6
Robert W. Preucel
Steven R. Pendery
Envisioning Utopia:
Transcendentalist and
Fourierist Landscapes
at Brook Farm, West Roxbury,
Massachusetts
ABSTRACT
Brook Farm, Massachusetts, is perhaps the most famous of
the 19th-century utopian communities in America. When it
was founded in 1841, its guiding vision was provided by
the distinctive New England philosophy known as Transcendentalism. Yet, only three years later, in 1844, it publicly
embraced Fourierism and became known as the Brook Farm
Phalanx. Archaeological work is providing new information
on how these ideologies were inscribed in the landscape,
showing that the architectural features built during the Transcendentalist period helped create certain habits of thought
and action that actively resisted the complete transition from
Transcendentalism to Fourierism.
Introduction
Social reform was one of the dominant
themes in the United States in the first half
of the 19th century (Guarneri 1991). During
this period, social issues such as abolitionism,
women’s rights, temperance, Grahamism, labor
associations, education, and prison and asylum
reform were being debated in almost every
major city. While these reform movements did
much to raise the visibility of specific causes,
none of them developed a coherent vision of a
new society. This task was left to the numerous
utopian communities founded by the Shakers,
Mormons, Oneida Perfectionists, and Harmonists,
among others, that were springing up across the
country. These communities were committed to
changing society by implementing radical ideas
about economic and social organization.
One of the most famous of these utopian
communities was Brook Farm, founded by
George and Sophia Ripley. Indeed, it has
sometimes been called a “literary utopia” due
Historical Archaeology, 2006, 40(1):6–19.
Permission to reprint required.
to the scholarly and literary inclinations of its
members. The most distinguished Brook Farm
author is Nathaniel Hawthorne, the first treasurer
of the Brook Farm Association. Hawthorne’s
(1852) popular novel The Blithedale Romance
memorialized daily life in the community during
its Transcendental incarnation. George Ripley,
the founder of the community, edited a popular
series, entitled Specimens of Foreign Standard
Literature, and translated leading German and
French philosophers into English. In addition,
Ripley was a regular contributor to The Dial,
the Transcendentalist organ edited by Margaret
Fuller. Upon its demise, Ripley and fellow
Brook Farmers Charles Dana and John Dwight
wrote for the Harbinger, a pro-Fourierist journal
devoted to social reform and published for three
years at Brook Farm.
Largely because of this literary character, the
amount of historical documentation and academic scholarship for Brook Farm is unusually
rich. Letters and notes of individual members
are preserved (Dwight 1928; Hawthorne 1932;
Haraszti 1937), and reminiscences by former
members and students have been published
(Codman 1894; Sumner 1894; Russell 1900;
Sears 1912). In addition, Brook Farm has been
the subject of more than 200 scholarly articles,
books, and dissertations (Myerson 1978), and it
figures prominently in studies of New England
literary culture (Delano 1983; Buell 1986).
Given this scholarship, one might reasonably
ask what can historical archaeology contribute
to knowledge of this well-known community?
There are two standard answers to this question. The first is that archaeology can be combined with historical documents to create more
broadly based interpretations of past social
contexts. This is particularly important given
that written documents can provide only partial
accounts reflecting the parochial interests of specific authors. The second is that archaeology
can help recover information on individuals and
social groups that are not usually chronicled in
the documentary record. James Deetz’s (1977)
words, “in small things forgotten,” draw attention to the textured fabric of daily life and
especially to the material culture of the members of certain disadvantaged ethnic groups or
ROBERT W. PREUCEL AND STEVEN R. PENDERY—Envisioning Utopia
socioeconomic classes. Both of these answers
are valid responses and, indeed, ones to which
the authors subscribe. A third answer is suggested, however, that historical archaeology can
offer a way of investigating how people and
ideas recursively constitute one another through
material culture.
The focus here is on the materiality of the
cultural landscape at Brook Farm. This landscape includes both the ideal visions of the
organization of space and the physical expressions of those visions, what Amos Rapoport
(1990) calls the “built environment.” The relations between the ideal and the real are particularly visible in utopian societies where new
experiments in living are implemented (Tarlow
2002). In the case of Brook Farm, the focus
is on understanding the social practices by
which Transcendentalism and Fourierism were
successively inscribed in the architecture and
settlement pattern of the community. This
understanding provides new insights into the
daily lives of the members of the community
and offers a partial answer to the perennial
question posed by historians as to why the
community adopted Fourierism.
