis maintains that Transcendentalism had its roots in religious controversy (Calvinism was giving way to Unitarianism but the Transcendentalists wanted to go further – more on this in future posts). The movement also was reacting to the Industrial Revolution and the rise of cities  leading to people’s alienation from their natural surroundings (causing social injustice, poverty and environmental deterioration).

Transcendentalism was in itself, a revolution of thought. Many of these thoughts could be termed “crazy” but beneath that craziness, there’s more than a shred of truth.  Francis does a magnificent job of pulling out that truth. I shake my head while I read, incredulous at the absurdity of the ideas, and then I have an “ahh” moment when Francis unearths the truth behind the absurdity.

He believes that many ideas acted out at Fruitlands are relevant today such as environmental concerns, the interconnectedness of all things, opposition to slavery, women’s rights and the belief in civil disobedience.

Hoping this post makes sense; despite all the notetaking, this stuff is pretty hard to work through. Your comments would be most appreciated, especially if I am misunderstanding something!