1 April
‘Sam Larned, it is said, steadily refused to drink milk on the ground that his relations with the cow did not justify him in drawing on her reserves
... When it was pointed out to him that he ought on the same principle to abandon shoes, he is said to have made a serious attempt to discover some more moral type of footwear.’
Brook Farm, The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees by Mary Caroline Crawford
Brook Farm in West Roxbury, Massachusetts was founded on this day in 1841 by social reformer and former Unitarian minister George Ripley. One of the world’s most famous experiments in communal living, it was inspired by French utopian socialist and philosopher Charles Fourier, the man (!) credited with coining the term ‘feminism’.
Residents and visitors included Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, W E Channing and Margaret Fuller, and the philosophy of Brook Farm was to also influence writers such as Henry David Thoreau. Unfortunately the experiment failed in 1847 due to lack of funds. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!
Ironically, given that the community felt that organised religion was one of the main reasons for women’s oppression, Ripley’s wife Sophia converted to Catholicism in 1846.
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365 days is co-authored by Steve Platt and Fiona Osler
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