Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands

Louisa May Alcott's father, Bronson Alcott, was a notable figure of the transcendentalist movement of the 1830s and 1840s. A friend of transcendentalist figurehead Ralph Waldo Emerson and writer of several works on the movement, Alcott purchased a Harvard, Massachusetts farm in 1843 with the intention of forming a Utopian community, Fruitlands. Members of the community lived independently, removing themselves from the economy as much as possible, attempting to till their farmland without the use of animal labor, and adhering to strict vegetarian diets. The utopian life proved more difficult than imagined for the occupants of Fruitlands, however, and the community ultimately proved unsuccessful. In this 1915 volume, Clara Endicott Sears, a New England-based author and pioneer of the historic preservation movement, explores the history of the short-lived community and the Alcott family's time there. Also included is "Transcendental Wild Oats," an essay written by Louisa May Alcott in the early 1840s about her family's (largely unhappy) Fruitlands experience.