Question

How did the brook farm community have an impact on the united states? And does it still effect it today?

Answer 1

Brook Farm, formally The Brook Farm Agriculture and Education Institute, a short-lived utopian experiment in community living The 175-acre farm (now in Boston) was located in West Roxbury, Mass. George Ripley, a former Unitarian priest, editor of The Dial (a critical literary monthly), and a pioneer of the Transcendental Club, an informal group of Boston area intellectuals, had organized and practically led it. He was accompanied by his aunt, a woman of broad culture and academic background, Sophia Dana Ripley.

Brook Farm attracted not only intellectuals but also farmers and craftsmen, although teachers were always in preponderance among the 70 or 80 members. It paid $1 a day for work (physical or mental) to men and women and provided housing, clothing, and food at approximately actual cost to all members and their dependents. The commune published The Harbinger, a weekly magazine dedicated to social and political problems, to which James Russell Lowell, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Horace Greeley contributed periodically.

Brook Farm was especially noted for its excellent school's progressive educational philosophy, which aimed to create "complete equality of contact between students and the teaching body." Discipline at the school was never punitive; rather, it consisted of a gentle effort to instill a sense of personal responsibility in the student and to express a passion for intellectual work. There were no specified hours of study and every student was expected to offer manual labour a few hours a day Brook Farm was one of many community life experiments that took place in the United States during the first half of the 19th century; it is better known than most, and has a secure place in U.S. social history due to the distinguished literary figures and associated intellectual leaders.