Skip to main content

Fruitlands

00001v.jpg

Bronson Alcott spent most of his life putting philosophical theories and progressive education principles into the numerous school experiments that he created, namely the briefly successful Temple School in Boston. The next step in the evolution was to be Fruitlands, a new Eden. Alcott would create a Utopian commune on a farm in Massachusetts.

Along with his co-founder Charles Lane, Alcott and a dozen or so residents (including Alcott's wife Abigail and four daughters) lived for nearly a year off fruits and vegetables, keeping in line with Alcott's humane philosophy and animal-free diet. The experiment failed after only seven months, a blow which left Alcott upset and defeated.

This location map from the Historic American Buildings shows the land where the Fruitlands Museum would eventually be built.

Screen Shot 2014-03-28 at 2.49.58 PM.png

This is the old house at Fruitlands which was established by Bronson Alcott in June 1843 in Harvard, Massachusetts. Charles Lane purchased 90 acres of land for $1800.

Here you can see where members of the Alcott and Lane families lived. Residents each did their share of labor around the old house.

Lane, a student at Alcott House in London, shared the views of his Fruitlands co-founder Alcott, and did not allow oxen to plow the fields on the farm. Instead, Lane advocated for labor with spades. Manure was not allowed to plant any herbs or roots, or maize, potatoes, rye, barley, oats, vegetables, and melons were planted on the farm. Commodities made by slaves were boycotted.

Screen Shot 2014-03-31 at 2.11.29 PM.png

Here is a look inside one of the rooms at Fruitlands. The goal of the agrarian commune Fruitlands was to create a pacifistic utopia wherein residents could live, work, think, and exist with nature.

Members of Fruitlands were strict vegans who wore linen clothes and ate only fruits and vegetables. Because many on the commune were philosophers rather than farmers, the experiment only lasted seven months.

Today, the land is home to theĀ Fruitlands Museum. The image notes of the despair Alcott suffered following the closure of Fruitlands.

Screen Shot 2014-03-31 at 12.08.06 PM.png

Charles Lane was an English-American Transcendentalist. Lane admired Alcott's philosophy of teaching and when Alcott traveled to England to drum up support for what would become the Fruitlands experiment, Lane was on board. Alcott was too broke to invest money into the farm, so Lane purchased nearly 100 acres in Harvard, Massachusetts, where Fruitlands would eventually stand.