Steps to Sustainability Part 8 of a Series: Origins of Sustainability in the USA – Emerson and Thoreau

By Richard W. Franke Professor Emeritus of Anthropology: Montclair State University, New Jersey Resident: Ecovillage at Ithaca; Board Member of Sustainable Tompkins Vol. 6; No. 32, June 18-24, 2012; pages 6 and 11

The true ancestors of “Nature is a language… I wish to sustainability in America are the learn…that I may read the great book Native Peoples of the Western that is written in that tongue.” Hemisphere. As we saw in earlier Emerson’s views were considered articles, they developed the state- heretical by many traditional level environmental policies of the Christians of the time who saw Inca, the managed sub-climax forest transcendentalism as an attack on the successions in the Eastern Woodlands Bible. and the Three Sisters method of high- Emerson’s chief protégé and output low-soil-loss agriculture colleague was Henry David Thoreau exemplified in the Finger Lakes area (1817−1862). Thoreau infused by the Haudenosaunee people. The Emerson’s intellectual beliefs into his European conquerors and immigrants daily life, arguing that by simple living paid little attention to the land and direct contact with nature we can management skills of their victims discover the transcendental life-force and it was only in the 1980s that otherwise obscured by materialistic modern science began seriously urges. In 1845 Thoreau moved into investigating the Native achievements the woods on a piece of property and their relevance for the wider owned by Emerson. Thoreau lived society. there for a little over two years, The sustainability movement in building himself a 10-foot-by-15-foot the USA found its earliest inspirations cabin for about $28.50, mostly in the 19th Century writings of two producing his own food, heating fuel intellectuals of European origin. Ralph and other necessities and keeping a Waldo Emerson (1803−1882) was a detailed journal of his experiment founder of Transcendentalism, a which he published in 1854 under the philosophy which includes the title Walden or, Life in the Woods. The proposition that the supernatural is approximately 250 pages of Walden revealed through nature and that all include detailed descriptions of the plants and animals partake in some geology, the plants, animals, visitors, way of the supernatural (Elgin sunsets supplemented with 1993:52). Emerson wrote that ruminations about civilization’s impact on the natural world. He sense…and action.” Thoreau went on especially loved and studied one of to criticize the newspaper hysteria several ponds on the property. surrounding Brown’s raid on Harper’s Walden is considered the founding Ferry. Most famously, however, in “nature book,” now a literary genre 1849 Thoreau published “On the Duty associated especially with American of Civil Disobedience.” In this essay of writers (Webster 1965:viii). Walden about 20 pages, he explained his Pond eventually became famous and refusal to pay taxes that would be is now the Commonwealth of used either to support the war against Massachusetts Walden Pond State Mexico or to acquiesce in the Reservation at Concord, a few miles institution of slavery: “I cannot for an outside of Boston. Emerson and instant recognize that political Thoreau are viewed by many as organization as my government which originators of “voluntary simplicity,” a is the slave’s government also” concept now much in vogue among (Thoreau 1965 [1849]:254). He also sustainability activists. They saw criticized the wrongs against Native simplicity as a rejection of excessive Americans. Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma accumulation of goods and a search Gandhi and Martin Luther King among for a richer inner life (Elgin others have stated that this essay had 1993:51−52). a great influence on their political Like Emerson, Thoreau combined development. In April of 1871 his connection to nature with a Emerson was on a tour of the powerful sense of social justice – Western US and stopped at Yosemite something modern advocates realize where he was introduced to a young is essential for sustainability to be naturalist named John Muir who achieved. Thoreau was an ardent anti- would go on to found the Sierra Club. slavery abolitionist. In 1859 he wrote And thus the story of American “A Plea for Captain John Brown,” environmentalism continues. calling him “a man of rare common

Richard W. Franke is a resident of Ecovillage at Ithaca and a board member of Sustainable Tompkins.

Elgin, Duane. 1993. Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life that is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rewarding. New York: William Morrow. Revised Edition.

Thoreau, Henry David. 1965 (1854;1849). Walden or, Life in the Woods and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. New York: Harper and Row.

Webster, Harvey Curtis. 1965. Biography, in Thoreau, Henry David. 1965 (1854;1849). Walden or, Life in the Woods and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. New York: Harper and Row. Pp. vii-ix