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1840s utopian experiment in communal living in the United States
the Transcendentalist community in 19th century Massachusetts

Brook Farm, also called the Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education or the Brook Farm Association for Industry and Education, was a utopian experiment in communal living in the United States in the 1840s. It was founded by former Unitarian minister George Ripley and his wife Sophia Ripley at the Ellis Farm in West Roxbury, Massachusetts (nine miles outside of downtown Boston), in 1841 and was inspired in part by the ideals of transcendentalism, a religious and cultural philosophy based in New England. Founded as a joint stock company, it promised its participants a portion of the farm's profits in exchange for an equal share of the work. Brook Farmers believed that by sharing the workload, they would have ample time for leisure and intellectual pursuits. Life on Brook Farm was based on balancing labor and leisure while working together for the greater community's benefit. Each member could choose whatever work they found most appealing and all were paid equally, including women. Revenue came from farming and from selling handmade products like clothing, as well as fees paid by the farm's many visitors. The main source of income was the school, which was overseen by Mrs. Ripley. A preschool, primary school, and a college preparatory school attracted children internationally and each child was charged for his or her education. Adult education was also offered. The community was never financially stable and had difficulty profiting from its agricultural pursuits. By 1844, the Brook Farmers adopted a societal model based on the socialist concepts of Charles Fourier and began publishing The Harbinger as an unofficial journal promoting Fourierism. Following his vision, the community began building an ambitious structure called the Phalanstery. When the uninsured building burned down, the community was financially devastated and never recovered. It was fully closed by 1847. Despite the commune's failure, many Brook Farmers looked back on their experience favorably. The commune's critics included Charles Lane, founder of another utopian community, Fruitlands. Nathaniel Hawthorne was a founding member of Brook Farm, though not a strong adherent of the community's ideals. He later fictionalized his experience in his novel The Blithedale Romance (1852). After Brook Farm closed, the property was operated for most of the next 130 years by a Lutheran organization, first as an orphanage, and then a treatment center and school. Fire destroyed the Transcendentalists' buildings over the years. In 1988, the State of Massachusetts acquired of the farm, which is now operated by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation as a historic site. Brook Farm was one of Massachusetts's first sites to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places and be designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1977, the Boston Landmarks Commission designated Brook Farm a Boston Landmark, the city's highest recognition for historic sites.

In October 1840, George Ripley announced to the Transcendental Club that he was planning to form a Utopian community. Brook Farm, as it would be called, was based on the ideals of Transcendentalism; its founders believed that by pooling labor they could sustain the community and still have time for literary and scientific pursuits. At Brook Farm, as in other communities, physical labor was perceived as a condition of mental well being and health. Brook Farm was one of at least 80 communal experiments active in the United States in the 1840s, though it was the first to be secular. Ripley believed his experiment would be a model for the rest of society. He predicted: "If wisely executed, it will be a light over this country and this age. If not the sunrise, it will be the morning star."

Ripley and his wife Sophia formed a joint stock company in 1841 along with 10 other investors. He sold shares of the company for $500 with a promise of 5% of the profits to each investor. They began raising money, including holding a meeting at Peabody's bookshop to raise $10,000 for the farm's purchase. The site was eventually purchased on October 11, 1841, for $10,500, though participants began moving in as early as April. The farm about eight miles (13 km) from Boston was described in a pamphlet as a "place of great natural beauty, combining a convenient nearness to the city with a degree of retirement and freedom from unfavorable influences unusual even in the country". Though they began with 10 investors, eventually 32 people became Brook Farmers. Writer and editor Margaret Fuller was invited to Brook Farm and, though she never officially joined the community, was a frequent visitor, often spending New Year's Eve there. Ripley received many applications to join the community, especially from people who had little money or were in poor health, but full fledged membership was granted only to those who could afford a $500 share of the joint stock company. One of Brook Farm's founders was author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne did not particularly agree with the experiment's ideals, hoping only that it would help him raise enough money to begin his life with his wife to be, Sophia Peabody. Ripley was aware of Hawthorne's motivations, and tried to convince him to get involved more fully by appointing him as one of four trustees, specifically overseeing "Direction of Finance". He wrote of his displeasure with the community: "even my Custom House experience was not such a thraldom and weariness; my mind and heart were freer Thank God, my soul is not utterly buried under a dung heap."

