Research & Further Reading

This list is a work in process, but it provides a good start for anyone researching the history of Brook Farm.

Best Book

Delano, Sterling F., Brook Farm: The Dark Side of Utopia, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004. Out of print; available at some Boston Public Library locations

3History and Philosophy

Swift, Lindsay, Brook Farm: Its Members, Scholars, and Visitors [PDF], 1904

Curtis, Edith Roelker, A Season in Utopia: The Story of Brook Farm Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1961

Haraszti, Zoltán, The Idyll of Brook Farm As Revealed by Unpublished Letters in the Boston Public Library, 1937

Hansen, Ellen, ed., The New England Transcendentalists: Life of the Mind and Of the Spirit, Lowell, MA: Discovery Enterprises, Ltd., 1993

Jennings, Chris, Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism, Random House, 2016

Kolmerten, Carol A., Women in Utopia: the Ideology of Gender in the American Owenite Communities, Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990

Myerson, Joel, Transcendentalism: A Reader, Oxford University Press, 2000

Alberti, Charles Edward, Brook Farm’s Educational Philosophy (1841-1846): A Study Into Its Methods, Axiology and Epistemology, Doctoral dissertation: Loyola University Chicago, 1975

Biographies

Cro, Ann B., From Transcendentalism to Progressivism: The Making of an American Reformer, Abby Morton Diaz (1821-1904), Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2006. Paper 2187.

Frothingham, B., George Ripley, 1882 Biography and many letters. Lengthy chapter on Brook Farm beginning page 108.

Marshall, Megan, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014

Raymond, Henrietta Dana, Sophia Willard Dana Ripley, Co-Founder of Brook Farm, Peter E. Randall Publisher, 1994

Archaeology and Landscape

Preucel, Robert W., Archaeological Semiotics, 2010. Excellent chapter on Brook Farm begins on p. 197 of the linked PDF (page 175 of the document)

Preucel, Robert W. and Pendery, Steven R., Envisioning Utopia: Transcendentalist and Fourierist Landscapes at Brook Farm, West Roxbury, Massachusetts, Vol. 40, No. 1, Daring Experiments: Issues and Insights about Utopian Communities (2006), pp. 6-19

Report of the Boston Landmarks Commission on the potential designation of BROOK FARM as a Landmark under Chapter 772 of the Acts of 1975, Boston Landmarks Commission (Boston Mass.)

Brown, Patrick, Historical Digression: Transcendentalism: Searching for “Pilgrim House” at Brook Farm, August 22, 2014

Memoirs by Brook Farm Residents

Codman, John Thomas, Brook Farm Historic and Personal Memoirs

Kirby, Georgiana Bruce (1818-1887), Years of Experience: An Autobiographical Narrative, BPL cat. # CT275.K59 A3 1971 In-library use only in some locations

Kirby, Georgiana Bruce, My First Visit to Brook Farm, in the Overland Monthly, 1870, page 9ff

Orvis, Marianne Dwight (1816-1901), Letters From Brook Farm, 1844-1847, BPL cat. # HX656.B8 O7 1974 In-library use only in some locations

Russell, Amelia Eloise (1798-1880), Home Life of the Brook Farm Association, BPL cat. # 5569a.121 In-library use only in some locations

Sears, John Van der Zee Sears (1835-?), My Friends at Brook Farm, BPL cat. # HX656.B8 S5 1975 In-library use only in some locations