When the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association (RWEMA) took ownership of the Emerson House in 1930 and turned it into a seasonal museum, the original contents of Emerson’s study were moved across the street to a replica in the Concord Museum to preserve year-round access for visitors. Today, both can be visited. In 2020, the Concord Museum produced a short video tour of Emerson’s home study, discussing its importance both to Emerson and as the intellectual center of mid-19th century America.

The friendship between two intellectual powerhouses of the mid-nineteenth century—Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson—began with a visit to Concord in 1836. Fuller later joined the “Transcendental Club” and her book Woman in the Nineteenth Century—the first major feminist work in America—grew from an essay published in The Dial magazine under Emerson’s editorship.

The history and provenance of Diamond the rocking horse, a beloved family artifact in the Emerson House nursery. Already an antique when Lidian Jackson bought it in 1825, Diamond took a circuitous route to Concord, its story touching on themes of childhood, illness, family, and domesticity—and involving two dramatic incidents at sea.

The late Robert D. Richardson Jr.’s final book, Three Roads Back (Princeton University Press, 2023) explores how Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William James each coped with the grief of losing loved ones. Emerson lost his first wife, Ellen, to tuberculosis after less than two years of marriage, and his first child, Waldo, died of scarlet fever at the age of five.

On this Father’s Day, a look back at the father figures in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s life and his own role as a devoted father to the four children he shared with Lidian: Waldo, Ellen, Edith, and Edward.

A biographical profile of Ralph Waldo & Lidian’s youngest child, Edward Waldo Emerson. Trained as a doctor, Edward practiced medicine until his father’s death, after which he left the profession and spent his time writing, painting, and editing his father’s manuscripts.

A biographical profile of Lydia “Lidian” Jackson, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s second wife, whom he married on September 14, 1835. The newlyweds moved to their Concord home the following day, where they would remain together for the next 47 years.