Brook Farm began to decline rapidly after its restructuring. In October 1844, Orestes Brownson visited the site and sensed that "the atmosphere of the place is horrible". To save money, "retrenchments", or sacrifices, were called for, particularly at the dinner table. Meat, coffee, tea, and butter were no longer offered, though it was agreed that a separate table with meat be allowed in December 1844. Many Brook Farmers applied for exceptions to these rules and soon it was agreed that "members of the Association who sit at the meat table shall be charged extra for their board". Life on Brook Farm was further worsened by an outbreak of smallpox in November 1845; though no one died, 26 Brook Farmers were infected. Construction on the Phalanstery progressed well firefighters from Boston arrived too late. The fire was likely caused by a defective chimney. One participant noted, "Ere long the flames were chasing one another in a mad riot over the structure; running across long corridors and up and down the supporting columns of wood, until the huge edifice was a mass of firework". The financial blow from the loss of the uninsured building was $7,000 and it marked the beginning of the end of Brook Farm. Many others began to leave as well, though the farm's dissolution was slow. As one Brook Farmer said, the community's slow decline was like apple petals drifting slowly to the ground, making it seem "dreamy and unreal". By the end, Brook Farm had a total debt of $17,445. Ripley told a friend, "I can now understand how a man would feel if he could attend his own funeral".

A man named John Plummer purchased the land that was Brook Farm in 1849 before selling it six years later to James Freeman Clarke, who intended to establish another community there. Instead, Clarke offered it to President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War and the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment used it for training as Camp Andrew. Clarke sold the property in 1868 to two brothers, who used it as a summer boarding house. In 1870, Gottlieb F. Burckhardt purchased the property, after which he formed the Association of the Evangelical Lutheran Church for Works of Mercy to operate an orphanage in The Hive, as the property's main house. The orphanage opened in 1872 and operated until 1943. In 1948 the Lutherans converted it into a treatment center and school, which closed in 1977. Parts of the farm were separated in 1873 for use as a cemetery, a use that continues today as a non denominational cemetery known as the Gardens of Gethsemene (as part of St. Joseph's Cemetery and the Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries). During the period of Lutheran ownership the only now extant building, a c. 1890 print shop, was built on the land; the buildings associated with the Transcendentalists, most recently the Margaret Fuller Cottage, had burned down by the 1980s. The farm was declared a U. S. National Historic Landmark in 1965, a Boston Landmark in 1977, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was surrounded by low hills and its meadows and sunny slopes were diversified by orchard, quiet groves and denser pine woods. But the land turned out to be difficult to farm. The land on the Keith lot that was purchased along with the Ellis farm included a functional farmhouse, which Brook Farmers called "The Hive". As the community grew, it became necessary to add more buildings for lodgings and various activities. The first building constructed was "The Nest", where school lessons took place and where guests of the farm would stay. Mr. and Mrs. Ripley's house, later called the Eyrie, was built during the second year. The next building to be built was the Margaret Fuller Cottage; though named after Fuller, she never spent a night there. A Brook Farm participant named Ichabod Morton built the Pilgrim House, named in honor of his home town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. The 2 1/2 story building was the third structure built that year, at a cost of nearly $5,000. Morton stayed there only two weeks before moving out, after which the building was used for general lodging and also held laundry facilities. The philosophy of labor, according to Ripley, was "to insure a more natural union between intellectual and manual labor than now exists; to combine the thinker and the worker, as far as possible, in the same individual." The organization of work in Brook Farm changed over time because of both financial troubles and changes in ideology. Members of Brook Farm initially participated in an "attractive industry" system where each could pick his or her work assignments based on their preferences. This method had no specific authority to ensure that essential tasks were done. After initial leniency, some sensed that not all members were doing their fair share of the labor, so in 1841 the community adopted standards for work: ten hours of work were required per day during the summer and eight hours during winter. Each group had a chief who kept a record of the work done. While this system created a new work hierarchy, the members still had the flexibility to move between groups easily. In exchange for their work, participants were granted several "guarantees", including "medical attendance, nursing, education in all departments, amusements". There were some occasional conflicts between different workers, partly because those who were educators believed themselves more aristocratic; overall, however, as historian Charles Crowe wrote, "indeed all aspects of communal life operated with surprisingly little friction" in general. The list of visitors included theologian Henry James, Sr., sculptor William Wetmore Story, artist John Sartain, and British social reformer Robert Owen. Despite multiple sources of income, the community was in constant debt almost immediately after it began. The property was mortgaged four times between 1841 and 1845. Within the school there was an infant school for children under six, a primary school for children under ten, and a preparatory school that prepared children for college in six years. The teachers included three graduates of Harvard Divinity School (George Ripley, George Partridge Bradford, and John Sullivan Dwight) and several women (Ripley's wife Sophia, his sister Marianne, and his cousin Hannah, Georgianna Bruce, and Abby Morton). Ripley was in charge of teaching English and was known to be relaxed in his class. Dana taught languages, speaking ten himself. Dwight taught music and Latin.

