basics

=NOTES on Brook Farm and Hawthorne=

Based on the socialist ideas of Charles Fourier, transcendentalists created several utopian communities. Hawthorne was involved with the Brook Farm Experiment which operated between the years of 1841-1847. The experiment was started by a former Unitarian minister, George Ripley, and his wife, Sophia. In addition to Hawthorne and the founders, there were about 12-13 other founding members, and a host of guests and students that visited, worked, and practiced music/art/lessons at the farm. The 208 acre farm was located in West Roxbury, MA.

The farmhouse was named "The Hive" and was meant to be used as the hub of intellectual and social exchange. Meals were held here, as well. The building used for lessons was called "The Nest." The Ripleys built their own home ("Eyrie"), Margaret Fuller had her own cottage (used for music lessons), and boarding students lived in the Plymouth House.

Education was the primary source of income for the farm. Pupils could start in the infant school, attend primary school, preparatory school, or take lessons. Known for its instruction in languages and music, the school offered some of the most celebrated intellectuals of the time. Additionally, women were encouraged to pursue education.

The community folded after a fire struck down one of the central buildings (named the Phalanstere) in 1846. Today, the land is a Jewish graveyard and a nature reserve.


 * THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE**

Hawthorne mentions Brook Farm in the Introduction to the book, and many believe Zenobia is fashioned after Maragaret Fuller. He wrote:

//We had pleased ourselves with delectable visions of the spiritualization of labor.... [but] the clods of earth, which we so constantly belabored and turned over and over, were never etherealized into thought. Our thoughts, on the contrary, were fast becoming cloddish. Our labor symbolized nothing, and left us mentally sluggish in the dusk of the evening. Intellectual activity is incompatible with any large amount of bodily exercise. The yeoman and the scholar—the yeoman and the man of finest moral culture, though not the man of sturdiest sense and integrity—are two distinct individuals, and can never be melted or welded into one substance.//

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brook_Farm