The Ralph Waldo Emerson House

09/06/2026

179 years ago today, on September 6, 1847, Henry David Thoreau left his residency on Ralph Waldo Emerson's woodlot at Walden Pond.

There is still time to join this morning's guided walk along the original boundaries of the Emerson's land in Walden Woods. Concord historian Richard Smith will take you to Thoreau's bean field, and talk you with about the notable visitors Emerson brought to Walden, what he envisioned for the land, and how Emerson's heirs honored his and Thoreau's legacy at Walden Pond.

This free event is co-sponsored by the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association (RWEMA) and The Walden Woods Project, in cooperation with Walden Pond State Reservation.

Meet at the Walden Pond Visitors Center for an 11 a.m. start. We hope you will also join us afterwards for a guided tour of the Emerson House, open from 1-4 p.m. on Sundays.

https://rwema.org/events/emersons-woodlots-at-walden?fbclid=IwY2xjawUKVN9wZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR7FsHbndadUfxp4qXz8UA-ry6-3w1S21X3KHNYQT6Ku0RwPOnDhAvEMRJNSoA_aem_X-L4ve4p01yrCCXUnvyPSQ

Join Concord historian Richard Smith for an exploration of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s woodlots at Walden Pond—land made famous by Henry David Thoreau’s time there. Walden was a frequent destination in Emerson’s daily nature walks, shared with loved ones and enjoyed in solitary contemplation. Meet...

09/05/2026

Tomorrow morning, take a walk and learn about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s legacy at Walden Pond!

This FREE program, co-sponsored by the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association and The Walden Woods Project, will be led by Concord historian Richard Smith. Meet at the Walden Pond Visitor Center. The program begins at 11 AM.

Join Concord historian Richard Smith for an exploration of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s woodlots at Walden Pond—land made famous by Henry David Thoreau’s time there. Walden was a frequent destination in Emerson’s daily nature walks, shared with loved ones and enjoyed in solitary contemplation. Meet...

09/03/2026

This weekend: On Sunday, September 6 (11am-12:30pm) Join Concord historian Richard Smith to explore Emerson’s Woodlots at Walden Pond!

Together, we will walk the original boundaries of Emerson's land, see Thoreau's bean field; talk about the notable visitors Emerson brought to Walden, and learn about Emerson's plans for his woodlot and what his heirs did with it.

This free event is co-sponsored by the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association (RWEMA) and The Walden Woods Project, in cooperation with Walden Pond State Reservation. Meet at the Walden Pond Visitors Center for an 11 a.m. start. We hope you will also join us afterwards for a guided tour of the Emerson House, open from 1-4 p.m. on Sundays.

For more information on this program, please see our event page on our website:

Join Concord historian Richard Smith for an exploration of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s woodlots at Walden Pond—land made famous by Henry David Thoreau’s time there. Walden was a frequent destination in Emerson’s daily nature walks, shared with loved ones and enjoyed in solitary contemplation. Meet...

09/01/2026

The Concord Bridge features Edward Emerson's art currently on exhibition at the Concord Free Public Library.

"Celebrating the Art of Edward Waldo Emerson" is on view for a few more days, closing on September 10, 2026.

The exhibition is a collaboration of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association and the Concord Free Public Library, co-sponsored by the Concord Cultural Council and the Concord Center Cultural District, with funding from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

https://concordbridge.org/index.php/2026/09/01/cheered-by-art-and-nature-emerson-exhibition-draws-to-close/?fbclid=IwY2xjawUD1ShwZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMXQwTXpDQ2dCR202d1V3MVNzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEejJ_inmU73hw7ooSfCsipg0xV-_ui46LMTWD6lX6RHMqM_3EK10LtMdnTRlM_aem_gGHNlrdz0HYIC-JGvo6_Dw

The Concord Free Public Library's exhibition of artwork by Edward Waldo Emerson ends September 10.

09/01/2026

The rosehips at the Emerson House are looking autumnal!

September

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the turbulent beauty
Of a gusty Autumn day,
Poet on a sunny headland
Sighed his soul away.

