[7] Brook Farm, as it would be called, was based on the ideals of Transcendentalism; its founders believed that by pooling labor they could sustain the community and still have time for literary and scientific pursuits.

"[4] As more interested people began to take part in planning, Ripley relocated meetings from his home to the West Street bookshop operated by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody.

[4] The Ripleys chose to begin their experiment at a dairy farm owned by Charles and Maria Mayo Ellis in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, near the home of Theodore Parker.

[15] The 170-acre (0.69 km2) farm about eight miles (13 km) from Boston was described in a pamphlet as a "place of great natural beauty, combining a convenient nearness to the city with a degree of retirement and freedom from unfavorable influences unusual even in the country".

[8][17] Writer and editor Margaret Fuller was invited to Brook Farm[18] and, though she never officially joined the community, was a frequent visitor, often spending New Year's Eve there.

[19] Ripley received many applications to join the community, especially from people who had little money or were in poor health, but full-fledged membership was granted only to those who could afford a $500 share of the joint stock company.

[22] He wrote of his displeasure with the community: "even my Custom House experience was not such a thraldom and weariness; my mind and heart were freer ...Thank God, my soul is not utterly buried under a dung-heap.

Horace Greeley, a New York newspaper editor, and others began to pressure Brook Farm to follow more closely the pattern of Fourier[24] at a time when the community was struggling to be self-sufficient.

[20] Albert Brisbane, whose book The Social Destiny of Man (1840) had inspired Ripley,[25] paid Greeley $500 for permission to publish a front-page column in the New York Tribune that ran in several parts from March 1842 to September 1843.

Brisbane argued in the series, titled "Association: or, Principles of a True Organization of Society", that Fourier's theories could be applied in the United States.

[29] Ripley and two associates created a new constitution for Brook Farm in 1844, beginning the experiment's attempts to follow Fourier's Phalanx system.

[34] In the last few months of 1844, Brook Farmers were offered the chance to take over two Associationism-inspired publications, Brisbane's The Phalanx and John Allen's The Social Reformer.

Four printers were part of Brook Farm at the time and members of the community believed it would elevate their status as leaders of the movement, as well as provide additional income.

[28] The journal's first issue was published on June 14, 1845, and it was continuously printed, originally weekly, until October 1847, when it relocated to New York City, still under the oversight of Ripley and fellow Brook Farmer Charles Anderson Dana.

Parke Godwin offered advice when it was suggested to keep the name The Phalanx: Call it the Pilot, the Harbinger, the Halycon, the Harmonist, The Worker, the Architect, The Zodiac, The Pleiad, the Iris, the Examiner, The Aurora, the Crown, the Imperial, the Independent, the Synthesist, the Light, the Truth, the Hope, the Teacher, the Reconciler, the Wedge, the Pirate, the Seer, the Indicator, the Tailor, the Babe in the Manger, the Universe, the Apocalypse, the Red Dragon, the Plant, Beelzebub—the Devil or anything rather than the meaningless name Phalanx.

[28] Many Brook Farmers applied for exceptions to these rules and soon it was agreed that "members of the Association who sit at the meat table shall be charged extra for their board".

[48] A man named John Plummer purchased the land that was Brook Farm in 1849 before selling it six years later to James Freeman Clarke, who intended to establish another community there.

Instead, Clarke offered it to President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War and the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment used it for training as Camp Andrew.

[55] The land on the Keith lot that was purchased along with the Ellis farm included a functional farmhouse, which Brook Farmers called "The Hive".

Members of Brook Farm initially participated in an "attractive industry" system where each could pick his or her work assignments based on their preferences.

[33] When Brook Farm first adopted Fourierist notions, it created a more structured work environment with a system that consisted of three series of industry: agriculture, mechanical, and domestic.

[64] There were some occasional conflicts between different workers, partly because those who were educators believed themselves more aristocratic; overall, however, as historian Charles Crowe wrote, "indeed all aspects of communal life operated with surprisingly little friction" in general.

[66] The list of visitors included theologian Henry James, Sr., sculptor William Wetmore Story, artist John Sartain, and British social reformer Robert Owen.

[75] At the end of every day, many performed a "symbol of Universal Unity", in which they stood in a circle and joined hands and vowed for "truth to the cause of God and Humanity".

Many devoted time to making, in Brook Farmer Marianne Dwight's words, "elegant and tasteful caps, capes, collars, undersleeves, etc., etc.," for sale at Boston shops.

When Isaac Hecker and, later, Sophia Ripley converted to Catholicism, a Protestant Brook Farmer complained, "We are beginning to see wooden crosses around and pictures of saints ... and I suspect that rosaries are rattling under aprons.

[83] After dissociating with the community, Hawthorne demanded the return of his initial investment, though he never held any ill will toward Ripley, to whom he wrote he would "heartily rejoice at your success—of which I can see no reasonable doubt".

The New York Observer, for example, wrote, "The Associationists, under the pretense of a desire to promote order and morals, design to overthrow the marriage institution, and in the place of the divine law, to substitute the 'passions' as the proper regulator of the intercourse of the sexes", concluding that they were "secretly and industriously aiming to destroy the foundation of society".

[84] Edgar Allan Poe expressed his opinions on the community in an article titled "Brook Farm" in the December 13, 1845, issue of the Broadway Journal.

[90] He acknowledged the resemblance in his introduction, saying "in the 'Blithedale' of this volume, many readers will probably suspect a faint and not very faithful shadowing of Brook Farm, in West Roxbury, which (now a little more than ten years ago) was occupied and cultivated by a company of socialists."