Announcer: Major funding for "henry david thoreau"
was provided by...
The better angels society,
jeff skoll,
the mansueto foundation,
tyson foods,
and the arthur vining davis foundations.
Funding was also provided by the tyson family foundation,
the neil and anna rasmussen foundation,
and by the better angels society members:
The keith campbell foundation for the environment
and mark a. Tracy.
Additional funding was provided by roxanne quimby foundation,
jim and mona mylen through the heartspace fund,
and elizabeth kenny.
[clock ticking]
♪
michael pollan: Every now and then, a sentence, a paragraph,
an essay continues to speak to people and has
some value in the present.
Kristen case: There is something incredibly powerful
about taking someone else's words inside yourself,
and your body is involved in those words,
in making those words real.
Sandra harbert petrulionis: Words start wars.
They save people, and they convert us
from thinking one way to realizing
that we're wrong in what we think.
Rebecca solnit: The stories we tell,
the ways we think about the world
have huge consequences,
and so do our actions.
Ideas shape reality,
and they can change the world.
Narrator: His life was a relentless search for truth.
His words have inspired revolutions,
social movements, and environmental actions
all around the world for more than 150 years.
His name was henry david thoreau.
♪
[birds chirping]
♪
[crow cawing]
henry david thoreau: I wanted to live deep
and suck out all the marrow of life,
to live so sturdily and spartan-like
as to put to rout all that was not life,
to drive life into a corner
and reduce it to its lowest terms,
and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get
the whole and genuine meanness of it
and publish its meanness to the world;
or if it were sublime, to know it by experience,
and be able to give a true account of it
in my next excursion.
♪
clay jenkinson: Most people today would say,
"why am I not happy?"
they realize that the path that they took to happiness
has not precisely worked out for them.
Thoreau was trying to make sense of life.
He lived exactly the way he wanted to live,
and there was an enormous freedom for him
that most people just don't get.
The things he's getting at were mostly ignored then,
and they're mostly ignored now,
but thoreau understood that language matters.
♪
[steam whistle blows]
narrator: Henry david thoreau wrote about the impact
of industrialization on nature and society,
the hypocrisy of slavery in a country that declared
all men equal,
and the mindless pursuit of wealth,
which he said led to lives of quiet desperation.
So much of what we spend our lives and our days doing
we don't truly care about,
and yet, somehow we've found ourselves in the middle
of a life with obligations.
[indistinct chatter]
rebecca kneale gould: People don't know
where to find meaning,
and they don't take the time to try to find it,
which thoreau says is essential.
You can't even ask the deep questions if you don't stop
to figure out what the deep questions are.
Michael pollan: Our lives are overcomplicated.
It's so easy to lose sight of what matters.
His big project as a writer is to wake us up.
Narrator: He spent his time observing, contemplating,
and experimenting, including two years
in a small house he built near a pond,
where he tried to live a simple, spiritual,
and intentional existence.
He never stopped asking questions
and never settled for easy answers.
"rather than love, than money, than fame," he wrote,
"give me truth."
clay jenkinson: The program of his life is to seek other ways
of being and of connecting.
It involves distancing yourself from norms
until you begin to see things that you could never have seen
in any other way,
things that most people can't see.
Narrator: Thoreau was a lecturer, philosopher,
pencil-maker, and surveyor,
a teacher, scientist, and an abolitionist,
but above all, he was a prolific writer.
His journal alone was more than 2 million words.
He wrote two timeless manifestos,
one on discovering spiritual truths in nature
and the other on a citizen's obligation
to stand up against injustice,
two seemingly different doctrines
that thoreau would prove are profoundly interconnected.
Pico iyer: I think if 20 people read thoreau,
each one of us will get something different,
and yet what they're getting from thoreau,
I think, is very much the same--
a sense of possibility, a new dawn, a reminder
to think about the essential facts of life.
There's so many ways in which his work and his life
and his ideas and his creativity and his passion
and his vulnerability shape our world today.
Narrator: His life was rife with contradictions.
He yearned for solitude but became a public figure.
He believed in the preservation
of wild nature, yet knowingly contributed
to its destruction.
