Brook Farm
Brook Farm was a socially utopian living and working community in West Roxbury (now part of Boston) Massachusetts, which existed from 1841 to 1847. Founder was the inner circle of transcendentalists belonging George Ripley , a former Unitarian minister who had broken away from the church and now with Brook Farm some social reform ideas put it into action.
prehistory
Even during his time as a preacher, George Ripley was considered undogmatic and cosmopolitan. His knowledge of literary and philosophical currents in Europe, which he had acquired as a translator and editor of the 15-volume collection Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature (from 1838), gave rise to a critical attitude towards church doctrine, which ultimately led to a break . Ripley left his pulpit in 1841 and never returned. He succeeded Ralph Waldo Emerson , who had resigned from his ministry a few years earlier. Together with him and other intellectuals, Ripley had formed a discussion group from 1836, which became the nucleus of the first independent intellectual current in the United States. Transcendentalism played a major role in the development of American self-confidence.
Ideal foundations
There should be no exploitation, hierarchy or competition in the new community. The aim was to perfect the individual, who becomes self-determined, free and self-dependent, cooperating with others for the benefit of the whole. Talents and skills should not lead to privilege. Manual and intellectual work were considered equal. Women and men were equal and the remuneration was uniform. It was compulsory to work ten hours a day in summer and eight hours in winter, whereby the type of employment could be chosen. Religiously there was tolerance. Otherwise, living together in the commune should be based on Charles Fourier's socialist plan .
Financial foundations
To finance the project, Ripley sold shares at $ 500 each, assuming an investment requirement of $ 10,000. Accordingly, 5% of the profit to be generated should fall on each of the 20 unit certificates. (At that time the value of a share was roughly equivalent to the average annual income of the lower middle class. Edgar Allan Poe was earning $ 15 a week at the time as an editor at the New York Evening Mirror, $ 780 a year. Margaret Fuller briefly had the unusually high annual salary as a teacher of $ 1000.) According to the desired cooperative concept, the communards should have acquired the shares themselves, but this did not succeed. In fact, there were investors who did not become Communards and Communards who hadn't paid up anything. One financier who bought several shares at the same time was the painter Josiah Wolcott (1814–1885), who captured Brook Farm on several oil paintings (see fig. Above). From the beginning, however, the main financial burden was borne by Ripley, who also contributed his valuable private library to the project.
Material basics
On October 11, 1841, George Ripley bought Charles and Maria Mayo Ellis' farm for sale in West Roxbury, which was used for milk production. The purchase was rounded off by the neighboring smaller Keith Farm, so that initially there were enough houses, stables and barns. Further residential buildings and a schoolhouse were added later. A cottage was built for Margaret Fuller , who was already admired by everyone at the time and not a member of the commune . The largest and last building project from 1844 onwards in the course of the intended reorganization in the spirit of Fourier was about a representative building complex ( Phalanstère ).
Life on the farm
Since the area was hilly and sandy and thus ruled out the profitable cultivation of vegetables or grain, the Brook farmers practiced cattle and dairy farming as well as various crafts on a smaller scale. Shoes, clothes, home textiles, and household items could be sold in nearby Boston. Education and upbringing turned out to be the most lucrative source of income. A kindergarten, a school and various opportunities for adult education were offered. Teachers included music educator and composer William Henry Fry and John Sullivan Dwight . The community's numerous visitors from near and far, including the British social reformer Robert Owen , generated income from the sale of farm products and a modest amount of donations. One of the commune's most ardent supporters was Horace Greeley , editor of the liberal New York Tribune . It was he who kept the public eye open. Social life on the farm was diverse, radiated and also included the neighbors. Music and dance events and masquerades were very popular.
trouble
The biggest problem from the start was insufficient funding. There was a high mortgage charge all along. Further disadvantages resulted from the lack of specialist knowledge in relation to agricultural and commercial management. Difficulties also arose from the dwindling enthusiasm. It was replaced by disillusionment with everyday events and dissatisfaction after differences were perceived. One group wore dungarees and worked from morning to evening, the other group taught by the hour in fine dress. Nathaniel Hawthorne , a founding member of the commune , also wore dungarees . After a year he left the farm disappointed. He said that he had never had to work so hard and that he had never started writing because of all the work. His conflicting experiences at Brook Farm were later reflected in his novel The Blithedale Romance . The conversion of some Communards to Catholicism also triggered unrest, which in one case meant turning away from the farm. At the same time, the lack of economic success over time led to restrictions in daily supply.