Brook Farm Archaeology
The Brook Farm Historic Site is located in
West Roxbury, Massachusetts, approximately 8
miles from downtown Boston (Figure 1). It is
a multicomponent site encompassing 179 acres
that had a series of notable historical period
FIGURE 1. Location map of Brook Farm in West Roxbury,
Massachusetts. (Drawing by Steven Pendery, 1992.)
7
occupations. The best known of these is, of
course, the Utopian period (1841–1847), the
temporal focus of this article. Other significant occupations include its use as the Roxbury
City Almshouse (1848–1855) to provide the
indigent with housing and farm work, as Camp
Andrew (1861) for the training of the 2nd
Massachusetts Regiment, as the Martin Luther
Orphans Home (1871–1943) to provide a home
and religious education for orphans from the
local Lutheran community, and as Brook Farm
Home (1944–1948) for the care and treatment
of emotionally disturbed youth. In 1988, the
City of Boston purchased the property from the
Lutheran Services Association, and today it is
managed by the Metropolitan District Commission in the public interest. The site is listed in
the National Register of Historic Places and is
designated a Boston Landmark.
Steven Pendery conducted the first archaeological research at Brook Farm in April 1990 as
part of the Boston City Archaeology Program.
The goals of his project were to locate and
identify the specific archaeological resources of
the project area (Pendery 1991). The methods
involved testing likely site areas by means of
test pits (50 x 50 cm) located at 5- and 10-m
intervals along a series of transects. One prehistoric site and 11 historic period sites were
identified and recorded, including the knoll prehistoric site, the Hive, the Hive outbuildings, the
barn, the Eyrie, the Cottage, the Pilgrim House,
the knoll historic site, the greenhouse, the workshop, and the phalanstery (Figure 2). In his
report to the Massachusetts District Commission,
Pendery (1991) concluded that the majority of
these sites appeared to possess high levels of
archaeological integrity and that the Utopian
period sites should be studied more intensively
to generalize about the development of Brook
Farm between 1841 and 1847.
In summer 1990, the authors established the
Brook Farm Hive Archaeology Project to begin
intensive excavations in the backyard area of
the Martin Luther Orphans Home. Prior to the
research reported on there, considerable confusion existed regarding the historical relationships
between the Hive, the Roxbury City Almshouse,
and the Martin Luther Orphans Home. Lindsay Swift (1900:39), for example, wrote that the
Hive burned down only a year after use as the
Roxbury City Almshouse (presumably in 1850).
8
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 40(1)
FIGURE 2. Brook Farm utopian-period building locations. (Drawing by Steven Pendery.)
He also stated that the Martin Luther Orphans
Home was built on part of the foundations
of the Hive (Swift 1900:39). Other sources,
however, have identified the orphanage building
itself as the original Hive (Sears 1912; Haraszti
1937). These contradictions served as the starting point for archaeological fieldwork.
In the fall 1990 field season, a series of test
pits (1 x 1 m) were excavated in the backyard
area of the orphanage (Figure 3). Although
none of the test pits in the targeted area yielded
architectural remains, two units on the southern
periphery produced unambiguous evidence for a
house foundation. One contained deep layers of
sand fill above a cobblestone floor, and another
revealed a corner formed by the intersection of
a brick and stone wall containing a loosely compacted brick and stone rubble fill also overlying a
cobblestone floor. This feature proved to be the
location of the colonial farmhouse christened “the
Hive” by the Utopian community. During the
1991 summer field season, the foundations of the
Hive were further exposed, and it was determined
that its dimensions closely corresponded with its
description in the City of Roxbury inventory
(Joint Special Committee 1849).
According to maps, deeds, and probate records,
the original colonial period farmhouse was probably built sometime before 1700 by Edward Ward
(Pendery 1991). It then passed down through
the Richards, Matthews, Mayo, and Ellis families,
with the latter selling it to George Ripley for use
by his utopian community. Sometime during this
succession, it seems to have been modified from
a central chimney house to a central hall and
parlor type with two chimneys and a kitchen ell.
After taking possession of the house, the Brook
Farm Association made a series of structural
modifications to accommodate new members.
One of these involved the construction of a
wing addition adjacent to the kitchen ell. This
addition housed a dining room, kitchen, laundry
room, and nursery, with a shed and carriage
rooms underneath. A trenching program during
ROBERT W. PREUCEL AND STEVEN R. PENDERY—Envisioning Utopia
FIGURE 3. Map showing the relationships between the
Martin Luther Orphans Home and the Hive. (Drawing by
Steven Pendery, 1992.)
the 1992 field season provided archaeological evidence for a wing addition located on the west
side of the house extending a small kitchen ell
(Pendery and Preucel 1992a).