He was committed to freedom and equality
for one race of people but often failed to take action
against the inhumane treatment of another.
Ultimately, his life would be reduced to legend
and his complex prose to one-liners,
and while he rarely traveled far from his hometown
of concord, massachusetts,
he became a man of the world.
Rebecca solnit: Life can always be
endless adventure and discovery,
even if you've only traveled widely in concord,
and thoreau is a genius at packing
a thousand miles into a single step in how he writes.
♪
henry david thoreau: Man thinks faster and freer
than ever before.
He, moreover, moves faster and freer.
He is more restless
because he's more independent than ever.
The winds and the waves are not enough for him.
He must ransack the bowels of the earth,
that he may make for himself
a highway of iron over its surface.
[clattering, bells ringing]
[birds chirping]
think of our life in nature--
daily to be shown matter,
to come in contact with it--
rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks,
the solid earth! The actual world!
The common sense!
Contact! Contact!
Who are we?
Where are we?
♪
kristen case: And he never let those questions settle,
and I think that makes him relevant
always, in every time, but particularly in a time
like ours, where we are really thinking about what
it means to be a human being on this planet.
Clay jenkinson: But you have to open the book,
and thoreau says, "all right. I've got your attention now.
Keep reading,
and I'll help you sort this out."
[water rippling]
[birds chirping and squawking]
♪
[rooster crowing, dog barking]
narrator: Henry david thoreau was born July 12, 1817,
on his grandmother's farm in concord, massachusetts,
a town some 18 miles northwest of boston.
Man: Fire!
[musket fire]
the united states of america had won
its independence from England only 34 years earlier.
Sandra harbert petrulionis: The early 1800s
were a very introspective
and also a very outward time for america.
It was growing.
It was trying to figure out what it meant to be
a democratic republic
and how to improve this democratic republic.
Narrator: Henry was the third of 4 children
of john thoreau and cynthia dunbar.
He had an older sister, helen,
and a younger one, sophia.
His older brother, john jr., was his closest friend.
After two years of dwindling harvests
and the failure of a dry goods store,
according to legend, henry's father john
was forced to sell his wedding ring to make ends meet.
The family shared a love of the outdoors
and took day-long walks in the concord countryside.
Cynthia encouraged the children
to pay close attention to nature's sights and sounds.
When henry was 5 years old,
she took him to nearby walden pond.
He would later say, "that woodland vision
for a long time made the drapery of my dreams."
[loon calling]
beth witherell: Thoreau's interest in what was
beyond what he could see started very early.
His mother came up one night and said,
"henry, why aren't you asleep?"
and he said he was looking at the stars,
trying to see god behind them.
Cristie ellis: He once said, "this is a world
where there are flowers,"
and you can feel his wonder at that fact.
Imagine how many different worlds there could be
on how many different planets,
and we are the lucky idiots who landed
on the world with flowers.
Narrator: As a boy, henry was aloof, introspective,
and intensely curious.
His brother john was athletic, charismatic,
a jokester, and an instigator of rough and rambunctious games.
Henry usually watched from the sidelines,
but he and john were always together,
swinging on the branches of a birch tree,
climbing nearby fairhaven hill to see the sunrise,
or down at the concord river,
fishing, swimming, and exploring.
At times, they would also participate
in what they called indian play.
♪
[drum beating]
henry david thoreau: John and I had been searching
for indian relics when, with our heads full of the past
and its remains, I broke forth into an extravagant eulogy
on those savage times.
"there on nawshawtuct," said I, "was their lodge,
the rendezvous of the tribe."
"here," I exclaimed, "stood tahatawan."
how often have they stood on this very spot
at this very hour?
Lois brown: He's always keenly aware and curious
about where he is.
When he finds an arrowhead, he recognizes
it has significance,
even when he's a young boy
and doesn't yet know fully the history attached
to such an item.
John j. Kucich: He's so deeply fascinated by native people
and yet really doesn't understand america's
long colonial dispossession.
The musketaquid people have been living
in the concord area for thousands of years,
but the native people thoreau knew in concord
were ones he knew, really, by their relics.
