Walden Pond: A History

by W. Barksdale Maynard

Overview

Perhaps no other natural setting has as much literary, spiritual, and environmental significance for Americans as Walden Pond. Some 700,000 people visit the pond annually, and countless others journey to Walden in their mind, to contemplate the man who lived there and what the place means to us today.
Here is the first history of the Massachusetts pond Thoreau made famous 150 years ago. W. Barksdale Maynard offers a lively and comprehensive account of Walden Pond from the early nineteenth century to the present. From Thoreau's first visit at age 4 in 1821—"That woodland vision for a long time made the drapery of my dreams"—to today's efforts both to conserve the pond and allow public access, Maynard captures Walden Pond's history and the role it has played in social, cultural, literary, and environmental movements in America. Along the way Maynard details the geography of the pond; Thoreau's and Emerson's experiences of Walden over their lifetimes; the development of the cult of Thoreau and the growth of the pond as a site of literary and spiritual pilgrimages; rock star Don Henley's Walden Woods Project and the much publicized battle to protect the pond from developers in the 1980s; and the vitally important ecological symbol Walden Pond has become today.
Exhaustively researched, vividly written, and illustrated with historical photographs and the most detailed maps of Thoreau country yet created, Walden Pond: A History reveals how an ordinary pond has come to be such an extraordinarily inspiring symbol.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195168419
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/12/2004
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	9.68(w) x 6.08(h) x 1.08(d)

About the Author

W. Barksdale Maynard teaches architectural history at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Delaware and is the author of Architecture in the United States, 1800-1850. He has served as a consultant for The Walden Woods Project and was a visiting scholar at the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods. He lives in Newark, Delaware.

Table of Contents

	List of Maps	vi
	Preface and Acknowledgments	vii
1	In Morning Time	1
2	Visited at All Seasons (1821-1834)	15
3	Intellectual Grove (1835-1844)	29
4	Far Off As I Lived (1845-1847)	63
5	Viewed from a Hilltop (1848-1854)	95
6	Walden Wood Was My Forest Walk (1855-1861)	121
7	All Honest Pilgrims (1862-1882)	153
8	Thoreau's Country (1883-1921)	191
9	Walden Breezes (1922-1959)	229
10	In These Days of Confusion and Turmoil (1960-1989)	265
11	walden.org (1990-2003)	301
	Abbreviations	335
	Notes	337
	Bibliography	363
	Index	389

Editorial Reviews

"Important, illuminating, and of great narrative appeal."—Natural History

"A painstakingly researched, reportorial history that begins with Thoreau's first glimpse of the pond in 1821 and carries through to the present day. It's a classic tale of Americans loving their national treasures to death...This book will surely appeal to Thoreau buffs and to those concerned with natural and historic preservation. It provides a comprehensive history of the landscape that inspired one of America's most important authors."—Publishers Weekly

"Delightful and engaging...A clear, evenhanded rendering of a complex human drama."—Philadelphia Inquirer

"Maynard has delivered what will be the enduring chronicle, from Thoreau's first dream to our time, of one of America's and the world's most important historical sites."—Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University

"Essential for readers of Thoreau."—Kirkus Reviews

"Fresh and original. This book is going to be a standard work for anyone interested in the legacy of Thoreau and transcendentalism in America."—Donald Worster, author of Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas

"Maynard's move to disengage Walden the idea—the shrine of the environmental movement—from Walden the place, one that 'has long been a beloved swimming hole for greater Boston,' has helped him to construct a scholarly study of an iconic, if less than idyllic place."—John Motyka, The New York Times Book Review

"An eminently readable, deeply informed account of the tangled history of one of this country's most sacred—and contested—places."—Lawrence Buell, author of Emerson

"A tour de force...I stand in awe of what Mr. Maynard has been able to do."—Edmund Schofield, Thoreau Society Bulletin

"This is a book we have long needed, and Maynard is clearly the person to have written it. Painstakingly researched, delightfully written—Maynard tells a fascinating story that's a joy to read."—Bradley P. Dean, editor of Thoreau's Faith in a Seed

"Whether Thoreau himself, his biographers, an early 1900s photographer, or dirt-on-the-hands naturalists, each such person's affinity for a special spot at Walden will resonate with Maynard's readers. The intimacy this generates in Maynard's history only strengthens its vitally important contribution to Thoreauvian studies."—Booklist

