USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Northampton > The Northampton book; chapters from 300 years in the life of a New England town, 1654-1954 > Part 10
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When Dr. Graham changed his lecture topic from courtship to diet, the consequences were even more climactic. The butchers were angered when he told Bostonians they were eating too much meat, and the bakers lost their much-publicized calm when he advocated home-made bread made from coarse flour.
To protect their property, the proprietors of Amory Hall locked out Dr. Graham in the winter of 1837 and he turned in vain to other hall owners. Then, he went to the owner of the Marlborough Hotel which was then nearing completion. It was to be the first temperance hotel in America, and Dr. Graham ar- gued that it should be host to the man who was lecturing on tem- perance three years before the first national temperance conven- tion was held in this country.
The hotel gave him the use of the dining room, and prepara- tions were made for his lecture. The mayor warned that there were not enough constables in Boston to protect the building and the speaker, but the hotel made its own preparations. The entire first floor was barricaded and the brave proprietor took his place at the door and faced the angry crowd that filled the streets.
As the mob closed in on the innkeeper, Graham's supporters in the upper floors put their bucket brigade into action and hurled quantities of slaked lime onto the attackers. As punning Harper's
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Magazine later wrote: "The eyes had it, and the rabble inconti- nently adjourned."
Dr. Graham had other supporters, too. David Campbell began in 1837 to edit the Graham Journal of Health and Longevity. Some friends milled Graham flour; others founded Graham boarding houses in cities all over the country; more than a few sent gifts to their leader. His controversial lectures on courtship were published in England and in Germany where he won many followers. "The Aesculapian Tablets of the Nineteenth Century" were glowing testimonials to the Graham system of diet. At Brook Farm, special tables were set for the Grahamites. Greater still was this victory: a newspaper editor, Horace Greeley him- self, became a Graham partisan!
With such successes, Dr. Graham could ignore the caustic edi- torials, the lampoons, the jokes, and even Emerson's reference to Dr. Graham as "the poet of bran bread and pumpkins."
By 1840, "the sweet morsel" of dietary debate began to get sugary and Americans wanted to hear about other things. Dr. Graham obliged by departing from his food text to discuss Bibli- cal references to the consumption of flesh meat and wine, and thus returned with full force to temperance, that dangerous meet- ing ground of politics and religion. He wandered into a North- ampton schoolhouse to listen to the Whigs one night, and he came out a workhorse for the party and a dry platform. However, he was unreliable in a double hitch. Taunting newspaper editors said that he left the party when he failed to get its endorsement for the General Court. However, his frankness in calling the Whig vice-presidential candidate of 1840 "an imbecile adjunct" probably caused him to be considered something less than a party stalwart.
Dr. Graham's poem to John Calhoun, his letter to Daniel Web- ster concerning compromises and the Constitution, and his de- nunciation of the Mexican War as "aggression upon a feeble and distracted nation," failed to gain the attention he had come to crave.
In New York, he won applause and some notice in the New York Express for saying that he would as soon die in a ballroom as in a prayer meeting for he had learned that he could consistently dance, when it was proper to do so, as to make his prayers to God. However, it was not the same as it was when thousands shouted
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in support or in derision as he expounded his ideas on mastication and digestion.
Unfortunately, Northampton recalls most vividly the Dr. Gra- ham of the last years of his life. The tall, spare man would dunk himself in the Mill River near his Pleasant St. home, then don his dressing gown and stroll along Shop Row. To a farmer bringing wood to the Connecticut River Railroad, he might shout: "To the railroad, you bring the straightest sticks, but to me, the crookedest sticks on Horse Mountain or in Lonetown. Rascal!" And then, much more mildly: "I don't mean you sir, O no, only as a representative of your class."