Narrator: Henry and john had begun their education
by attending a one-room public schoolhouse
on the town common.
Then they enrolled in a new private school
for promising children called the concord academy.
Sandra harbert petrulionis: As much as he was busy reading
at school,
he was in the woods and the local hills.
He had spent so much time in the hills
and on the river that he nearly squandered his chance
to be a college student.
Narrator: On August 30, 1833, henry david thoreau
entered harvard college in cambridge.
He was 16 years old.
Thoreau was a voracious reader and spent hours
in the library, where he began a lifelong habit
of copying passages from books for later reference,
but his mind was often elsewhere.
Henry david thoreau: Though bodily I have been a member
of harvard university,
heart and soul I have been far away
among the scenes of my boyhood,
scouring the woods and exploring the lakes
and streams of my native village.
Narrator: In his junior year to defray the cost
of his tuition, henry left for a term to earn money
as a visiting schoolmaster in the nearby town of canton.
He boarded with unitarian minister orestes brownson,
who believed that social justice was
a critical component of america's democratic experiment.
♪
laura dassow walls: And so here he is,
and he's still just a kid,
walking into the household
of this ferociously brilliant firebrand intellectual,
and instantly this man starts to talk to him,
and they're up until midnight.
This fury that brownson had that ideas will make you free
was something that really struck deep for thoreau.
Thoreau speaks of it as "the day when my mind was born,"
and he came back to harvard a different person--
bold, sassy.
He talked back to his professors.
Can you imagine?
Narrator: After suffering what may have been a sign
of tuberculosis, henry had to take
another 5 months off.
[bells tolling]
thoreau graduated from harvard college
on August 30, 1837.
It was a time of significant change.
♪
political issues, particularly slavery,
were dividing states, communities,
and even families.
The industrial revolution and the westward expansion
of the country were reshaping the lives
of many americans.
Those in the younger generation often had to choose
between settling further west,
where farmland was more plentiful,
or moving into the cities to work in factories.
Robert a. Gross: This is a generation for whom there's
no single clear path to follow.
There's not enough land in concord anymore
for most farmers to set up their kids.
Bill mckibben: Mills going up everywhere
up and down massachusetts and new hampshire,
people streaming off the farm to work
in those factories,
being forced into worlds
that they did not understand and were not suited for them.
Thoreau understood what it would mean
to the human spirit.
♪
narrator: In his senior year, henry had read a book
called "nature" written by a 34-year-old philosopher
and fellow citizen of concord named ralph waldo emerson.
In it, he spelled out an entirely new
and radical approach to life.
♪
ralph waldo emerson: The foregoing generations
beheld god and nature face to face.
Why should not we also enjoy an original relation
to the universe?
Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy
of insight and not of tradition,
and a religion by revelation to us,
and not the history of theirs?
There are new lands, new men, new thoughts.
Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.
Narrator: Emerson had graduated from harvard divinity school
and later served as a minister in boston.
He then left the church for a new kind of ministry,
an electrifying, spiritual, philosophical,
and social movement that was attracting reformers
and intellectuals dissatisfied with society's values.
It was called transcendentalism.
Lawrence buell: Transcendentalism is
the first youth movement in american history.
It was a reform movement to incinerate orthodoxies
and rebuild from the idea that the individual genius
trumped received wisdom.
That was music to thoreau's ears.
Laura dassow walls: Transcendentalism boils down
to one very simple but very powerful idea--
that there is a spark of divinity
within absolutely every single human being.
[birds chirping]
that means every person who is enslaved,
you are enslaving part and particle of god.
Every woman who doesn't have full human rights,
every child that you're depriving of an education,
you're depriving that spark from developing.
Rochelle l. Johnson: They're questioning religion,
education, politics.
They're asking questions about labor
and freedom and enslavement.
They're questioning the entire grounds of society.
That's pretty radical.
Narrator: Emerson's book "nature" had established him
as the leader of this new movement.
Henry, now 20 years old, became his protege.
"I delight much in my young friend,"
emerson wrote, "who seems to have as free
and erect a mind as any I've ever met."
ralph waldo emerson: Brave henry is content to live now
and feels no shame in not studying any profession,
for he does not postpone his life, but lives already,
and pours contempt on these crybabies
of routine and boston.