Transcendentalism, the New Dawn of
Human Piety
Transcendentalism is a notoriously difficult philosophy to define. In part, this difficulty turns on
the fact that it never comprised a unified belief
system but, rather, was made up of a group of
disparate ideas that were differentially interpreted
by its advocates. In fact, there is no definitive
list of Transcendentalists, although Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Margaret Fuller, William Henry Channing, George Ripley, Sophia Ripley, Elizabeth
Peabody, Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau,
and Theodore Parker must surely be counted as
among its leaders. Another difficulty is that
many of the tenets espoused by the Transcendentalists are ones that we today take for granted,
so completely has the legacy of this once-radical
movement been absorbed into popular American
9
culture. To understand Transcendentalism as a
social movement, it is thus necessary to ground
it within its historical context.
The shift from mercantile to industrial capitalism in the first half of the 19th century promised
unrestricted growth and prosperity in the northeastern United States. Commercial and industrial
expansion created new opportunities for speculation and profit. In the urban centers, however,
ownership of property was dominated by elites.
By 1840, the richest 1% of city dwellers owned
40% of all tangible property, with an even greater
ownership of intangible property such as stocks
and bonds (Henretta et al. 1987:331). One
byproduct of industrial capitalism was the rise
of wage labor. This fundamentally new social
relationship severed the ties between employer
and employee and household and workplace.
Factory workers, for example, were no longer
responsible for the entire production sequence,
this knowledge instead being restricted to a few
individuals. Russell Handsman and Mark Leone
(1989) have argued that it is through this process of labor segmentation that one can find the
source of the ideology of individualism.
In Boston, this ideology was shaped by
Unitarianism, the dominant religion of New
England. The Unitarian church, itself a reaction to Orthodox revivalism, was founded upon
the three pillars of reason, intellectual freedom,
and moral duty (Rose 1981:11). Individualism
was valued insofar as far as it was grounded
in this trinity. With the rise of social stratification engendered by the profits from industrialization, the appeal of Unitarianism began
to erode. Increasing numbers of individuals
strayed from the church and began to criticize it openly. Even among the elite, debate
occurred over whether religion was a way of
life or just something to do on Sundays (Rose
1981:21). Members of the working class began
to see their rights and interests as distinct from
Christianity, which was seen as a tool of class
oppression (Rose 1981:26). This challenge to
Unitarianism was met by the development of an
evangelical movement within the church, which
targeted specific social ills. In 1834, the nine
Unitarian churches of Boston united to sponsor
missionary outreach to the poor.
The philosophers of this evangelical Unitarian
movement were known as the Transcendentalists
(Rose 1981:38). They broke with Unitarianism
10
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 40(1)
on a number of important doctrinal issues.
They denied the validity of miraculous proofs
and questioned the blind reliance upon tradition.
Instead, they argued that religious institutions are
human constructs and that all individuals possess
the possibility of intuitive perception of spiritual
truths by virtue of their common endowment of
a soul. This position was extended to Biblical
exegesis. Borrowing interpretive methods from
the German idealists, Transcendentalists argued
that the Bible was a historical document written
by human authors in a less than enlightened
age. These radical moves alienated the Unitarian
church by threatening their liturgical teachings
and challenging the existence of the priesthood.
Ripley’s own unique contribution to
this movement was to experiment with
Transcendentalism as a theory for social
reform. In 1841, he established the Brook Farm
Association for Agriculture and Education to
forge what he considered to be a more natural
union between intellectual and manual labor by
doing away with menial services. He wanted to
provide the benefits of education and profits of
labor to all. Ripley’s form of Transcendentalism
is distinctly different from Emerson’s view, and
it is significant that Emerson declined to become
a member of the new community (Guarneri 1991:
45). This reluctance seems to have been based
upon a disagreement regarding the relationship
of the individual and society. In elevating the
individual, Emerson argued that self-culture and
self-education were prior to effective communal
action. This philosophy was perhaps given its
most idiosyncratic expression by Thoreau’s
retreat to Walden Pond (Richardson 1986:56).
In contrast, Ripley and the Brook Farmers felt
that the ideal society could not be achieved
by self-culture alone but, rather, required the
expression of individuality within a communal
setting through immersion in the lives of others.
The only other Transcendental experiment in
communal living, Bronson Alcott’s Fruitlands,
combined elements from both Ripley’s and
Emerson’s philosophies with Alcott’s own
puritanical devotion to self-sacrifice.
Natural Landscape and Associative
Architecture
It is no exaggeration to say that Transcendentalism imbued the very soil of Brook Farm.
