The Spring 2022 Opening of the Ralph Waldo Emerson House
Ralph Waldo Emerson purchased his Concord home on the Cambridge Turnpike in 1835 and lived there until his passing in 1882. His wife Lidian remained in the house until her death in 1892, and their daughter Ellen until 1909. Since Edward Emerson’s death in 1930, the Emerson House has been owned and managed as a seasonal museum by the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association (RWEMA), a nonprofit organization founded by descendants. The house is open to the public for guided tours from April through October.
Reopening April 28, 2022
Visitors have a unique opportunity to experience Emerson’s home much as he left it with his original furnishings, art, books, and household items. The tour starts in the barn, renovated in 2020, and then moves into the house. This year we will be walking through rooms on the first and second floors.
Tour highlights include Emerson’s study where he wrote, read extensively and met with writers and artists including Henry David Thoreau, Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa May, Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Russell Lowell, Margaret Fuller, and sculptor Daniel Chester French. The parlor, where the Transcendental Club met, features paintings of his two daughters, Ellen and Edith. Visitors will hear and see additional remembrances while touring through the dining room and rooms on the second floor.
A Museum for 92 Years
The Emerson House first opened for visitors in 1930. Since then, the tours have evolved to embrace more about Emerson’s life and legacy, his impact on a young America establishing its literary place in history, and his belief in the individual. Emerson’s poems and essays still resonate with readers because of their continued relevancy.
Bicentennial Brochure cover image (2003).
Emerson House float in Concord’s 375th Birthday parade (2010).
Restored Emerson Barn (2020). Photo by B. Ewen.
Memorable Events Over the Years
The Bicentennial of Emerson’s birth in May 2003 was recognized by the Emerson Society’s sponsorship of exhibits, a lecture at Harvard by Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, and a major conference at the Massachusetts Historical Society that culminated in the monumental book Emerson Bicentennial Essays. The Concord Museum hosted a gala reception and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association (RWEMA) further celebrated by inviting the Society and other groups to the house for a 200th birthday party. RWEMA published a Bicentennial brochure about Emerson’s life and works to mark the occasion, copies of which are still available for purchase at the Emerson House.
Concord’s 375th birthday celebration in September 2010 featured a parade through town with an Emerson House float.
The Emerson Barn restoration completed in August 2020 was designed to preserve the historic structure for future generations. In Emerson’s lifetime the barn was used successively as a school, accomodations for boarders, and shelter for animals and carriages. Recently the Concord Museum featured the barn in its 2021 Holiday House Tour.
As the Emerson House reopens for the season, we look forward to welcoming new and repeat visitors this year!
— B. Ewen, Emerson House guide