Narrator: Emerson saw thoreau's potential
as a writer and encouraged him, asking,
"what are you doing now? Do you keep a journal?"
on October 22, 1837, thoreau wrote,
"I make my first entry today."
laura dassow walls: His journal was meant
to catch the flow of thoughts, of observations,
and take that little emergent flame
of whatever little spark is there
and just explore it.
[indistinct chatter]
narrator: Henry was now living with his family in concord
in a rented house on main street,
where his mother cynthia ran a boarding house.
There, she and her daughters, helen and sophia,
began having informal meetings
with a group of abolitionist neighbors,
61 women in all,
including emerson's wife lidian,
the new organization's leader mary merrick brooks,
and the one black founding member susan garrison.
They called themselves
the concord female anti-slavery society.
It is always astonishing to me to look at this point
when the abolition of slavery in the united states
is really being led by these little marginal groups--
a lot of women dissenters, quakers, ex-slaves.
They are not nearly recognized enough.
Women get work done.
They move the nation forward.
Henry david thoreau is living in a household
with women who are determined to do something.
The women of concord to a person will outdo the men
of concord when it comes to actually thinking
about justice,
and you can imagine that hive of activity.
That defines the thoreau home.
Henry david thoreau: October 1837.
To be alone I find it necessary
to escape the present.
I seek a garret.
♪
narrator: Thoreau retreated to a small east-facing room
in the attic, where he could write in his journal
in relative peace and quiet while gazing out
at the forest and hills in the distance.
Henry david thoreau: I yet lack discernment to distinguish
the whole lesson of today,
but it is not lost-- it will come to me at last.
My desire is to know what I have lived,
that I may know how to live henceforth.
Cristie ellis: He says, "I feel ripe for something,
"yet do nothing.
I feel fertile merely."
he recognizes that you don't know where this is going,
but you have to trust that because you love it,
it will produce something.
Laura dassow walls: And pretty soon,
the whole world is reflected in that journal.
It literally becomes the anchor of his entire life,
and it is epic.
All the universe is in it.
[bells tolling]
narrator: Henry's first job after college was teaching
at his old grammar school, but after only two weeks,
he abruptly quit when a supervisor told him he must
strike his students to make them behave.
"I would make education a pleasant thing," henry said,
for both the teacher and the scholar.
Then, with his brother john, he started his own school.
Now no student was physically punished.
They were encouraged to speak up.
Instead of following a static writing curriculum,
they kept journals, and to break up long days
in the classroom,
henry and john took them outdoors to explore
the local woods and fields.
Henry also began working at his father's business
making pencils, which later focused on selling
its refined graphite.
He would continue working there on and off
his whole life.
The business would prosper.
[horse neighing]
back in 1828, the citizens of concord had become
one of the first towns in the country to establish
a lyceum, a program of regular lectures
and debates on a variety of topics
and open to the general public.
Rochelle l. Johnson: In henry's time, there are two ways really
to get one's thoughts and writings out to the world.
One is publication, and the other is lecturing.
Robert a. Gross: The lyceum is an agent of progress.
It was common for lyceum lecturers to challenge
the ways people have done things and to say,
"no. The new way to do it is this,"
and thoreau is part of this.
♪
narrator: On April 11, 1838, thoreau, now 20 years old,
delivered his first lyceum lecture, entitled "society."
henry david thoreau: The mass never comes up to the standard
of its best member,
but on the contrary, degrades itself
to a level with the lowest.
Hence the mass is only...
Narrator: In the years to come, thoreau would speak
in towns all over new England.
Henry david thoreau: I take it for granted...
Lidian emerson: Henry's lecture pleased me much,
and I have reason to believe others liked it.
A few lyceum fees would satisfy his moderate wants,
to say nothing of the improvement and happiness
it would give both him and his fellow creatures,
if he could utter what is most within him and be heard.
Lidian emerson.
[thoreau's voice continues indistinctly]
[insects chirping, geese honking]
henry david thoreau: Saturday, the last day of August,
we two, brothers and natives of concord,
weighed anchor and dropped silently down the stream.