Farms the sunny landscape dappled,
Swandown clouds dappled the farms,
Cattle lowed in mellow distance
Where far oaks outstretched their arms.

Sudden gusts came full of meaning,
All too much to him they said,
Oh, south winds have long memories,
Of that be none afraid.

I cannot tell rude listeners
Half the tell-tale South-wind said,--
'T would bring the blushes of yon maples
To a man and to a maid.

📷: Kristi Martin

08/31/2026

189 years ago, on August 31, 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered an address, later known as “The American Scholar,” to the Phi Beta Kappa Society of his Alma-mater Harvard.

Emerson spoke to an audience of more than 200 people, including prominent Boston intellectual elites, his wife, Lidian, and friends and associates. Transcendentalist teachers Margaret Fuller and Bronson Alcott, whose controversial Temple School was in decline, were among those who gathered at the First Parish of Cambridge to hear Emerson speak on the scholar's nature and duties.

Emerson made a case for a fresh approach to literature, intellectualism, and education. He proclaimed that society had cut man off from his whole nature, and that in his true nature a scholar was more than an intellect.
Emerson argued that the scholar should be “Man Thinking”—this indicated an active state of being, not an attribute. The implication of Emerson’s provocative drift was that to be a scholar one did not have to be a Phi Beta Kappa member, or a student of Harvard, or, indeed, of any college. Instead he declared, “every man a student.” The most important teachers were not professors or the curriculum's rote book education, but nature and self-knowledge. As it was, Emerson complained, “instead of man thinking we have the bookworm,” who passively absorbed knowledge rather than creating it anew. “The book, the college, the school of art, the intuition of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. … But,” he declared, “genius looks forward…” with a progressive impetus. He said, “There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.”

Books and vestiges of the past were useful, but only as sources of inspiration in a process of continuing creation, which according to Emerson, was the primary duty of the scholar. By actively engaging with life and moral principles, the province of knowledge was as much that of the farm laborer as the college student or professor.

Emerson’s address carried forth the themes introduced in "Nature" (1836), with germs of his future essays, such as “Self-Reliance” and “The Poet.” In its tone of liberation from institutional conventions, it also foreshadowed his more controversial “Divinity School Address,” delivered the following summer.

While the address alienated portions of his audience, it was a success. 500 copies of Emerson’s oration were printed and sold out within a month. Fifty years later, poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, who had been in attendance, called Emerson’s address America’s “Declaration of Independence.”

Image: Drawing by Eliza Susan Quincy of Harvard alumni exiting the First Parish meetinghouse (1836), Wikimedia Commons.

08/30/2026

From Emerson’s study to the Robbins family’s legacy to centuries of Concord treasures, our town’s museums bring history to life- plan your visit today!
Learn more about these Chamber member organizations and so many more:
concordchamberofcommerce.org

08/28/2026

Join scholar Russell C. Powell on September 8th for a public research talk at the Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) at Harvard Divinity School: [HDS Talk] Emancipating Ecology: The Emerson-Thoreau Fault Line and Why It Matters for the Climate Crisis

Why is Thoreau a hero of environmental politics—but not Emerson? Join scholar Russell C. Powell for a public research talk revisiting Emerson’s universalism alongside Thoreau’s attention to place, asking how environmental politics can address climate injustice while remaining grounded in parti...

08/27/2026

Join author Bruce Nichols in conversation with Thoreau scholar Richard Smith about Nichols’s acclaimed new book on September 24th at First Parish in Concord : The Emerson Circle: A Conversation with Bruce Nichols

Join author Bruce Nichols in conversation with local historian and Thoreau expert Richard Smith about Nichols’s acclaimed new book, The Emerson Circle —an engaging look back at the Transcendentalists of 1840s Concord, MA and their enduring influence on the way we think about what it means to be ...

08/26/2026

The latest from the Lyceum, our blog: Emma Lazarus’s Visit to the Emerson House

Emma Lazarus is best known for the lines from her sonnet “The New Colossus” (1883) —“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”—immortalized on the Statue of Liberty. In 1876, when she was invited to the Emersons’ Concord home, she was an emerging poet...