On August 12, 1851, the Northampton Courier added a cruel blow to a rheumatic, suffering man. The initials "A.B.C." fol- lowed this article: "Dr. Bran-his dignity and consistency. The people of Northampton were amused one day last week by see- ing this philosopher of sawdust pudding trundled on a wheel- barrow from his house to the barber's house, he being infirm and unable to walk the distance. To be sure, he occupied a low place but he has served his God so faithfully, as he solemnly professes, and has done so much to enlighten the present and especially the future generations in science and philosophy that the wheelbar- row was dignified as such a vehicle never was before. The doctor stands a chance to recover and will be able before long to do without the wheelbarrow. He has taken medicine and received treatment from an allopathic practitioner but his best physician is the keeper of the hotel hard by his dwelling with whom he luxuriates on beef and mutton."
Less than a month later, Dr. Graham died in his 58th year after submitting to stimulants, a dose of Congress water, and a tepid bath.
He left a widow and several children who had helped to care for him during a year's illness. He left his home town with a memory of a boastful, eccentric old man.
However, he left his impression on the intimate, day-to-day life of every American. As Harper's Magazine explained more than a century ago: "His rank as a benefactor will not seem slight to those who reflect on the gain to the public health and wealth resulting from the enlarged use of fruit and vegetables and that variety which so distinguishes the American from the European menu."
Chapter Fourteen
The Northampton Association of Education and Industry
By HOPE HALE DAVIS
I
C ERTAIN light sleepers of Florence in the 1840's used to be wakened before dawn on sub-zero mornings by the sound of children's voices. Those curious enough to leave a warm bed could watch an eerie procession of lanterns filing through the chill darkness along Mill River. These were lighting youngsters on their way to the basement of the Old Grist Mill where bathtubs had recently been installed for their convenience. There they broke the ice and gave themselves a brisk morning scrub. Sufficiently exhilarated to face the day ahead, they trudged back to their boarding house, tidied their rooms, took part in morning prayers, ate breakfast, and settled down at seven o'clock to their lessons. At twelve they were free to eat dinner and then start their "manual toil," from which the smaller ones were ex- cused at sunset.
Parents were so eager to provide these privileges for their young that they paid $100. per annum-no mean sum a century ago-into the treasury of the Northampton Association of Edu- cation and Industry. The school was a great success, but it was only one of many-perhaps too many-projects carried on by the association, which was itself an experiment in social cooperation.
Although today most people living here are hardly aware it ever existed, the Northampton Association was then interna- tionally famous. All over the world, newspaper and magazine readers were avidly following its progress, some of them travel- ing thousands of miles to join or study it. The members were never surprised to share a meal with such distinguished guests as
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Wendell Phillips or the great abolitionist, William Lloyd Garri- son.
A visitor in 1844 would have sat down to the common dining table with 30 men, 26 women, and 46 children under 18, most of whom lived in the dormitory which was part of the main factory. The others were scattered among the seven houses which the community owned on Nonotuck and Maple Streets and both sides of the Meadow Street bridge. They all worked-that was the cardinal rule-each at a job theoretically best suited to his tastes and talents, chosen from a fast-growing number of occupa- tions which were intended in time to make the colony self-suffi- cient. In return, each member was supposed to receive not only physical necessities but spiritual sustenance as well. The plan sounded simple enough, but putting it into practice turned out to be extremely complicated.
Communities with the same general idea were springing into existence all over the settled part of our country. The best-re- membered ones-Hopedale, Brook Farm, and Fruitlands-were here in Massachusetts. Like the others, ours was founded by peo- ple who were appalled at the general misery and degradation they saw as labor became more and more mechanized. Inspired by the dreams of such social thinkers as Fourier in France, Robert Owen in England, and our own New England writers, they hoped to lead the way to a system better calculated "to fulfill the designs of God in placing man in this life."
