Charles Lane (1800–1870) was an English-American transcendentalist and abolitionist. Along with Amos Bronson Alcott, he was one of the main founders of Fruitlands.
Lane was an admirer of Bronson Alcott and established the Alcott House based on his philosophy of teaching. The two met in 1842, when Alcott had traveled to England to enlist support and people for his experiment in communal living. Lane offered his support and returned to the United S...
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Charles Lane (1800–1870) was an English-American transcendentalist and abolitionist. Along with Amos Bronson Alcott, he was one of the main founders of Fruitlands.
Lane was an admirer of Bronson Alcott and established the Alcott House based on his philosophy of teaching. The two met in 1842, when Alcott had traveled to England to enlist support and people for his experiment in communal living. Lane offered his support and returned to the United States with Alcott on October 21, 1842. The next May, Lane purchased the 90-acre (360,000 m) Wyman Farm in Harvard, Massachusetts for $1800. They had moved to the farm on June 1 and optimistically gave it the name "Fruitlands", despite only ten old apple trees on the property. A month later, Alcott announced the community in The Dial: "We have made an arrangement with the proprieter of an estate of about a hundred acres, which liberates this tract from human ownership".
In principle, the Fruitlands reformers did not believe in purchasing...
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