The selection of agriculture as the primary
industry of the community was simultaneously
a moral and an economic statement (Rose 1981:
138). Horticulture and animal husbandry were
regarded as noble pursuits because of their close
association with nature. Gardens were a particular source of delight to the community, and
the garden near the Hive was playfully termed
“Her Majesty’s Garden.” All members were to
participate equally in work at tasks to be rotated
each week (although in fact men were more
commonly occupied in farm work and women
in household duties and child care). All were
paid the same fixed wage, and the working
year was set at 300 days. During this period,
records of individual work hours were apparently not kept.
The community settlement pattern gradually evolved into a dispersed series of isolated
residences linked together by the Hive, where
common meals were taken. In 1843, Ripley
relinquished his quarters at the Hive and built
a separate residence for himself and his wife
called the Eyrie. He chose the highest point
of the property overlooking the farm, a practice
strikingly reminiscent of a New England mill
owner. This act set a precedent for individual
members to build their own homes at different
locations on the property. In the same month,
new members erected the Cottage and the Pilgrim House along the ridge west of the Eyrie.
This settlement pattern is captured in an oil
painting by Josiah Wolcott, dated 1843 (Figure
4) (Osgood 1998). Two additional buildings
were constructed by the community to accommodate the new sash-and-blind, shoemaking,
Britannia ware, and flower industries (Figure
5). These were the workshop located near the
Hive and the greenhouse situated behind the
Cottage, both of which served double duty as
residences.
Transcendentalist architecture is characterized
by a high degree of eclecticism. The major
residential buildings constructed at Brook Farm
constitute a veritable hodgepodge of architectural
styles (Pendery and Preucel 1992b). The Hive
was enlarged by a large ungainly wing extending
from the kitchen ell, which dwarfed the original
farmhouse. The Eyrie was built in an Italianate
villa style, complete with low French windows,
a decorative cornice, and terracing. The Cottage
was a rural gothic structure with four gables
ROBERT W. PREUCEL AND STEVEN R. PENDERY—Envisioning Utopia
11
FIGURE 4. Oil painting of Brook Farm, dated 1843 by Josiah Wolcott. (Courtesy of Mrs. Robert Watson.)
and a central stairway. The Pilgrim House
was a double house of the classical revival type.
The overall effect of this mixture of styles
must have been one of architectural confusion
(Guarneri 1991:185).
The Brook Farmers believed that individual
growth and development could be best realized
in communal association; therefore, their residential and domestic arrangements were structured
to facilitate different kinds of social interactions.
They favored dispersed residences but communal
dining. Married couples and family units tended
to be distributed in each of the buildings rather
than being concentrated in any one. The only
communal dormitory was the attic above the
Hive, called Attica, which was reserved for bachelors. All of the community’s houses, except for
the Hive, lacked kitchen facilities. This required
members to gather in regular fashion to take their
meals. Archaeological testing has confirmed the
absence of dinnerware at all of the residences
but the Hive.
Each of the houses developed its own special
character and personality due to its architectural
style, its inhabitants, and its work associations.
For example, the Eyrie was known as the place
of culture and was home to George Ripley’s
library and the setting for piano lessons given
by John Dwight. The Cottage was built by
Mrs. A. G. Alvord and came to be regarded
as a place of education and learning. Amelia
Russell (1900:63) writes, “(a)s it was decidedly
the prettiest house on the place, it was thought
the youthful mind would be impressed by it and
lessons become easier.” The Pilgrim House,
built by Ichabod Morton, was the location of
the laundry and tailoring department and home
to the editorial office of the Harbinger. It had
a reputation for conviviality, and its large parlor
was frequently used as a ballroom.
12
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 40(1)
Fourierism, the Science of Social
Perfection
Fourierism is the name of a short-lived social
movement born in France and introduced into
America in 1840. It takes its name from its
founder François Marie Charles Fourier (1772–
1837) who as a youth was deeply affected by
the French Revolution of 1789. Fourier believed
that conflict and suffering were the result of the
perversion of natural human goodness by faulty
social organization perpetuated by mercantile
capitalism. He developed a complex psychological theory of instinctive drives and devised a
social blueprint with detailed instructions for the
size, layout, and industrial organization of ideal
communities that accommodated differences in
human personalities.
Fourier embedded his critique of civilization
within an elaborate theory of social evolution.
For Fourier, human history was both progressive and regressive and is composed of 32
segments that can be subdivided into 4 phases.