"It is impossible to survey the present condition of the world," their Constitution reads: "without perceiving the great evils that afflict humanity ... Life is with some a mere round of frivolous occupations or vicious enjoyments, with most a hard struggle for the bare means of subsistence. The former are exempted from productive labour while they enjoy its fruits; upon the latter it is imposed as a task with unreasonable severity, and with inadequate compensation ... " The founders maintained that "the vices of the present form and practices of civilization are so gross and palpable that no apology is required for the honest attempt to escape from them . . . "
Some communities carried their escape sensationally far. Flocks of converts seemed glad to give up the satisfactions of marriage and child-rearing for the Shakers' hardworking, monastic life relieved only by certain rather frenzied religious dance rituals.
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The Oneida Community in New York State flourished on a eugenic mating system which the founder declared had been divinely revealed by God as a method of proving the "perfecti- bility" of human beings.
The Northampton community stuck strictly to social conven- tion. "The family and the relationship between husband and wife," it was insisted, "has its foundation and support in the laws of nature and the will of God." They rejected real communism, being shrewd enough to see even then that it would thwart their chief aim, the full development of the individual.
There were no fanatics or prophets among our organizers. They were the same intelligent, normal citizens who today make a good living from the industrial community which the associa- tion helped to establish. In fact, many names of charter members -Conant, Benson, Hill, Mack, Brooks, Bottum, Judd, Scarbor- ough-are still familiar ones in Florence.
Who wouldn't have found the prospectus of the new associa- tion attractive? The lands and buildings of a big silkworm-raising and silk manufacturing company happened-providentially, it must have seemed to the founders-to be for sale at a great bargain. It had failed because the tremendous bubble of speculation in mul- berry trees and silkworm raising had just exploded. Now for only $20,000 they were offered all this Broughton's Meadow property:
"420 acres of land; six dwelling houses; a large brick factory, nearly new, four stories high, measuring one hundred and twenty by forty feet, with water wheel, gear, and shafting fit for opera- tion, and situated on a durable stream of water called Mill River, having from twenty-seven to twenty-nine feet fall; a dye-house, with necessary apparatus; a wooden building about thirty feet square, formerly used for manufacturing purposes, with water wheel, in good condition; a saw mill; Raymond's shingle mill, with patent right secured for the town of Northampton, capable of cutting 10,000 shingles per hour; a planing machine for plan- ing and jointing boards, planks and timber; turning lathes, circu- lar saws, etc .... together with machinery in the factory adapted to the manufacture of silk, and sundry other articles of personal property; also a lot of pine timber, containing about 50 acres, about a mile and a half from the saw mill . . .
There was no trouble getting the first $30,000 of stock sub-
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scribed, though not nearly enough of it was in cash, and they went ahead without waiting for the rest of the $ 100,000 they had put down as a good sum to have on hand.
Their articles of association, as preserved in Sheffeld's History of Florence, make fascinating reading. In some of them, like the one permitting members to withdraw their capital on fairly short notice, it is easy now to see danger signs. But without our hind- sight the optimistic founders had to learn the hard way.
The duty of every man, woman, and child to "perform produc- tive labour," was the first principle, along with the right of each to the fruits of his work, including the chance for self-improve- ment and education. Freedom of conscience was basic; "fair argu- ment" was "the only legitimate means of controlling the opinion or belief of others." At a time when slavery was a burning issue, they stated that "the rights of all are equal without distinction of sex, color, or condition, sect or religion." In this they practiced what they preached, without making enough ado about it to leave records of which members were white and which were colored. But from the glowing reminiscences of Frederick Douglass, who came to the community fresh from slavery, before he had made his name as a lecturer, we know that they worked and lived in harmony. Another Negro member was the famed evangelist, Sojourner Truth, who washed her co-workers' clothes in the day- time and held them spellbound by her songs and wit in the eve- ning.
"Children above the age of five years may become members," the by-laws concede, "and may engage in the industrial pursuits of the community, and receive compensation for their labour; but they shall not vote until they have attained the full age of sixteen years."
The compensation turned out to be one cent an hour for those under 12, though the typical small Northampton wage-earner could carry home to his parents two cents for each of the long hours he worked. The community rate was 41/2 cents an hour for youngsters between 16 and 20, and 6 cents for adults, a wage other Northampton employers reserved for women while lavish- ing all of 10 cents an hour on men.
