Kate Culkin’s new book, Emerson’s Daughters: Ellen Tucker Emerson, Edith Emerson Forbes, and Their Family Legacy (University of Massachusetts Press, July 2025), is a dual biography of the sisters who worked behind the scenes to shape the image of their famous father. In honor of the book’s release this month, the Emerson House will be showcasing items from our Ellen and Edith collections, some of which will be on display to the public for the first time.

To read more about the people and places of Concord, Massachusetts, we invite you to explore the current and back issues of Discover Concord, a visitor-focused magazine available in print and online. The Emersons and their friends are frequent subjects of articles, some of which are penned by our own Emerson House guides.

Celebrating the occasion of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 222nd birthday with a look back at the world into which he was born, and the beliefs that shaped his lasting impact on it.

Introducing another of the strong women in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s life with a profile of his aunt Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley, a scholar and educator who was a lifelong friend and one of his staunchest supporters. Sarah loved learning and continued her own broad studies while caring for a growing family and working as an esteemed teacher. She was one of the five female members of the Transcendental Club.

The opening battle in America’s war for independence took place at Concord’s Old North Bridge on April 19, 1775—an event later memorialized by Emerson as the “shot heard round the world.” On the 250th anniversary of that fateful day, we look back at the Emerson family’s connections to April 19th: from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s grandparents witnessing those first shots in 1775, to his role in Concord’s centennial celebrations in 1875.

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.

Continuing a series on the strong women in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s life with a profile of his wife Lidian (Lydia) Jackson Emerson, who worked to relieve the suffering of people and animals while also managing a busy household and supporting her husband’s work. A co-founder of Concord’s Female Anti-Slavery Society, Lidian encouraged Emerson’s own involvement in the abolitionist movement.

Beginning a series on the strong women in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s life with a profile of his Aunt Mary Moody Emerson, who helped raise him after his father died and had a profound influence on his life and works. Credited as being his “earliest and best teacher,” Mary laid the foundation of Transcendentalism for her nephew and was an inspired writer in her own right. She was also active in the antislavery and women’s rights movements.

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.

Ralph Waldo Emerson had a lifelong association with the town of Concord, descending from one of its founders and periodically living with relatives there before making it his permanent home in 1835. Emerson was actively engaged in the town’s intellectual and civic life and both he and Lidian were involved in social reform movements. Nicknamed the “Sage of Concord,” one of Emerson’s greatest impacts on the town was drawing many of the leading writers, educators and reformers of the 19th century to his Concord home.

On July 24, 1872—150 years ago today—a fire started in the attic of the Emerson House and spread quickly. Neighbors rushed over to help, rescuing most of the family’s possessions and managing to save the house, although it was badly damaged. After the fire, friends raised funds to reconstruct the Emersons’ home, which still stands today with the structure intact and most of the original furnishings within.