[loon calling]
[water lapping]
narrator: In the late summer of 1839,
john and henry set off on an adventure
on the concord and merrimack rivers in a boat
they had built together and christened musketaquid,
in honor of the name given to the river lowlands
by indigenous people.
♪
the brothers planned to row, pole, and pull their boat
down the slow-moving concord river and then head
up the mighty merrimack to hooksett, new hampshire,
where they would continue on land to visit
the white mountains.
Rochelle l. Johnson: This was a camping and hiking adventure
to take in the history and signs of community
and society along the way.
There's these kind of wonderful stories
about them spending hours and hours together
playing in the woods.
You can kind of sense this
on the concord and merrimack rivers.
Their relationship revolved around being together
in the natural world.
[steam whistle blowing]
rochelle l. Johnson: At times, their adventure was hijacked
by what they saw.
♪
laura dassow walls: Traveling up the river was really traveling
up a kind of highway for the industrial revolution
that was going to completely change the new England
that thoreau knew so well and loved so much
and change the river forever.
[water flowing]
narrator: At billerica, massachusetts, they came
upon a woolen mill powered by a dam that blocked
the spawning of fish.
Henry david thoreau: Who hears the fishes when they cry?
I, for one, am with thee,
and who knows what may avail a crowbar
against that billerica dam?
Robert thorson: When they built the billerica dam,
it stopped the migrations of fish,
and what he wanted to do was take a crowbar
and take down the dam and let the fishes run free.
[steam whistle blowing]
narrator: As they made their way up the merrimack river
to lowell and then to manchester, new hampshire,
they witnessed a booming textile industry,
where young women and children earned only $3.00 a week
for working 6 12-hour days.
Henry david thoreau: I cannot believe
that our factory system is
the best mode by which men may get their clothing.
As far as I've heard or observed,
the principal object is not that mankind
may be well and honestly clad,
but unquestionably that corporations may be enriched.
Rebecca kneale gould: Are nice clothes
all about enriching corporations?
Is that why we have these dams?
Is that why we have these factories?
He names it the critique of consumption.
♪
narrator: Henry and john's journey lasted two weeks,
ending with such a strong wind at their backs,
they were able to travel the last 50 miles home
in a single day.
Henry david thoreau: Thus we sailed, not being able to fly,
making a long furrow in the fields of the merrimack
toward our home, with our wings spread,
but never lifting our heel from the watery trench,
gracefully plowing homeward
with our brisk and willing team,
wind and stream pulling together.
Margaret fuller: We do not wish to say pretty or curious things,
or to reiterate a few propositions
in varied forms.
The pages of this journal will be filled
by contributors who possess little in common
but the love of intellectual freedom
and the hope of social progress.
Margaret fuller.
Narrator: In may of 1840, ralph waldo emerson
and a small group of transcendentalists started
a new quarterly journal to help spread their radical ideas.
It was called "the dial: A magazine for literature,
philosophy, and religion."
sarah margaret fuller, a highly respected intellectual,
became its editor.
Thoreau was determined to write for "the dial."
laura dassow walls: Which meant that
if he was going to be published,
he would have to go through the formidable margaret fuller,
and she was hard on him.
Margaret fuller: The thoughts seemed to me
so out of their natural order
that I cannot read it through without pain.
It is true, as mr. Emerson says, that essays not to be
compared with this have found their way into "the dial."
but yours is so rugged that it ought to be commanding.
Yet I hope you will give it me again.
Narrator: When the first issue came out on July 1, 1840,
it included one of his poems and an essay.
Rochelle l. Johnson: We don't see his early writings
as fantastic art.
He's writing like a young writer who's working
his way to being a great writer.
♪
narrator: Fuller would become thoreau's colleague and friend,
but she would also remain one
of the fiercest critics of his writing.
Meanwhile, after a year of teaching at the new school,
henry's brother john became ill and no longer had
the strength to continue.
They closed the school on April 1, 1841.
That same month, lidian and ralph waldo emerson asked
henry to come live with their family in exchange
for doing chores, tutoring their young son waldo,
and serving as emerson's assistant.