Though their pay seems low, the members made out pretty well by their own account, since the association charged them only 50 cents a week for board and lodging. They would have had to
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pay a private landlady 75 cents or even a dollar. Rising prices forced the community to raise the charge to 80 cents a week for adults, with a bargain rate of 40 for children under 10.
Members who needed errands done in Northampton-a long three miles away-could use the "Daily Express" service for which Hall Judd was credited with two hours of work a day. The rates were "one cent per letter, one-half cent per newspaper, two cents for an errand or message or small purchase, and six cents for any commission or business in which the use of a wagon is re- quired."
Washing was included in the fee for board, but the rules cau- tiously added, "Should any boarder appear to have occasioned disproportionate expense on this account he will be debited with the excess." As it turned out, there were errors in the opposite direction. To one complaint that a certain member's shirt had not come back clean, the laundress replied, "It would be easier to wash several less soiled ones than one which had lasted a week." The unhappy mediator protested that the patron in question was "so stuck-up now, I don't know what I should do with him with more than one clean shirt a week."
Such domestic problems cause enough tension in the privacy of a one-family house. Where the dirty linen of a hundred people must be washed in public, an angelic disposition would seem to be the first requirement for membership. But the department which we would now call "screening and processing of applications" was disastrously lax. Discontented souls all over the world yearned for a taste of Utopia, and the yearning was likely to be most intense in those who had not been able to succeed in ordi- nary life, either because of temperamental quirks or plain in- competence. These qualifications were hardly those most likely to help the community succeed. Yet our generous and charitable founders-themselves bound together by ideals of brotherhood and tolerance-found it hard to turn away pilgrims burning with enthusiasm, even though later they might prove to be drones and dreamers. One problem type was the crackpot inventor who had nothing to offer but his invention, which was always elaborate and-like himself-seldom worked.
As happens in many groups, some whose strong backs were their chief recommendation felt themselves above menial toil, leaving the physically frail to wear themselves out at the heaviest
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jobs. It is reported that Mrs. David Mack, who taught in the school with her husband, its director, spent much of her spare time scrubbing floors. And Mrs. Adam and her daughters "en- gaged in occupations which once .. . were performed by eighteen servants ... "
Life in crowded quarters added to the strain, as Alice McBee's description of the factory boarding house suggests: "The fourth floor was divided into apartments for family use, apartments so small that they seem to have been designed with Fourier's in- junction in mind that in the 'new order' members should not re- main at home except in case of illness."
To overcome such handicaps, the ideals of the members must have operated like magic. The "fair arguments" on which they relied to promote peace and productivity must have been fair in- deed. For a visiting singer who came to entertain the community reported that "order and decorum prevailed, and joy lighted up all countenances. The distribution of labor seemed to be properly adjusted ... We saw no signs of disaffection, and our joy was full as we discussed the grand problems of the day, fully believing the whole world could be induced to come up higher into such realms of glory . . . "
On the practical side, too, the community's accomplishments were notable. At the end of the first year the secretary was able to tell an applicant, "We cultivate a farm, we sell lumber and shingles, we grow silk and manufacture it. We have amongst us teachers for the instruction of our children, blacksmiths, car- penters, masons, and shoemakers ... We need a wheelwright, a machinist, a bootmaker and baker." Soon these wants were filled, and the next year the association advertised grist mill and lumber sawing services in the Hampshire Gazette; offered to make "boots and shoes, augers, bits, chisels, etc., to shoe horses and oxen," and announced that their expert German dyer would "color dresses, shawls and stockings, wool, cotton or linen."
The silk factory was making a modest profit, and took first prize at the Three County Fair in not only raw silk but sewing silk, which the award described as "a superior article-the colors brilliant and the silk in every way well made."
