Dissolution and Legacy
The biggest challenge at Fruitlands was the farming aspect; the community had arrived at the farm a month behind the planting schedule and only about 11 acres (45,000 m2) of land were arable. The decision not to use animal labor on the farm proved to be the undoing of the commune; combined with the fact that many of the men of the commune spent their days teaching or philosophizing instead of working in the field, which made farming difficult. Using only their own hands, the Fruitlands residents were incapable of growing a sufficient amount of food to get them through the winter.
Fruitlands was also hampered by its structure. Alcott and Lane wielded nearly limitless authority and dictated very strict and repressive models for living. "I am prone to indulge in an occasional hilarity", wrote Alcott's wife Abby May, "but seem frowned down into still quiet and peace-less order... am almost suffocated in this atmosphere of restriction and form".
The Fruitlands experiment ended only seven months after it began. According to Bronson Alcott, the inhabitants left Fruitlands in January 1844; his daughter, Louisa May, wrote that they left in December 1843, which is considered to be the more accurate date. Alcott was deeply dismayed by the failure of Fruitlands and, moving with his family to live with a nearby farmer, refused to eat for several days. Later, Ralph Waldo Emerson helped purchase a home for the family in Concord.
Fruitlands had only a brief opportunity to impact America and the Transcendentalist movement.
After Fruitlands ended, the land was bought by one of its former participants, Joseph Palmer, who used the site as a refuge for former reformers for twenty years. The property was later purchased in 1910 by Clara Endicott Sears, who opened the farmhouse to the public in 1914 as a museum. Today, the Fruitlands Museum also includes a museum on Shaker life, an art gallery of nineteenth century paintings, and a museum of Native American art and crafts.
Read more about this topic: Fruitlands (transcendental Center)
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