The Alcott family arrived at Fruitlands early in June of 1843 joined by about a dozen other individuals, all hoping to participate in Alcott's utopian experiment in communal living. The experiment lasted only 7 months.

The community prospered during the summer, but before long, problems developed. The men spent more time discussing philosophy than farming. This left the group ill-prepared as winter approached. The experiment officially ended in January of 1844.

Clara Endicott Sears restored this building to her vision of its condition in 1843 and opened it as a museum in 1914.

Miss Sears created Fruitlands as a museum of the Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands experiment and the Transcendentalist movement.

The intent of Alcott's Con-Sociate Family (as they called themselves) was to bring about a new Eden by cultivating a mystical and ascetic way of life in a rural retreat.

The house was named "Fruitlands" because the inhabitants hoped to live off the fruits of the land, purchasing nothing from the outside world.

Read the Letter A.Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane wrote to The Dial in June, 1843 [4 mb file] about the Fruitlands experiment.

Bronson Alcott's vision for a new order tried to integrate changes in science, technology and man's relationship to God.

He believed that people's lives were all part of "one Divine Nature that flows through all visible things."

Read the Notes of Sentiments expressed by James Pierrepont Greaves Esq. 1834 [120k file]

The material world, especially nature, expressed another manifestation of the universal divinity, an idea that became a central aspect of Transcendentalism.

Alcott implemented a daily routine of education, diet and social responsibility that expressed his conviction that by reforming the individual, one could reform society.

Guide to the Transcendentalist Collection at Fruitlands [120k file]