Fruitlands

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Although he was impressed by the serenity of the site and the idea of hard work, he cautiously recorded, "I will not prejudge them successful They look well in July. We will see them in December. Alcott and Lane collaborated on a letter which was published in the New York Evening Tribune on September 1 and soon republished elsewhere.

In the article, titled "The Consociate Family Life", the duo explained their main purpose was to improve society through "simplicity in diet, plain garments, pure bathing, unsullied dwellings". Fruitlands ultimately failed the winter after it opened, largely due to food shortages and accompanying unrest in the inhabitants.

The rigors of a New England winter proved too severe for the members of the Fruitlands. Many of Alcott's and Lane's ideas were derived from Transcendentalism. They were influenced by the Transcendental ideas of God not as the traditional view from the Bible but as a world spirit. Fruitlands residents, who called themselves "the consociate family", [5] wished to separate themselves from the world economy by refraining from trade, having no personal property, and not using hired labor.

Alcott and Lane believed that the community could achieve complete freedom only by eliminating economic activity altogether.

By accomplishing these two goals, they would eliminate the need to participate in trade or to purchase their food from the outside world. Initially, Bronson Alcott and Lane modeled their ideas about personal property off the Shakers , who held property communally. However, the Shakers were not completely self-sufficient; they traded their hand-made goods for coffee , tea , meat and milk.

Bronson Alcott and Lane eliminated the need to trade for these supplies because they eliminated animal products and stimulants from their diets entirely. In the end, the Fruitlands community had no effect on the economy of the outside world; Fruitlands allowed its residents to practice their ideals without forcing them to effect any real change.

Amos Bronson Alcott: Fruitlands

Fruitlands residents began their days with a purging cold-water shower [12] and subsisted on a simple diet containing no stimulants or animal products. They were vegans , excluding even milk and honey from their diets. Fruitlands members wore only linen clothes and canvas shoes; cotton fabric was forbidden because it exploited slave labor and wool was banned because it came from sheep.

This arose out of two beliefs: Eventually, as the winter was coming, Alcott and Lane compromised and allowed an ox and a cow. There were no formal admission requirements or procedures to join the community at Fruitlands, and there was no official record-keeping of members.

Fruitlands

Many residents stayed only for a short period of time and most lists are based on the journals of Alcott's wife Abby May. The trouble was that Alcott could "prate" with the best of them. And when criticised and parodied, he took it as a further sign that he was a prophet: Francis brilliantly dissects it all: He quotes their dippy ditties and "orphic sayings" and recreates the whole sorry masquerade. But he somehow manages to be admirably even-handed, acknowledging that many of Alcott's ideas — regarding the environment, diet, feminism and civil disobedience — were more than a century ahead of their time.

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For all his eccentricities, Alcott was on the side of progress and progress, as Oscar Wilde famously wrote, "is the realisation of utopias". Topics History books The Observer. Order by newest oldest recommendations. Show 25 25 50 All. Threads collapsed expanded unthreaded. Loading comments… Trouble loading? Besides flesh is not clean food, and when there is beautiful juicy fruits who can be a flesh-eater?

Lane believed that the ideal society was an urban culture dedicated to leisure.

Men would be relieved of the toil of growing food for animals, and women would no longer be bound to "the servitude of the dairy and the flesh-pots. Without the space wasted on cattle, population would increase to four times its present rate, humanity would be reunited in purified cities, and the land itself would be restored by the exclusion of manure. To secure free time, efficient production became one of Alcott's main goals after he eliminated cattle.

Fruitlands Museum

For the first time in his life, Alcott began to show interest in agriculture. He wrote to his brothers about building dams for irrigation and using water power for industry.

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However, labor became drudgery when they tried to plant their crops without the help of animals. Eventually, they solved the problem by utilizing an ox and a cow to pull the plow. The efforts of Alcott and the other members remained at odds with capitalism. However, Fruitlands needed the capital to survive, and when they were forced to choose between practical measures for their long-term success and living spiritually, they opted for the latter.

In theory, the membership of Fruitlands was composed of a spiritually elite. He continued, "Eden's avenue is yet guarded by the fiery-sworded cherubim, and humility and charity are the credentials for admission Boller, Four of the nine men had been involved n the commercial market as white-collar workers or owners of businesses. Each experienced deep conflicts between their work and their religion, and they all underwent an awakening before joining Fruitlands. Lane was converted by James Greaves, the founder of Alcott house, who believed in perfection through education. Larned came from a circle of intellectuals in Providence who each admired the transcendentalists.

Hecker was converted by Orestes Bronson. Since Hecker later became a priest, the most information is available about him. At a lecture in , Hecker first heard Brownson preach his gospel of Christian democracy. Subsequently, he rebelled against the routine of commerce since in inhibited his spiritual growth. Hecker warned his brother not to "get too engrossed in woutward business" but "rather neglect a part of it for that which is immortal in its life, incomparable in its fulness Boller, Fruitlands matched Hecker's priorities in that Fruitlands was much less an ihntegrated community than a place for a person to realize his own potential.

Beginning as impatience with his work, Hecker began to unable to cope with the every-day world. He had nervous fits, heard imaginary voices, and suffered from an unidentified sexual disorder for which others advised marriage but which convinced him always to remain celibate. In attempts to purify himself, Hecker tried fasting and restricting his diet to unleavened bread, fruit, and water and even expressed his wish to do away with the digestive system entirely.

Samuel Larned came from Rhode Island. Larned rebelled against the status quo by travelling through New England and swearing at everyone he met. He believed that profane language, uttered in pure spirit, could be redeemed from vulgarity even while men, women, and children clearly remained unredeemed in his native state. The other members of Fruitlands were similarly radical in their means of establishing separate identities away from society. A man named Abraham Wood called himself Wood Abraham.

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