The first phase, lasting 5,000 years, is Infancy
or Ascending Incoherence; the second, lasting
35,000 years, is Growth or Ascending Harmony;
the third phase, lasting 5,000 years, is Decline or
Descending Harmony; and the final phase, lasting
5,000 years, is Caudity or Descending Incoherence. He identified seven different stages within
the Infancy phase. These are Confused Series,
Savagery, Patriarchy, Barbarism, Civilization,
Guarantism, and Simple Association. Significantly, these stages were defined in terms of the
status of women. For example, Barbarism was
characterized by the absolute servitude of women;
Civilization was characterized by exclusive marriage and limited civil liberties of wives; and
Guarantism was characterized by the development of an amorous corporation within which
women would enjoy considerable sexual freedom.
Fourier does not appear to have been especially
interested in the earlier phases of social evolution, and most of his writings focus upon the
transition from Civilization to Harmony.
Fourier’s critique focused primarily on
the institutions of commercial capitalism.
For Fourier, the most egregious failing of
civilization was its inability to resolve the
problem of poverty. He noted that poverty
was most severe in the advanced societies,
saying that “the peoples of civilization see
FIGURE 5. Britannia ware whale-oil lamp bearing a Brook
Farm stamp. (Courtesy of Winterthur Museum)
their wretchedness increase in direct proportion
to the advance of industry” (Beecher 1986:197).
He identified three causes for the persistence of
poverty. The first of these was wastefulness,
or the inefficiency of capitalist methods of
production and consumption. He singled out
the French family farmer, observing that the
use of communal plots, storage facilities, and
kitchens would greatly reduce the amount of
drudgery. The second cause was that production
was uncontrolled and depended only on the
profit motive. Because of competition among
producers, overproduction periodically threw
thousands of people out of work. The third
cause was the inefficient use of human potential,
meaning that the vast majority of workers were
employed in jobs that were either redundant
or were a drain on the orderly functioning
of society. Especially reprehensible was the
merchant, whom Fourier saw as a parasite
ROBERT W. PREUCEL AND STEVEN R. PENDERY—Envisioning Utopia
that only diverted capital from agriculture and
industry.
According to Fourier, the root of these injustices was the repression of individual desires
by existing social institutions. To resolve this
issue, he developed his theory of passional
attraction, the idea that all human desires are
governed by natural laws. He approached this
problem from a positivistic philosophy and in
his mind made a scientific breakthrough on
the order of Newton’s discovery of gravity, an
analogy that he often employed. He defined
passionate attraction as “the drive given us by
nature prior to reflection, and it persists despite
the oppression of reason, duty, prejudice, etc.”
(Beecher 1986:225). Fourier identified 12 different passions growing from three branches of
the tree of unityism. The luxurious passions
were the five senses (sight, smell, taste, touch,
hearing); the affective passions were love,
friendship, ambition, familism; and the distributive passions were cabalist, butterfly, and
composite. These represented the alphabet of
Fourier’s social language, and his many writings
are attempts to work out a passional grammar
complete with its own syntax.
Fourier’s ideal community was called a phalanx. It was to be composed of exactly 1,620
people or twice the number of people necessary
to ensure an adequate complement of the 810
passional personality types. Ideally it was to be
situated upon a square league of land in a rural
setting and located within a day’s ride of a large
city for easy access to a market. The site was
to be relatively hilly with a stream and possess
soils and a climate suitable for the cultivation
of a wide variety of crops. Dominating the
phalanx was the phalanstery, a massive building
adorned with colonnades, domes, and peristyles
resembling a cross between a palace and a resort
hotel. Symmetrical wings segregated workshops,
music practice rooms, and playrooms (noisy
activities) from visitor quarters, entertainment
halls, and communications centers (less noisy
activities). Two architectural innovations were
pioneered by Fourier: the use of special rooms
reserved for work groups known as seristries and
covered street galleries linking the phalanstery to
adjacent buildings. One of Fourier’s disciples,
Victor Considerant, drafted an architectural rendering of such a structure that looked remarkably
like the palace of Versailles.
13
In the United States, Fourierism caught the
imagination of numerous social reformers seeking to merge diverse social critiques into a
coherent workable system. The age of Fourierism in American was precipitated by Albert
Brisbane, the idealistic son of a New York
merchant who had been introduced to Fourier’s writings in 1833 while on a trip through
Europe. He was so moved by what he read
that he sought out Fourier for further instruction and became a convert. Brisbane wrote
that his sole goal in life was to “transmit the
thought of Charles Fourier to my countrymen”
(Guarneri 1991:30). After a delay of several
years due to illness, Brisbane took up the
cause in earnest. In 1840, he published The
Social Destiny of Man, a translation of and
commentary on Fourier’s thought (Brisbane
1840). He also enlisted the support of Horace
Greeley who was just beginning his newspaper
career. In March 1842, Greeley sold Brisbane
a front-page column in the New York Tribune
that became a vehicle for expounding the virtues
of Fourierism. This proved to be a remarkably
successful propaganda tool, and in the following 30 years more than 29 Fourierist phalanxes,
unions, and societies were established across the
United States (Table 1).
