Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.
Conduct of Life lectures, 1860

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Perhaps America’s best known thinker,  Ralph Waldo Emerson led a renaissance in American ideas in the 19th Century: a search to realize the high potential of the individual person, to understand the proper role of the individual in society, and to discover and celebrate the interrelation and sacredness of all life.  He was a pragmatist and an idealist, a lecturer, a prolific writer and a poet.

In July 1835 Ralph Waldo Emerson purchased his Concord home, proclaiming it was “the only good cellar that had been built in Concord.”  Along with the house, there was a sizable barn, on two acres of land.  In addition to housing various animals, the barn was used for over a year as a schoolroom for Miss Foord’s school. The Emerson children attended the school along with Lizzy and Abby Alcott, Lizzy and Barry Goodwin and Caroline Pratt, all from Concord.

The house Emerson brought his bride Lidian to on September 15, 1835 became that "sylvan" home where they would live together for the next forty-seven years.  The Emersons had four children.  Their home became not only a place for Emerson's study and writing, but a literary center for the emerging American Transcendentalist movement.

In the early years the Emersons referred to their home as Coolidge Castle, a reference to the Boston Coolidges, who had it built as a summer house.  In the family the house became known as Bush, and it remained Emerson's "home front" for the rest of his life. 

When I bought my house, the first thing I did was plant trees.

In November 1836, after the birth of his son Waldo, Emerson planted six hemlocks.  In 1837 he planted thirty-one pine and chestnut trees. The chestnuts fronted the house, the last one coming down in a storm in 2012. In 1838 he wrote to Thomas Carlyle, "I set out on the west side of my house forty young pine trees."   Soon the two acres grew to nine and in 1847 Emerson had enough land to plant 128 apple, pear and plum trees.

The house contains Emerson’s original furniture and objects, much as he left it. The Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association (RWEMA), formed in 1930 by family members and others associated with Emerson’s library and work, owns the Emerson House and the Emerson family papers, and is responsible for maintaining the house and for promoting interest in Emerson’s literary works. The RWEMA is a private non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation.

Looking Back …

Emerson and The Atlantic Monthly

Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was always open to creating platforms to generate and share new ideas, met with like-minded men in April 1857, the result of which was the creation of The Atlantic Monthly magazine. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes and others joined Emerson as co-founders and by November 1857 the first issue of the magazine was issued. A magazine that is still published and enjoyed 164 years later.

One can imagine these great minds sitting at the Parker House exchanging ideas for the creative side of the magazine as well as the practical side. One participant wrote “The time occupied was longer by about four hours and thirty minutes than I am in the habit of consuming in that kind of occupation, but it was the richest time intellectually that I ever had.”

The timing was fortuitous to take on crucial issues of the day, including the abolishment of slavery. The mission statement was signed by Emerson, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and many others. The goal was to publish literature from American and foreign writers, and to rank itself politically with “the body of men which is in favor of Freedom, National Progress, and Honor, whether public or private.”

The first issues featured Walt Whitman’s poetry, Thoreau’s essays, short stories from Louisa May Alcott and contributions by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James. While the Table of Contents in the early issues have the titles of the pieces within the magazine, the names of the authors are not listed. Emerson wrote “The names of contributors will be given out when the names are worth more than the articles.”

In 2004 the name of the publication was changed from The Atlantic Monthly to The Atlantic. In the December 2021 issue, Mark Greif reviewed The Transcendentalists and Their World . Written by Concord historian and writer Robert Gross, the book explores the nineteenth century relationships between Concord’s elite writers (including Ralph Waldo Emerson), their shared philosophies and the impact on America’s literary culture.

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After he purchases his house a relieved Emerson writes to his brother William:

Concord 27 July 1835
Dear William

Has Charles told you that I have dodged the doom of building & have bought the Coolidge house in Concord with the expectation of entering it next September. It is a mean place & cannot be fine until trees & flowers give it a character of its own. But we shall crowd so many books & papers & if possible, wise friends, into it that it shall have as much wit as it can carry.

Waldo E