Dana. Elizabeth P. Peabody, Margaret Fuller, and others.
The association was organized in 1841, the farm purchased.
and by the following spring its plan was fairly in working order.
It was then known simply as the West Roxbury Community, Brook Farm being the name of the place owned by the society.
A quarterly journal called the Dial was carried on by the members of the society.
In December, 1843.
a convention of reformers of various grades was held in Boston.
to discuss the ideas of Fourier, which had just become known in this country.
The result was the conversion of all the Brook Farmers to Fourierism, and the transformation of their simple community into a Fourierist phalanx, under the name of the Brook Farm Association.
The leaders of this movement were George Ripley.
Minot Pratt, and Charles A. Dana.
The land owned by the association at this time aggregated 208 acres, situated at West Roxbury, 8 miles from Boston, and their property, real and personal.
was estimated
Fourier, Charles 1772-1837
Socialist; born in Bensancon, France, April 7, 1772; devised a social system known as Fourierism.
He died in Paris, Oct. 10, 1837.
See Brook farm Association.
Godwin, Parke 1816-
Author; born in Paterson, N. J., Feb. 25, 1816; graduated at Princeton in 1834; one of the editors of the New York Evening post from 1836 to 1886.
Among his works are Pacific and constructive Democracy; A popular view of Fourier; Dictionary of biography; Political essays, etc.
Noyes, John Humphrey 1811-1886
Clergyman; born in Brattleboro, Vt., Sept. 6, 1811; graduated at Dartmouth College in 1830; licensed to preach in 1833, and in the following year declared he had experienced a second conversion.
Hefounded a new sect called Perfectionists in Putnam county, Vt. After twelve years he imbibed some of the teachings of Fourier and persuaded his disciples to live in communities.
In 1848 he went with his followers to Oneida, N. Y., where he established the Oneida Community.
He taught that God had a dual body— male and female.
The only successful communities, those founded at Oneida, N. Y., and Wallingford, Conn., adopted what was named complex marriage, and lived in a unity house.
Subsequently they were compelled to abandon complex marriage and their number soon diminished.
Noyes published The second coming of Christ; History of American socialism, etc. He died in Niagara Falls, Canada, April 13, 188
Oct. 3, 1802; was an able writer and a most industrious man of letters, having edited, translated, and written numerous works on a great variety of subjects, and gained a wide reputation as a scholar, editor, and journalist.
He graduated at Harvard University in 1823, and Cambridge Divinity School in 1826; became pastor of the Thirteenth Congregational (Unitarian) Church in Boston;
George Ripley. and was prominent in the Brook farm Association (q. v.) In 1840-41 he was associate editor with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller of the Dial, the organ of the New England Transcendentalists; and with Charles A. Dana, Parke Godwin, and J. S. Dwight, of the Harbinger, an advocate of socialism as propounded by Fourier.
From 1849 until his death Mr. Ripley was the literary editor of the New York Tribune.
In conjunction with Charles A. Dana, Dr. Ripley edited Appleton's New American Cyclopaedia (16 volumes, 1857-63), and a new edition (1873-76). He died in New York City, July 4, 1880.
the United States at the present day, and the ideal commonwealths of Plato, More, and Harington, are to be classed.
St. Simon (1760-1825), Owen (1771-1858), and Fourier (1768-1830) were the leading modern Utopians.
Scientific socialism is an economic theory which affirms that the materials from which labor produces wealth—i. e.,87
Francois Noef Baboeuf, leader of the French communistic insurrection of 1796, at Paris, is guillotinedMay 24, 1797
Harmonists settle in Pennsylvania1804
Charles Fourier, French (1772-1837), publishes his work, The theory of the four movements and the General destinies1808
Zoarites settle in Ohio1817
Robert Owen advocates a of the New harmony community of equality, signedJan. 12, 1826
Unsuccessful trial of Fourierism made on an estate near Versailles; only one during the lifetime of Fourier1832
Louis Blanc, French (1813-82), publishes his Organization of labor in the Revue du Progres1840
Pierre Joseph Proudhon publishes his work, What is property?
Territory, by treaty with the Ojibways at Fort Snelling, obtains cession to the United States of the pine forests of the valley of the St. Croix and its tributaries......July 29, 1837
Assembly meets at Burlington, Des Moines county......Nov. 6, 1837
Legislature assembles at Madison......Nov. 26, 1838
Portage canal, connecting Wisconsin and Fox rivers, begun by the United States......1838
Mitchell's bank at Milwaukee established......1839
The Wisconsin phalanx, a community on Fourier's system, established at Ceresco, now Ripon......May, 1844
Mormon colony, an offshoot from Nauvoo, led by James Jesse Strang, is founded on White River at Voree......1845
Enabling act for the State of Wisconsin passed by Congress......Aug. 6, 1846
State constitution prohibiting banks and banking, framed by a convention at Madison, Oct. 5–Dec. 16, 1846, is rejected by the people......April, 1847
Troops from Michigan and Wisconsin leave Detroit by boat for Vera Cruz, enlisted in t
ch.
Hence my fear for your system — that it is adapted only to angelic natures, and that the entrance of one serpent would be as fatal as in Eden of old. I think Fourier's system avoids this danger, by having a rampart of exact justice behind that of philanthropy.
With this no one will be tempted to say why shall I labor, when ansh in the treasury.
After three years experience, and much discussion, it was decided to convert the association into a Phalanx, in accordance with the system of Fourier, whose writings were at that time attracting a good deal of attention in both Europe and America.
But this was a change in name rather than a change in characterr a part of this period also kept a book of quotations which abounds in extracts from Coleridge, Longfellow, Wordsworth, Carlyle, Motherwell, Cousin, Considerant, Fourier, Schiller, Goethe, Spinoza, Heine, Herman, Kepler, Bruno, Novalis, Bohme, Swedenborg, Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Thucydides, Euripides, and Sallust.
It is still mor
has certainly exhibited many noble instances of devotion to ideas the most lofty and purposes the most generous.
In the public mind the movement has been connected with what is called Fourierism, but the truth is that while the inculcations of Fourier have had more or less influence on the opinions of those engaged in the various practical experiments, still we know of no individual among them who has adopted all of the doctrines, true or fantastic, high or low, which compose his theory, nor of any body of individuals who have attempted to put them, or any part of them, in practise to any considerable extent.
As yet there has never been an experiment of Fourier's social system either in this country or elsewhere.
The socialist movement was in a certain degree original with the parties in this country .... Most [of the associations] were organized on the principle of joint-stock and dividing profits, according to the time spent in labor, but some adopted the principle of communism
John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana, Appendix: Brook Farm — an address delivered at the University of Michigan on Thursday, January21, 1895: (search)
t acquainted with a man who was undoubtedly one of the greatest theorists upon the subject of social institutions and social progress that has ever appeared — Charles Fourier.
His system is complicated, but very remarkable and interesting, and well worth studying merely as a subject of intellectual scrutiny.
Brisbane published see money in a combined household, even when none of them might have enough to live on separately; yet he did not profess to understand the philosophical theory of Fourier.
His advocacy had great weight, and for a long period the newspaper which Greeley conducted, the New York Tribune, set apart one or two columns every day, for whf philosophers in Boston, after long study and deliberation, now determined to try the experiment of an association, though without any of the special features of Fourier's system.
The same determination was reached in other places.
There was a party in Northampton, Massachusetts, which organized a small association.
There was o