The impact of Fourierism upon the
Transcendentalists was initially slight. Reacting
against its formality, Ripley wrote in 1842 that
he was not attracted to a science that “starts
with definite rules for every possible case”
(Rose 1981:143, note 88). This sentiment
was echoed by Emerson who wrote, “Fourier
has skipped no fact but one, namely, Life”
(Cayton 1989:205). However, by 1843, it soon
became clear that the organization of labor at
Brook Farm based upon voluntary measures
was not working. Because of poor yields, the
community was forced to take out additional
mortgages and institute a retrenchment program.
Ripley was thus searching for a way to increase
productivity while being faithful to his desire
to place intellectual and manual labor upon a
more natural footing. The turning point was
the Social Reform Convention held in Boston
on 27 and 28 December 1843, a platform for
Fourierist advocates that was heavily attended
by Brook Farmers. In 1844, after considerable
discussion, the community reincorporated
themselves as the Brook Farm Phalanx, the
14
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 40(1)
TABLE 1
FOURIERIST COMMUNITIES IN THE UNITED STATES
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Name
Location
Dates
Social Reform Unity
Jefferson Co. Industrial Association
Sylvanian Association
Moorehouse Union
North American Phalanx
LaGrange Phalanx
Brook Farm Phalanx
Clarkson Association
Bloomfield Union Association
Leraysville Phalanx
Ohio Phalanx
Alphadelphia Association
Sodus Bay Phalanx
Mixville Association
Ontario Union
Clermont Phalanx
Trumbull Phalanx
Wisconsin Phalanx
Iowa Pioneer Phalanx
Philadelphia Industrial Association
Columbian Phalanx
Canton Phalanx
Integral Phalanx
Spring Farm Phalanx
Pigeon River Fourier Colony
Raritan Bay Union
Reunion Phalanx
Fourier Phalanx
Prairie Home Colony
Barrett, PA
Cold Creek, NY
Darlingville, PA
Pisceo, NY
Red Bank, NJ
Mongoquinog, IN
West Roxbury, MA
Clarkson, NY
North Bloomfield, NY
Leraysville, PA
Bell Air, OH
Galesburgh, MI
Sodus, NY
Mixville, NY
Bates Mills, NY
Rural and Utopia, OH
Phalanx Mills, OH
Cereso, WI
Scott, IO
Portage, IN
Zanesville, OH
Canton, IL
Lick Creek, IL
Spring Farm, WI
Pigeon River, WI
Perth Amboy, NJ
Dallas, TX
Sparta, IN
Silkville, KA
1842–1843
1843–1844
1843–1844
1843–1844
1843–1855
1843–1847
1844–1847
1844–1845
1844–1846
1844–1845
1844–1845
1844–1847
1844–1846
1844–1845
1844–1845
1844–1846
1844–1848
1844–1850
1844–1845
1845–1847
1845–1847
1845
1845–1847
1846–1869
1846–1847
1853–1857
1855–1859
1858
1869–1892
Source: Hayden (1976) and Guarneri (1991:table 1).
third of more than 16 phalanxes established in
America. The immediate outcome of this was a
dramatic influx of new members, most of which
were lower-class tradesmen and women (Rose
1981:152; Guarneri 1985).
Phalansterian Landscape and
Communitarian Architecture
The first steps toward transforming Brook Farm
into a Fourierist community involved the reorganization of labor and the construction of a phalanstery. Following the prescriptions of Fourier,
the Brook Farmers instituted a work program of
series and groups. Three primary series were
established—the agricultural, mechanical, and
domestic industries, each of which was subdi-
vided into a number of groups. For example,
the domestic series was composed of dormitory,
constitory, kitchen, washing, ironing, and mending groups. The chief of each group was to be
elected each week, and one of his or her main
duties was to keep a record of the work done
by each member of the group. Great emphasis
was placed upon the interchangeability of work,
so that any member who became bored with one
task could easily transfer to another group.