Decline
Georg Ripley's preparations to align the Brook Farm project more strictly according to Fourier's guidelines (1844) marked a turning point, because some Communards rejected the reform and left the community. The personnel crisis worsened in 1845 with the outbreak of smallpox, from which over twenty farmers fell ill. The biggest misfortune was a big fire on the farm in 1846, which reduced some (uninsured) buildings to rubble and ashes. That was the end of Brook Farm. After the sale and liquidation, more than $ 17,000 in debt remained, which George Ripley personally assumed. His library had been auctioned some time before to cover interim bankruptcies.
epilogue
An unanimously positive assessment by most of those involved was only found in the first few years. The mood on the farm was described as open, easy and cheerful. In retrospect, even critical Communards did not want to miss out on their experiences. The farm continued to exist among other owners for a few years - also without luck. In 1855, the Unitarian clergyman James Freeman Clarke , one of the transcendentalists from Ripley's area, bought the farm to start a similar project, but it did not materialize. When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Clarke, a patriotic citizen of the northern states and an opponent of slavery, made his land available to Union troops free of charge . The Camp Andrew established there was used to train the infantry. In addition to the historical memorial sites, which as a whole have had the status of a National Historic Landmark since July 1965 , some of them are now designated as a landscape protection area, while other parts serve as cemeteries. After the Brook Farm fiasco, Georg Ripley became an influential editor at the New York Tribune . His success as an editor of encyclopedic works enabled him to pay off the debts, which took him 13 years, and to lead an honorable life in old age.
See also
literature
- Rudolf Stumberger : Communist America. On the trail of utopian communities in the USA. Mandelbaum, Vienna 2015 ISBN 978-3-854-76647-6
- John Thomas Codman: Brook Farm: historic and personal memoirs . Publisher: Arena Pub. Co. Boston, Mass. 1894. (Reprint: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010, ISBN 978-1-153-59319-9 )
- Lindsay Swift: Brook Farm: Its Members, Scholars, and Visitors . Publishers: The MacMillan Company, New York 1900. (Reprint: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009, ISBN 978-0-217-69300-4 )
- Joel Myerson (Ed.): The Brook Farm Book: A Collection of First-Hand Accounts of the Community. Garland, New York 1987, ISBN 0-8240-8507-8 .
- Sterling F. Delano: Brook Farm: The Dark Side of Utopia. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2004, ISBN 0-674-01160-0 .
- Barry Hankins: The Second Great Awakening and the Transcendentalists. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut 2004, ISBN 0-313-31848-4 .
- Megan Marshall: The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism. Roaring Forties Press, Mariner Books, Boston 2005, ISBN 0-618-71169-4 .
- Robert Todd Felton: A Journey into the Transcendentalists' New England. Berkeley, California 2006, ISBN 0-9766706-4-X .
- Richard Francis: Transcendental Utopias: Individual and Community at Brook Farm, Fruitlands, and Walden. Cornell University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8014-7380-7 .
- Quint, Alonzo, H .; The Record of the Second Massachusetts Infantry 1861–1865 , Boston: James Walker 1867
- John Van der Zee Sears: My friends at Brook Farm . Publisher: D. FitzGerald, Inc., New York 1912
Web links
- For history and other literature , Unitarian Universalist History and Heritage Society. Retrieved March 13, 2011
- US National Historic Landmark . Retrieved March 13, 2011
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brockhaus Enzyklopädie, FA Brockhaus, Mannheim 1987, Vol. 4, p. 22
- ^ Brockhaus Encyclopedia, FA Brockhaus, Mannheim 1987, Vol. 18, p. 437
- ↑ Brockhaus Encyclopedia, FA Brockhaus, Mannheim 1987, Vol. 22, p. 327
- ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Massachusetts. National Park Service , accessed August 9, 2019.
- ↑ pp. 21-43.