EstablishedCLM-0139 · checked 2026-10-23
Brook Farm was financed by selling stock, with each share making its buyer a member; profits were divided by days of labour and members were paid $1 a day for physical or mental work.[1]
Closed / failedCooperative
Brook Farm
A communal farm and school at West Roxbury, Massachusetts (1841–1847), founded by George Ripley with transcendentalist ideals as a joint-stock company and converted in 1844 to a Fourierist association. Debt and a fire ended it.
42.29° N · 71.16° W · Approximate: West Roxbury, now part of Boston, Massachusetts
- Location
- Approximate: West Roxbury, now part of Boston, Massachusetts
- Operating since
- 1841
- Governance
- Cooperative
- Legal status
- Recognised
- Economy
- Cooperative
- Autonomy level
- Program within an existing state
- Uses AI in governance
- No
George Ripley, a former Unitarian minister, and his wife Sophia Ripley set up Brook Farm on a 175-acre farm to combine intellectual and manual labour. It was financed by stock: buying a share made one a member, a board of directors governed, and profits were divided by days of labour. Members were paid $1 a day for any work and had housing, clothing and food at about cost; the school was a main source of income. Teachers outnumbered farmers among some 70 or 80 members. In 1844 it adopted parts of Charles Fourier's system as the Brook Farm Association for Industry and Education and began a Phalanstery, which burned down. The Harbinger, an Associationist weekly, was published there. Nathaniel Hawthorne was an early shareholder; Emerson declined to join.
Timeline
- 1841George and Sophia Ripley found Brook Farm at West Roxbury, financed by the sale of stock. [S1]Established
- Oct 1842Hawthorne, an original shareholder, leaves after about six months, finding he could not write there. [S1]Established
- 1844A new constitution adopts Fourier's system; the community is renamed the Brook Farm Association for Industry and Education. [S1]Established
- Jun 1845The first issue of The Harbinger appears on 14 June; it was published weekly until October 1847. [S1]Established
- Mar 1846The Phalanstery burns down in March. [S1]Established
- 1847The community is fully closed; the land and buildings are sold in 1849. [S1]Established
Mechanisms in use
Outcomes & controversies
Its school was noted for its educational ideas and The Harbinger became a leading Associationist journal. Brook Farm is remembered mainly through the literary and intellectual figures linked to it, including Hawthorne's fictional Blithedale Romance (1852).
Post-mortem
It never became financially stable; accounts cite poor soil, too little labour and spending ahead of income. The 1844 shift to a Fourierist structure divided members, and the loss of the uninsured Phalanstery by fire in March 1846 was a blow from which it did not recover. Ripley left in 1846, the community closed by 1847, and the land was sold in 1849.
Claims
EstablishedCLM-0140 · checked 2026-10-23
Brook Farm adopted parts of Charles Fourier's system in 1844 and began a Phalanstery, which burned down; the enterprise then gradually failed and the land was sold in 1849.[1]
EstablishedCLM-0141 · checked 2026-10-23
Nathaniel Hawthorne, an original shareholder, left after about six months, finding he could not write there, and later used a Brook Farm-like setting in his fictional Blithedale Romance (1852).[1]
EstablishedCLM-0142 · checked 2026-10-23
Ralph Waldo Emerson was invited to join but declined, doubting that members would share the work equally; he later criticised the experiment publicly.[1]