Saving Thoreau's Birthplace: How Citizens Rallied to Bring Henry Out of the Woods

A story of citizens who joined forces and worked through their differences to prevent a cultural landmark from being lost forever.

In 1995, plans were under way to destroy the 18th-century house in Concord, Massachusetts, where Henry David Thoreau was born. The 20 acres on which it stood, the final piece of the original farm that had been cultivated for 300 years, would make way for an upscale housing development. The saga of how a group of unlikely allies banded together to save, preserve, and re-use the house--not as a museum but as "a birthplace of ideas"--serves as an important reminder of the power of grassroots resistance and a fervent call to revive the lost art of finding common ground. It is an inspiring example of citizenship at its best--a tribute to what can be accomplished by the few, for the many.

"Today, Thoreau remains central to our memory and imagination. The house in Concord where he was born, and our ability to preserve it, epitomizes the notion of 'heritage' on a direct, sensible scale that is in the Thoreau spirit."

--Robert Pinsky, former U.S. Poet Laureate and honorary chairman of the

Thoreau Birthplace Campaign

"Houses make journeys: through time and sometimes across space. This record of a successful attempt to rescue a part of Concord's literary landscape before it subsided to neglect, rot, and the developer's bulldozers, is an unexpected page-turner. Local activism and moral passion for the benefit of future generations has rarely been elucidated so compellingly."

--Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked, Out of Oz, and Egg & Spoon

"A powerful story with a happy ending. Huge amounts of hard work were required--and the legacy of Thoreau deserves no less!"

--Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature, The Age of Missing Information, and

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