SOURCE: "Fourierism and the Founding of Brook Farm," in The Boston Public Library Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 2, April, 1960, pp. 79-88.

In the following essay, Crowe argues that Fourier's socialist ideology influenced the development of Brook Farm from the community's inception in 1841.

In the summer of 1843 a blaze of enthusiasm for the socialist ideas of Charles Fourier swept through the ranks of American reformers, and one hastily-formed phalanx after another began to appear in the backlands of Pennsylvania and New York. Late in the year when the New York Fourierists met in Boston with representatives of the Brook Farm, Northampton, and Hopedale communities, the Brook Farm delegation came out solidly in support of "scientific" socialism. The official conversion of Brook Farm to socialism came after the delegates returned to West Roxbury, filled with enthusiasm for Fourierist ideas. George Ripley, the community president, appointed a committee to draw up a new...