The Ralph Waldo Emerson House

05/31/2026

"Sitting in the long window in mother’s new room, and there are the Apple-trees in bloom and perfectly full of bees, which make a summery noise. We are all of course rejoicing as usual in the approach of summer.” - Ellen Emerson, Letter, May 31, 1858.

Are you looking forward to summer too?

We welcome you to come visit and anticipate summer in the Emerson House garden.

The Emerson House is open for guided tours, Thursday through Sunday.

A special "Emerson Out of Doors" Spring garden tour will be offered on Thursday June 11, 11- 11:45 am ($7 per person).

Image: Apple blossoms and bird's nest by Olive E. Whitney (L. Prang & Co), courtesy of Library of Congress, Wikimedia Commons

05/29/2026

On Thursday June 4 , join the Lexington History Museums and public historian Richard Smith for a program on Transcendentalists Theodore Parker and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"The ideals of the American Revolution weren't realized in one generation. Learn how the grandchildren of 1775 changed the world."

Smith's talk will focus on the literary and spiritual connections between Lexington’s Theodore Parker and Concord’s Ralph Waldo Emerson, both of whom were linked to the revolutionary events of April 19, 1775 through their grandfathers. The program will examine how Parker and Emerson viewed their revolutionary heritage and how they used it to shape American literature and thought in the years leading up to the Civil War.

This event is sponsored by Lexington History Museums and will be held at The Depot in Lexington, MA, ((7-8 pm). Tickets are $10 for LHM members and $15 for non-members.

Tickets can be purchased through Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/abundant-heresies-the-revolutions-of-theodore-parker-and-ralph-w-emerson-tickets-1985103124884?fbclid=IwY2xjawSGc9hleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeJ0EsJJw8t1YMTT-fJh2bPvhANBSCI67zIe6JT73v7m93vNYHd7F2EtUp--s_aem_kqtIPhsZa390dTZ7Z1lgwg

The ideals of the American Revolution weren't realized in one generation. Learn how the grandchildren of 1775 changed the world.

05/25/2026

We are resharing last year's Lyceum Blog post in honor of Ralph Waldo Emerson's birthday:

https://rwema.org/blog/born-believing-emersons-birthday?fbclid=IwY2xjawSBJ4ZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeomnJpc5BANafw6zPV6sBhFmqQajlvJ7kROVi3q1mYnppkNeAgwkAW9196Pc_aem_LDZPQk9uMF-xFDna41vr1g

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.

05/25/2026

In honor of Memorial Day we share the last stanza from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Concord Hymn” (1837):

“Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.”

Image: Postcard depicting the Revolutionary War monuments at Concord’s North Bridge (circa 1930-1945, Tichnor Brothers), courtesy of the Boston Public Library and The Digital Commonwealth.

05/25/2026

"We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples." - Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Worship”, Conduct of Life, 1860.

With gratitude for all his fine fruits of thought, we celebrate Ralph Waldo Emerson's life on his birthday. Many happy returns, Waldo!

Image: Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1850. Courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University [collection bMS Am 1280.235 (706.2)], Wikimedia Commons.

05/22/2026

In Spring 1871, Ralph Waldo Emerson embarked on a trip to California. He traveled with his daughter Edith, her husband, and in-laws, Sarah and John Murray Forbes. Other friends and relatives, including James Thayer, the husband of Emerson’s cousin Sophia Ripley Thayer, were also in the traveling party. Emerson had traveled west before on lecture tours, but never as far as California. The recently completed transcontinental railroad now made the trip possible. The group enjoyed the journey in a luxurious Pullman “palace” car, reaching California in eleven days.

This was a pleasure trip. But Emerson’s elder daughter Ellen had wisely packed some lecture manuscripts for him, foreseeing that he would be invited to speak in San Francisco. The group went sightseeing in Utah, around San Francisco, and Yosemite, where Emerson met and hiked with thirty-three-year-old naturalist and preservationist John Muir.

Yosemite, with its expansive and breathtaking natural wilderness, was a culmination in Emerson’s Transcendental experiences. Then beginning struggling with words due to increasing aphasia, Emerson found the “grandeur” of Yosemite “unmatched,” and he saw the mountains as emblems of American independence with “liberty” snow caps. Muir compared Emerson himself to the great sequoias.

Emerson celebrated his sixty-eighth birthday (May 25th) in Wyoming during the return journey, arriving back in Concord on May 30th.

When you visit the Emerson House, you can see souvenir photographs by Carleton Watkins, whose studio Emerson visited, and if you’d like to learn more about Emerson’s travels, pick up a copy of Brian C. Wilson’s "The California Days of Ralph Waldo Emerson" or Tyler Green's "Carleton Watkins and the Making of the American West" in our book shop.

The Emerson House is currently open Thursdays-Sundays.

Images:
1. Portrait of John Muir by Carleton Watkins (1875, University of Pacific Digital Collections, Wikimedia Commons).
2. "The Grizzly Giant [sequoia tree] with a group on hunters at the foot of the Tree, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite" by Carleton Watkins, Boston Public Library, Wikimedia Commons.

05/19/2026

Join us on Thursday, June 11th for a spring tour of the Emerson House garden & grounds as the roses come into bloom:

Join us for a leisurely tour of Emerson’s garden and grounds as Lidian’s beloved roses come into bloom. Along the way, we’ll consider how the landscape has evolved as it continues to reflect the Emersons’ interest in the natural world and our relationship to it. Meet in the Emerson House boo...

05/18/2026

Barrow Bookstore shares with us Emerson's "Merlin's Song"