"W. Barksdale Maynard picks up where Henry David Thoreau left off. In the pond that Thoreau transformed into a symbol of spirituality, the birthplace of environmentalism, and a classic of American literature, Maynard discerns a fascinating mirror of a changing American culture. Combining environmental, social, and literary history, Maynard surveys the clashing interests at the pond and plumbs the conflicts of American life. As his thorough study makes plain, lovers of Walden have at once helped to preserve and to endanger their sanctuary. If that special place is to survive for new generations, it requires sensitivity to the many purposes it has served. Walden Pond bears a complex past. Thanks to Maynard, it may continue to enjoy an inspiring future."—Robert A. Gross, University of Connecticut

"Maynard's superb social, cultural, and environmental history of Walden Pond brings alive its history, from geological times through Thoreau's stay there to the trailer park and town dump of the present. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in Thoreau, Walden, or the American environmental movement."—Joel Myerson, editor of Transcendentalism: A Reader

From the Publisher

Maynard's move to disengage Walden the idea -- the shrine of the environmental movement -- from Walden the place, one that ''has long been a beloved swimming hole for greater Boston,'' has helped him to construct a scholarly study of an iconic, if less than idyllic place.
— The New York Times

John Motyka

As Maynard dismayingly shows, since the death of Henry David Thoreau, hundreds of thousands of visitors have flocked to Walden Woods each year; they have trampled the flora, polluted the water with debris and urine, blared radios, set up hot dog stands and generally marred the face of this once sacred retreat. Maynard quotes one disheartened visitor who described Walden Pond in the 20th century as "a mass of humanity, a stew of frantic motion, boom boxes and squealing children." In this history of the pond and its surroundings, Maynard relates that in the past 10 years matters have improved markedly. Rock star Don Henley spearheaded the Walden Woods Project, raising millions of dollars for preservation; yet Thoreauvian purists remain skeptical about a Hollywood figure taking charge and pandering for corporate sponsorship. What would Thoreau think about the dramatic changes that have taken place in his name? How did an ordinary pond come to have such extraordinary meanings? Maynard, an architectural historian who has served as a consultant to the Walden Woods Project, tackles all of these questions in a painstakingly researched, reportorial history that begins with Thoreau's first glimpse of the pond in 1821 and carries through to the present day. It's a classic tale of Americans loving their national treasures to death, and though the middle portion of the narrative becomes a bit repetitive with its blow-by-blow account of the growth of crass commercialism, this book will surely appeal to Thoreau buffs and to those concerned with natural and historic preservation. It provides a comprehensive history of the landscape that inspired one of America's most important authors. 85 b&w illus. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

The history-starting mostly from the Emersonian/Thoreauvian era-of America's most famous pond and enduring symbol of the environmental movement. Maynard (Architectural History/Johns Hopkins Univ. and Univ. of Delaware) first visited the site as a student in 1986 and with this work moves near the head of the very large class of pond-o-philes. His study, which follows a loose dawn-to-dark pattern, bears a slightly misleading title: He spends a few pages on the geological history of the pond but his cynosure is principally Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) and his enduring influence. The glacial pond, says Maynard, replaces its water every five years through leaching and rainfall. There is no spring feeding the pond; no streams flow from it. Thoreau first saw the 61.5-acre lake in 1821 and lived his famous two years there in 1845-47. Maynard properly revises several popular misconceptions about Thoreau, who was not alone in the wilderness. From his little house (10x15 ft.) he could see both the Concord road and the railroad; he had many visitors; he frequently saw his family, who lived hard by. Still, he did go to the site countless times-before and after his celebrated sojourn-sounding its depths, staring at stumps, becoming an authority on its flora and fauna. Maynard quotes liberally from Walden and from Thoreau's journals; he quotes, as well, from letters, journals, and publications of many others-Thoreau's coevals and their successors, ranging from Jack Kerouac to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, who lived in his own Thoreauvian cabin. Later portions deal with the encroachments of "civilization" over the last 150 years and the ferocious defense of the pond by assorted groups, most successfully theWalden Woods Project (for whom the author has worked), which raised millions of dollars under the leadership of Eagles rocker Don Henley to buy adjacent lands eyed greedily by developers and local government alike and to establish the Thoreau Institute. Great maps show who's owned what around the pond. Essential for readers of Thoreau. (85 halftones)

Kirkus Reviews