LINCOLN, MA–Tucked away in quiet woods once roamed by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Brister Freeman and Henry David Thoreau, lies the Higginson House, now home to the Walden Woods Project. This three-story Tudor revival mansion was built in 1906 for the purpose of Alexander Henry Higginson’s fox hunt company (a popular social pastime in the early 20th century) and later housed a speakeasy during the era of Prohibition. Child of prominent Bostonian parents, Henry Lee and Ida Agassiz Higginson, Alexander was well-endowed with the financial support to live a leisurely life in the rolling hills of Lincoln, Massachusetts–the same woods where less than a century before, some of America’s leading literary figures had found inspiration.
In 1989 CNN aired a report alerting the public that these grounds and the many acres surrounding it were to be torn down and transformed into a development. Many of the deforested areas nearby were already being used as dumping grounds, understood to have poor agricultural potential due to the sandy nature of the soil. A former member of the prominent 1970’s band, The Eagles, Don Henley stumbled upon this report and, having been greatly impacted by the writings and personal philosophies of Thoreau, invested himself in preserving this threatened land. By 1990, Henley had founded the Walden Woods Project to promote this attitude of preservation, stewardship, and advocacy. By 1998, the Thoreau Institute was open- the educational headquarters of the Project and home to the largest Thoreau collection in the world.
Today, the WWP and the TI grapple cohesively with modern-day quandaries concerning land preservation, educational methods, and social justice by imbuing communal conversations and ultimate professionalism with the “life, legacy, and literature” of Thoreau. With a small staff of like-minded individuals, the office is filled with a respectful discourse regarding how best to make use of Thoreau’s contributions when inspiring others to do the same.
The executive director of the Project, Kathi Anderson, served as the legislative director for Senator Edward Kennedy in his Massachusetts office before coming to the WWP. Now that the Project has flourished, there are multiple departments; each tackling a different angle through which to teach Thoreau’s ideals. Matthew Burne serves as the Conservation Director, and is a vernal pool expert, creating experiential trails and lessons for students to learn about their local ecology. In echoing Thoreau’s words, Burne’s elevated approach to wildlife becomes his “sacred place – a sanctum sanctorum.”
Just across the parking lot in the Thoreau Institute building are two more departments. Jeffrey Cramer, a librarian by training and an independent Thoreau scholar, is the Curator of Collections at the TI, and the author and editor of many books, including his own annotated version of Walden. The other department housed in the TI building (rather than the Higginson House) is the Education Department, directed by Whitney Retallic. With extensive training in higher-education program development and a commitment to social activism, Retallic fuses Thoreau’s words into those of modern-day educators.
These three primary departments come together annually to prepare for and create the summer seminar, Approaching Walden. This six-day professional development program for high school teachers implements Thoreau’s writings, world-views, and life choices as the template for instilling in young students the values of living deliberately. Through Retallic’s unique place-based education curriculum, the participants spend this intensive week exploring the literary and cultural histories of Lincoln and Concord, wrestling with the vital and controversial questions they hope to then open up to their students. Participants themselves span the gamut of departments, teaching every subject from Literature and Social Studies to Environmental Science and Photography.
Aside from department diversity, the teachers also take differing approaches to education itself, creating a rich and enveloping atmosphere within which the teachers challenge each other and themselves. At the close of the program, Richard Smith, the Thoreau impersonator from the Walden Pond State Reservation joins the WWP for a reenactment during which the teachers ask “Henry” questions about his life and writings. Following this personification, Richard returns to his twenty-first Century clothes and demeanor, and joins the seminar for a farewell dinner.
This seminar, along with the evident and earnest cohesion of the staff at the Walden Woods Project, is a testament to the goals and dedication to this institution as a whole. Although there is disagreement when responding to the common query of “What would Henry do?,” the staff remains a tightly knit community in which the betterment of the self and the world is the greatest wish. Just a fifteen-minute, huckleberry-lined trail walk to Walden Pond and the house site where Henry Thoreau spent two years reflecting and improving himself, the Walden Woods Project is an impassioned place full of sincere minds and spirits, working to cultivate the world in which Thoreau encouraged all of us to live.
For more information on the Walden Woods Project, please visit www.walden.org.
This summer, Miriam Renz worked at the Walden Woods Project as the Summer Education Programs Intern. At SCW, she is a Writing Center tutor, the editor-in-chief of the YU Journal of Fine Arts, and the editor of the Opinion section for The Observer.