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The Thoreau Society is proud to announce that the Thoreau Society Shop at Walden Pond has moved into its new home at the Walden Pond Visitor Center.

In 2015 the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) began the construction of a new visitor center at Walden Pond State Reservation. The construction phase of the building was completed last fall with a ribbon-cutting ceremony which took place on September 27, 2016.

The new visitor center is a state-of-the-art facility, designed with green technology in mind. Impressive for its small carbon footprint, the...

Reading Thoreau’s Gait by Brent Ranalli

“Every movement reveals us....We judge a horse not only by seeing him handled on a racecourse, but also by seeing him walk, and even by seeing him rest in a stable.”

Michel de Montaigne

–Michel de Montaigne1

Thoreau was a prodigious walker. By his own account, his constitution required walking four hours a day at least.2 And he did not walk as others did. His contemporaries agreed...

Call for Papers, MLA 2018: "Thoreau and Material Culture"

“Thoreau and Material Culture”

Call for Papers for a guaranteed session sponsored by the Thoreau Society

Modern Language Association Annual Conference, New York City, January 4-7, 2018

How do material objects enrich our understanding of Thoreau’s literary, natural-history, and politically-minded endeavors? How might tangible things deepen our sense of the author’s work, life, and world? What insights can we gain by recovering objects associated with his work, home, and place? The Thoreau Society...

Marjorie Harding Memorial Fellowship

Recipients receive $1,000 towards travel and research expenses at archives in the Greater-Boston area on Thoreau related projects, as well as free attendance at the Thoreau Society Annual Gathering held in Concord, MA in early July.

Both emerging and established scholars, as well as Thoreau enthusiasts, are encouraged to apply.

Preference will be given to those candidates who will use the Thoreau Society’s Walter Harding Collection housed at the Thoreau Institute for at least part of the fellowship period, but applicants intending to use any of the Thoreau Society...

America and Iran, at Walden Pond

This past July, Iranian scholar Alireza "Ali" Taghdarreh left his country for the first time to visit America. Taghdarreh has produced the first-ever Persian translation of Walden. We were honored to have him come to Concord to speak at our 2015 Annual Gathering "Thoreau's Sense of Place."

The Walden Woods Project invited Taghdarreh to speak at the Institute to celebrate their 25th anniversary. He was introduced by their chairman, Don Henley, of the Eagles. You may...

Thoreau & FDR

In a recent article in the Chicago Tribune, "10 Things You Might Not Know about Fear," Mark Jacob and Stephan Benzkofer mentioned the relatively obscure origins of FDR's famous declaration in the face of the Great Depression, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!" As Jacob and Benzkofer report, Eleanor Roosevelt was once asked about the origins of this frequently quoted sentence in her husband's first...

Progress on new Visitor Center at Walden Pond

On September 30, 2014, the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) held a community meeting to gather additional input from stakeholders, including the Thoreau Society, on the design of the new Visitor Center at Walden Pond. Construction of the new building, which will include exhibit space and a bookstore, will begin in the spring of 2015 and finish in 2016. Through the Friends of Walden Pond, our long-term partnership with the DCR...

Parabola Nation; or, the Power of Disparate Things, by Patrick Chura

In “Walking,” Thoreau not only defines sauntering as one of his cherished pursuits; he also self-consciously chooses a “perfectly symbolical” shape or contour for his sauntering journeys: "The outline which would bound my walks would be, not a circle, but a parabola . . .like one of those cometary orbits, which have been thought to be non-...

Creative Economy Grant from UMass

2012-2013: The Thoreau Society received a $28,000 Creative Economy Grant from the University of Massachusetts. We are using the award to establish the Walden Climate Change Collaborative, create a new website for the Thoreau Society, and fund internships at the Thoreau Society.

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