The series showed mixed results because
of the lack of specialized knowledge and
experience and the limited availability of
capital. The carpentry group acquired a lessthan-distinguished reputation on the Boston
market. It appears that the lumber used was
not properly seasoned, with the consequence
ROBERT W. PREUCEL AND STEVEN R. PENDERY—Envisioning Utopia
that doors purchased from Brook Farm had an
unfortunate tendency to warp and shrink (Swift
1900:43). The cattle group conducted a curious
experiment in animal husbandry. Ripley tried
to wean a calf by replacing milk with hay tea.
The calf died. The attempt by the nursery
group to plant a large flower garden and sell
flowers on the Boston market failed due to
poor soil quality. Yet even with this litany of
setbacks, some groups were successful, and in
1844 the community turned a modest profit for
the first time in its history (Rose 1981:150).
Fourierist architecture is characterized by
formalism and institutionalized control. The
Brook Farm Phalanstery, like all phalansteries built
in America, was a vernacular building. A member
wrote that it was called a phalanstery, “not that it
resembled one, but more out of deference to the
idea of one” (Codman 1894:186). Despite this
homespun quality, it was an imposing building,
three stories high and capable of being expanded
(Codman 1894:98). The basement contained a
large kitchen, a bakery, a dining hall capable
of seating 300–400 people, two public salons,
a hall, and a lecture room. Unfortunately, no
visual representations of the phalenstery are
extant beyond Josiah Wolcott’s 1844 painting that
appears to show it under construction (Figure 6),
15
FIGURE 6. Oil painting of Brook Farm, ca. 1844–1846 by
Josiah Wolcott. (Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, Boston.)
but it is known to have served as the model for
the phalanstery erected at the North American
Phalanx in Red Bank, New Jersey (Figure 7).
The archaeological testing programs in 1990 and
1994 have conclusively identified the phalanstery
cellar, but unfortunately only half of it remains
intact due to gravel quarrying activities during the
almshouse and Lutheran periods (Pendery 1991).
The Brook Farm Phalanstery was to physically
house and symbolically represent a new kind of
FIGURE 7. The Phalanstery at the North American Phalanx, ca. 1900 (from Hayden 1976:figure 6.15).
16
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 40(1)
communal living, one that provided residence
for both individuals and families. The attic
was divided into single rooms for the housing
of bachelors. Its second and third stories
were each divided into seven family suites that
consisted of a parlor and three sleeping rooms.
Fourier’s covered street galleries were reworked
into external passageways running the length
of the building and connecting these suites.
Presumably, members of different social classes
were to reside in alternate suites. But it is likely
that residence rules would have been relaxed
for wealthy stockholders desiring even greater
privacy. Marcus Spring, one of the benefactors
of Brook Farm, built separate cottage-style houses
immediately opposite the community phalanstery
at both the North American Phalanx and the
Raritan Bay Union, creating a rather discordant
effect (Hayden 1976).
The Brook Farm Phalanstery posed a sharp
contradiction with the existing housing stock.
In discussing its setting on a hill immediately
below the Eyrie, Russell (1900:92) wrote, “[i]f
it did not entirely obscure the Aerie, it certainly
spoiled the effect produced by that building
when seen from a distance.” Some members
believed that the new building should be large
enough to house the entire community, implying that the older houses should no longer be
used as residences. Others, however, argued
that that they should be kept intact to accommodate the new members that would be inspired
to join. The implications of this decision for
creating a new set of social tensions between
the original members and the arrivals, however,
went unrealized because the phalanstery was
never inhabited. On Tuesday, 3 March 1846,
the very week it was due to be completed, it
burned to the ground. A day after the fire,
Marianne Dwight (1928:148) wrote, “a part of
the stone foundation stands like a row of gravestones—a tomb of the Phalanstery—thank God,
not a tomb of our hopes!” Test excavations at
the site of the phalanstery during summer 1994
found numerous examples of fused window glass
that provides direct evidence for the fire.
Conclusion
American utopian communities were important to the extent that they identified significant
social issues and subjected them to critique
despite the actual longevity of any particular
community. Attempts at reform were often
effected by transforming the landscape so that
the physical remains of these practices embody
information about specific responses to these
issues. Architecture and settlement directed
and shaped the ongoing attempts to balance
conflicting tensions of agricultural and industrial development, egalitarian and authoritarian
decision making, individual and communal
living. Archaeological research at Brook Farm
is providing valuable information on these practices during its Transcendentalist and Fourierist
incarnations. There are no extant plans of the
community. All of the original buildings have
since been destroyed, and many of their locations lost. Research has identified the sites of
all of the utopian-period buildings and generated
the first accurate map of the settlement.
