The Thoreau Society has been celebrating its Annual Gathering since its founding in 1941. Thoreau Society members and enthusiasts from around the world gather in Concord each year around the time of Thoreau’s birthday on July 12.
Our Keynote speakers have featured a diverse group of individuals, all inspired by Thoreau in some way, such as Joyce Carol Oates, Arun Gandhi, and Edward O. Wilson. Milestones marked by Annual Gatherings include the discovery of the Walden cabin by Roland Robbins in 1944, the first open house of the Thoreau Institute in 1998, and the celebration of the 200th Anniversary of Thoreau’s birth in 2017.
2026: Living Well: Thoreau, Health, and Flourishing
“Nature is but another name for health,” Thoreau wrote in “Huckleberries,” an essay he left unpublished at his death at age 44 from tuberculosis. Thoreau celebrated health even as he battled his final illness. He found ways to flourish in spite of a body, and a society, that was anything but well. In our own time, when civic and natural ailments are both chronic and acute, what can Thoreau, and his time, show us about the conditions that promote flourishing—physical, mental, spiritual, social, ecological—as well as the conditions that hinder or prevent it? How can we be well in a troubled world? How can we live well in troubled times? For the 2026 Annual Gathering, we hope to explore some of the many aspects of health in Thoreau’s world and ours.
2025: Thoreau’s REVOLUTIONS
In 2025, amid the multi-year celebration of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, the Annual Gathering explored Thoreau’s efforts to understand the political, social, cultural, economic, and spiritual revolutions that shaped his world, and his efforts to foment revolution in his own time.
Explore the 2025 Annual Gathering Program
Highlights included:
- Keynote Speaker Camille T. Dungy on “Against Solitude: Rethinking Thoreau”
- Featured opening night speaker Peter Wirzbicki
- Sneak Preview of the forthcoming Henry David Thoreau documentary and a discussion with the directors.
- Performance of “Thoreau” movement from Charles Ives’s Second Pianoforte Sonata (Concord, Mass., 1840–60)
- And over 75 presentations exploring the theme of Thoreau’s Revolutions.
Watch the “Rethinking Revolution” Panel
Did you miss the first panel of the Annual Gathering on June 14? Watch the recording here or on our Youtube channel where more recordings from the Annual Gathering are available.
2024: thoreau & RESILIENCE
In 2024, the Annual Gathering examined Thoreau and resilience writ large — nature’s resilience, Thoreau’s pursuit of cultural and political resilience, the resilient individual who was Thoreau, and the resilience of Thoreau’s legacy in our own times.
Highlights included the following:
Dana S. Brigham Memorial Keynote Lecture: “Thoreau’s Threshold: Temporal Imagination as Public Good”
“The Durable Texts: Editing Thoreau”
“A Conversation: Personal Stories of Thoreauvian Resilience”