History of American Socialisms

by John Humphrey Noyes

Owenism was limited and local, chiefly because it was thoroughly non-religious and even anti-religious. In order that Fourierism might sweep the nation, it was necessary that it should ally itself to some form of popular religion, and especially that it should penetrate the strongholds of religious New England.

To prepare for this combination, a differentiation in the New England church was going on simultaneously with the career of Owenism. After the war of 1815, the division of Congregationalism into Orthodoxy and Unitarianism, commenced. Excluding from our minds the doctrinal and ecclesiastical quarrels that attended this division, it is easy to see that Providence, which is always on both sides of every fight, aimed at division of labor in this movement. One party was set to defend religion; the other liberty. One stood by the old faith, like the Jew; the other went off into free-thinking and the fine arts, like the Greek. One worked on regeneration of the heart; the other on culture of the external life. In short, one had for its function the carrying through of the Revival system; the other the development of Socialism.

The royal men of these two "houses of Israel" were Dr. Beecher and Dr. Channing; and both left royal families, direct or collateral. The Beechers are leading the Orthodox to this day; and the Channings, the Unitarians. We all know what Dr. Beecher and his children have done for revivals. He was the pivotal man between Nettleton and Finney in the last generation, and his children are the standard-bearers of revival religion in the present. What the Channings have done for Socialism is not so well known, and this is what we must now bring to view.

First and chief of all the experiments of the Fourier epoch was Brook Farm. And yet Brook Farm in its original conception, was not a Fourier formation at all, but an American seedling. It was the child of New England Unitarianism. Dr. Channing himself was the suggester of it. So says Ralph Waldo Emerson. As this is an interesting point of history, we have culled from a newspaper report of Mr. Emerson's lecture on Brook Farm, the following summary, from which it appears that Dr. Channing was the pivotal man between old-fashioned Unitarianism and Transcendentalism, and the father of The Dial and of Brook Farm:

EMERSON'S REMINISCENCES OF BROOK FARM.

"In the year 1840 Dr. Channing took counsel with Mr. George Ripley on the point if it were possible to bring cultivated, thoughtful people together, and make a society that deserved the name. He early talked with Dr. John Collins Warren on the same thing, who admitted the wisdom of the purpose, and undertook to make the experiment. Dr. Channing repaired to his house with these thoughts; he found a well chosen assembly of gentlemen; mutual greetings and introductions and chattings all around, and he was in the way of introducing the general purpose of the conversation, when a side-door opened, the whole company streamed in to an oyster supper with good wines, and so ended that attempt in Boston. Channing opened his mind then to Ripley, and invited a large party of ladies and gentlemen. I had the honor to be present. No important consequences of the attempt followed. Margaret Fuller, Ripley, Bronson and Hedge, and many others, gradually came together, but only in the way of students. But I think there prevailed at that time a general belief in the city that this was some concert of doctrinaires to establish certain opinions, or to inaugurate some movement in literature, philosophy, or religion, but of which these conspirators were quite innocent. It was no concert, but only two or three men and women, who read alone with some vivacity. Perhaps all of them were surprised at the rumor that they were a school or sect, but more especially at the name of 'Transcendentalism.' Nobody knows who first applied the name. These persons became in the common chance of society acquainted with each other, and the result was a strong friendship, exclusive in proportion to its heat. * * *

"From that time, meetings were held with conversation—with very little form—from house to house. Yet the intelligent character and varied ability of the company gave it some notoriety, and perhaps awakened some curiosity as to its aims and results. But nothing more serious came of it for a long time. A modest quarterly journal called The Dial, under the editorship of Margaret Fuller, enjoyed its obscurity for four years, when it ended. Its papers were the contributions and work of friendship among a narrow circle of writers. Perhaps its writers were also its chief readers. But it had some noble papers; perhaps the best of Margaret Fuller's. It had some numbers highly important, because they contained papers by Theodore Parker. * *

"I said the only result of the conversations which Dr. Channing had was to initiate the little quarterly called The Dial; but they had a further consequence in the creation of the society called the "Brook Farm" in 1841. Many of these persons who had compared their notes around in the libraries of each other upon speculative matters, became impatient of speculation, and wished to put it into practice. Mr. George Ripley, with some of his associates, established a society, of which the principle was, that the members should be stockholders, and that while some deposited money others should be allowed to give their labor in different kinds as an equivalent for money. It contained very many interesting and agreeable persons. Mr. Curtis of New York, and his brother of English Oxford, were members of the family; from the first also was Theodore Parker; Mr. Morton of Plymouth—engaged in the fisheries—eccentric; he built a house upon the farm, and he and his family continued in it till the end; Margaret Fuller, with her joyous conversations and sympathies. Many persons gave character and attractiveness to the place. The farm consisted of 200 acres, and occupied some spot near Reedville camp of later years. In and around it, whether as members, boarders, or visitors, were remarkable persons for character, intellect and accomplishments. * * * The Rev. Wm. H. Channing, now of London, student of Socialism in France and England, was a frequent sojourner here, and in perfect sympathy with the experiment. * * *

"Brook Farm existed six or seven years, when the society broke up and the farm was sold, and all parties came out with a loss; some had spent on it the accumulations of years. At the moment all regarded it as a failure; but I do not think that all so regard it now, but probably as an important chapter in their experience, which has been of life-long value. What knowledge has it not afforded them! What personal power which the studies of character have given: what accumulated culture many members owe to it; what mutual pleasure they took of each other! A close union like that in a ship's cabin, of persons in various conditions; clergymen, young collegians, merchants, mechanics, farmers' sons and daughters, with men of rare opportunities and culture."

Mr. Emerson's lecture is doubtless reliable on the main point for which we quote from it—the Unitarian and Channing-arian origin of Brook Farm—but certainly superficial in its view of the substantial character and final purpose of that Community. Brook Farm, though American and Unitarian in its origin, became afterward the chief representative and propagative organ of Fourierism, as we shall ultimately show. The very blossom of the experiment, by which it seeded the nation and perpetuated its species, was its periodical, The Harbinger, and this belonged entirely to the Fourieristic period of its career. Emerson dilates on The Dial, but does not allude to The Harbinger. In thus ignoring the public function by which Brook Farm was signally related to the great socialistic revival of 1843, and to the whole of American Socialism, Emerson misses what we conceive to be the main significance of the experiment, and indeed of Unitarianism itself.