Transcendentalism was above all else an
extremely flexible doctrine, one that tolerated a
considerable degree of latitude among its advocates. On the surface, nothing would seem to
be more different from Brook Farm than Bronson Alcott’s consocial family at Fruitlands and
Thoreau’s isolation at Walden, yet all three were
inspired by similar critiques of industrial capitalism grounded in evangelical Unitarian values
(Francis 1997). There is a sense of intellectual
bricolage underlying the movement where ideas
from German idealists, British romanticists, and
French reformers are all mixed together with a
dash of New England pietism thrown in for
good measure. At Brook Farm, this “working
things out as they go” philosophy signified a
commitment to egalitarianism where individual
self-fulfillment could only be achieved through
engagement within a social group. This view
was embedded in the landscape through the
moral elevation of agriculture and the egalitarian program of volunteer labor. It is also to
be seen in the unplanned, almost haphazard,
expansion of settlement and the use of eclectic
architecture, emphasizing individualism.
Fourierism, by contrast, was a much more
rigid, authoritarian system that specified all
aspects of the ideal society, even down to
appropriate sexual partners. This and other
controversial elements were carefully edited
out by Fourier’s proselytizers for an American
ROBERT W. PREUCEL AND STEVEN R. PENDERY—Envisioning Utopia
audience, resulting in a translation that retained
the strength of Fourier’s vision but lacked many
of his psychological insights. Nonetheless,
the expurgated version was well received and
served as a social blueprint for the two dozen
Fourierist phalanxes founded across the United
States. This “sacred text” meant that there was
much less leeway for experimenting with social
relations. Especially problematic was the question of class that Fourier regarded as a natural
condition of human existence. At almost all
American phalanxes, tensions developed externally between wealthy absentee stockholders
and resident members and internally between
lower-class tradespeople and the “aristocratic
element.” At Brook Farm, the adoption of this
highly structured organization was reflected in
and maintained by the expansion of industry,
the proposed centralization of activities in the
phalanstery, and the standardization of communal architecture.
The central question that has occupied historians and literary scholars alike is why did
the community abandon its Transcendentalist
principles and adopt Fourierism? There is no
wholly satisfactory answer to this, but perhaps
the question is misstated in its stark opposition.
Perhaps Transcendentalism was not entirely
abandoned, and elements of it coexisted peaceably alongside Fourierism. Certainly hints of
this can be found in the writings of Dwight
and Russell. Although some members left the
community when it reincorporated as a phalanx,
it is significant that a small group remained that
never fully accepted the tenets of Fourier and
was never comfortable with the new tradespeople. According to Russell (1900:99), “[o]ur
meetings in the dining-room (of the Hive) were
quite pleasant, but they did not seem the same
as the social gatherings of other times. They
were too large; our numbers had now increased
to much over a hundred, and of course the
homelike appearance of our little parties was
lost in the crowd around us.” Research suggests
that the dispersed housing stock built during
the Transcendentalist period actually perpetuated certain Transcendentalist habits of thought
and action that tended to value individualism
and democracy. From this perspective, Brook
Farm was a Fourierist phalanx more in name
than in fact.
17
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the following
individuals and organizations for their assistance in various phases of our research. These
include Judith McDonough, Brona Simon, and
Constance Crosby of the Massachusetts Historical Commission and Illyas Bhatti, Tom Mahlstedt, and William Stokinger at the Metropolitan
District Commission. Bob Murphy, president of
the West Roxbury Historical Society, and Ralph
Moeller, director of the Gethsemane Cemetery,
provided invaluable local assistance. We would
particularly like to thank Peter Buck, dean of
the Harvard University Summer School, Lawrence Buell of Harvard University, and Rick
Delano of Villanova University for their advice
and support. We also wish to thank John Shea,
William Griswold, and John Fox, who served
ably as our teaching assistants. Special thanks
go to Nancy Osgood for her assistance in fieldwork and historical research, Peter Drummey
of the Massachusetts Historical Society for the
use of the images of the two Wolcott paintings,
Dorothy Hayden for the use of the image of the
North American Phalanx, and Susan Newton of
the Winterthur Museum for the use of the image
of the Brook Farm oil lamp. Finally, we would
like to express our appreciation to the numerous
Harvard University students and volunteers who
participated on the project.
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ROBERT W. PREUCEL
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
33RD AND SPRUCE STS.
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19104
STEVEN R. PENDERY
NORTHEAST REGION ARCHEOLOGY PROGRAM
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
115 JOHN ST.
LOWELL, MA 01852-1195
19