The prospects looked rosy for the community's future. But if the members had known the disastrous blows that were about to fall, they might not have gone so blithely about their plans for
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starting still more enterprises. But then again they might have. They probably would have maintained that they had just begun to fight. And this was true. Many a battle-and not a few tri- umphs-were still ahead of them.
II
"What say to a little social community among ourselves?" wrote William Lloyd Garrison, the great abolitionist, to his brother-in-law. "I think we must be pretty bad folks if we can- not live together amicably within gunshot of each other."
George Benson, who promptly organized the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, needed no prodding from his famous relative. This was 1841, when dreams of a better de- sign for living were in the very air he breathed. It was a time when "hardly a reading man," according to Emerson, but carried "a draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket."
In September of that year Benson, with William Coe and Samuel Hill, formed a partnership with Hill's brother-in-law, Joseph Conant of Northampton, who was operating the business of the bankrupt Northampton Silk Company. The plant and acreage, occupying a great part of "Broughton's Meadow" along Mill River, could be made to support the new experiment.
Before the venture really got going, something happened which might have been a warning. Coe, who was chiefly inter- ested in making money, sold out his stock to someone who was not. Coe's doubts turned out to be justified. But perhaps if he had stayed on and thrown his weight on the side of caution-insisting on more capital and less haste-the story might have been longer, with a happier ending. As it was, the message of hope which the community flashed across the horizon of a troubled world was as bright and as brief as a falling star.
The group was organized for "the progressive culture and high development of all the powers and faculties of our nature; the union of spiritual, intellectual, and practical attainments; equality of rights and rank for all ... " The articles of association promised to "provide for all members and their families moral, literary, scientific, agricultural and mechanical instruction, medi- cal attendance and nursing, baths and public rooms without charge," in return for "productive labour which is the duty of every human being" over the age of five.
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To a remarkable degree these promises were kept. The living was plain, but the thinking was high, wide, and handsome; the talk among the members and with guests who brought ideas from outside was always exciting. The school was a success by any standard; its curriculum-recalled in charming detail by former pupils in Sheffeld's History of Florence-could have been the pattern for some of our modern boarding schools so advanced even now that they can charge $2000 a year. On a practical level, despite the difficulty of fitting the right man into the right job, the community attracted enough skilled personnel to start enter- prises which formed the foundation from which the thriving in- dustrial town of Florence grew. Accomplishing all this, the as- sociation could keep itself alive a scant five years. Looking back over the century, it is all too easy to see why.
Most of the period's short-lived Utopias failed because too much creative energy was spent on the spiritual side and too little on the practical. Yet others broke up for just the opposite reason. A Wisconsin "phalanx," for instance, made collectivism pay off so generously that the members could not resist the temptation to divide the profits, fold up their tenets and silently steal away. The publicity went to the failures, where such workers as Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa May at Fruitlands made more im- pression with the pen than with the plow.
Sects like the Shakers, Oneida, Mennonites, and Mormons, lived on through the century, each group bound tightly together by the discipline of a creed which cut it off from the rest of the world.
The Northampton group wanted both the fuller life and finan- cial gain, most working for the first goal and a few holding out for the second. The only belief which unified them was in the right of each person to believe differently from others. Even in planning the setup, they followed the ideas of Fourier-more or less. He called for a minimum of fifteen hundred members, but they thought forty would do nicely to start with; they based their living on the silk mill, while Fourier stipulated agriculture, regarding manufacture as a "means of diversion in ... the long winter vacations and the equatorial rains ... " And though the founders were men of intelligence, names like Garrison and Haw- thorne which might have immortalized the community were never written on the roster.
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Hawthorne decided at the last minute not to join, and his letter to David Mack announcing his change of plans should have given another kind of warning: "When I last met you," Hawthorne wrote, "I expressed my purpose of coming to North- ampton in the course of the present month. As a matter of con- science, with my present impressions, I should hardly feel justi- fied in taking such a step; for though I have faith in the general good tendency of institutions on this principle, yet I am troubled whether I am a proper subject for these beneficial influences."
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