The people of Brook Farm spent most of their time either studying or working the farm, but they always set aside time for play. In their free time, they enjoyed music, dancing, card games, drama, costume parties, sledding, and skating. Every week, the community would gather at The Hive for a dance by the young ladies of the community. They wore wreaths of wild daisies on their heads, and each week a special wreath, bought from a florist, was given to the best dressed girl. At the end of every day, many performed a "symbol of Universal Unity", in which they stood in a circle and joined hands and vowed for "truth to the cause of God and Humanity". Spirits remained high throughout the experiment, regardless of the community's financial standing. a requirement to earn leisure time. Leisure time was important to Brook Farm's philosophy. As Elizabeth Palmer Peabody wrote for The Dial in January 1842, "none will be engaged merely in bodily labor This community aims to be rich, not in the metallic representative of wealth, but in leisure to live in all the faculties of the soul".

At Brook Farm, women could go beyond their typical sphere of tasks and their labor was highly valued. They did have tasks typical of other women at the time, such as simple food preparation, and shared housekeeping. But during harvest time, women were allowed to work in the fields and men even helped out with laundry during the cold weather. Because no single religion could impose its beliefs on the community, women were safe from the typical patriarchy associated with religion at the time. was very educated and taught history and foreign languages at the farm.

Many people in the community wrote of how much they enjoyed their experience and the lighthearted atmosphere. But the community's idealism was sometimes not lived up to. Because the community was officially secular, a variety of religions were represented, though not always amicably. When Isaac Hecker and, later, Sophia Ripley converted to Catholicism, a Protestant Brook Farmer complained, "We are beginning to see wooden crosses around and pictures of saints and I suspect that rosaries are rattling under aprons." Nathaniel Hawthorne, eventually elected treasurer of the community, did not enjoy his experience. Initially, he praised the work he was doing, boasting of "what a great, broad shouldered, elephantine personage I shall become by and by!" Later, he wrote to his wife to be Sophia Peabody, "labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it without becoming proportionately brutified". After dissociating with the community, Hawthorne demanded the return of his initial investment, though he never held any ill will toward Ripley, to whom he wrote he would "heartily rejoice at your success—of which I can see no reasonable doubt". Edgar Allan Poe expressed his opinions on the community in an article titled "Brook Farm" in the December 13, 1845, issue of the Broadway Journal. He wrote that he had "sincere respect" for the group and that its journal, The Harbinger, was "conducted by an assemblage of well read persons who mean no harm—and who, perhaps, can do no less". Despite many critics, none suggested George Ripley be replaced as Brook Farm's leader. Like other communities, Brook Farm was criticized for its potential to break up the nuclear family because of its focus on working as a larger community. After its conversion to Fourierism, the Transcendentalists showed less support for it. Henry David Thoreau questioned the community members' idealism and wrote in his journal, "As for these communities, I think I had rather keep bachelor's hall in hell than go to board in heaven".

Though a founding member, Hawthorne was unhappy during his tenure as a Brook Farmer, partly because he was unable to write while living there. "I have no quiet at all", he complained, and his hands were covered "with a new crop of blisters—the effect of raking hay". He acknowledged the resemblance in his introduction, saying "in the 'Blithedale' of this volume, many readers will probably suspect a faint and not very faithful shadowing of Brook Farm, in West Roxbury, which (now a little more than ten years ago) was occupied and cultivated by a company of socialists." The chapter called "The Masqueraders", for example, was based on a picnic held one September to celebrate the harvest season. George Ripley, who reviewed the book for the New York Tribune, said that former Brook Farmers would only notice the resemblance in the humorous parts of the story.