Henry moved in, simply noting in his journal "at r.W.E.'s."
♪
ralph waldo emerson: My good henry thoreau made
this else solitary afternoon sunny
with his simplicity and clear perception.
How comic is simplicity in this double dealing,
quacking world?
Everything that boy says makes merry with society,
though nothing can be graver than his meaning.
Laura dassow walls: Henry was funny
and loved to pull people's legs,
but underneath all that, emerson also saw
a kind of rebelliousness against convention
and against the kind of immorality that he thought
was all too common around him,
and that was the kind of thing that emerson looked for.
Narrator: Emerson was pleased with the arrangement,
telling a friend that thoreau was "a writer
"you may one day be proud of,
a noble youth full of melodies and inventions."
ralph waldo emerson: My dear henry,
will you not come up to the cliff
this p.M. At any hour convenient to you,
where our ladies will be greatly gratified
to see you?
And the more they say, if you will,
bring your flute.
♪
henry david thoreau: I am living with mr. Emerson
in very dangerous prosperity.
Laura dassow walls: "very dangerous prosperity."
well, a big house with servants, good food, leisure.
I think there was a little bit of resentment there.
He knew very well that his family wasn't living
in that kind of luxury.
Creature comforts have a way of allowing us
to forget the friction with reality that is
at the heart.
I see thoreau as needing friction.
[birds chirping]
henry david thoreau: I seem to see
somewhat more of my own kith and kin
in the lichens on the rocks than in any books.
Meet me on that ground, and you will find me strong.
[fire crackling]
narrator: On christmas eve,
henry confided to his journal
one of his innermost wishes.
♪
henry david thoreau: December 24, 1841.
I want to go soon and live away by the pond,
where I shall hear only the wind whispering among the reeds.
It will be success if I shall have left myself behind.
[bird chirping]
narrator: On new year's day,
john jr. Cut his ring finger while shaving.
Sandra harbert petrulionis: They wrapped it up with a bandage,
thinking absolutely nothing of it,
and by the time it was looked at by a physician,
he pronounced it tetanus,
which they called lockjaw at the time,
and said there was absolutely nothing anyone could do.
[wind blowing]
narrator: Henry rushed home.
Laura dassow walls: Henry stayed with john
right through to the end.
Henry david thoreau: He was perfectly calm, ever pleasant
while reason lasted, and gleams of the same serenity
and playfulness shone through his delirium
to the last.
Narrator: On January 11, 1842,
john thoreau died in his brother's arms.
He was just 27 years old.
♪
laura dassow walls: They were the closest of friends,
the closest of brothers.
For henry, I think with john's death, half of him died, too.
Then thoreau collapsed.
Kristen case: He contracts what looks like also lockjaw,
and this turns out to be a kind of sympathetic response
of his nervous system.
He was so devastated that he, in fact,
died a kind of death himself.
Narrator: Another tragedy struck shortly thereafter.
The emersons' young son waldo died suddenly of scarlet fever.
♪
a month later, thoreau wrote a condolence note,
hoping that the slow lifting of his own grief
would give emerson some solace.
Henry david thoreau: March 11. Dear friend,
the sun has just burst through the fog,
and I hear bluebirds, song-sparrows, larks,
and robins down in the meadow.
[birds chirping]
the wind still roars in the wood as if nothing had happened
out of the course of nature.
Every blade in the field-- every leaf in the forest--
lays down its life in its season
as beautifully as it was taken up.
So is it with the human plant.
♪
laura dassow walls: Henry writes how he hears and feels
john's presence everywhere in the woods and fields
that they used to travel.
Nature starts to speak to him in a way
that it really hadn't, I think, quite before,
and he starts to listen, and he is reborn.
After john's death, he writes his first great nature essay,
"the natural history of massachusetts."
♪
henry david thoreau: We must look a long time
before we can see.
I walk in nature with a sense of greater space
and freedom.
Nature will bear the closest inspection.
She invites us to lay our eye level
with the smallest leaf,
and take an insect view of its plane.
I explore, too, with pleasure the sounds
which crowd the summer noon,
and which seem the very grain and stuff
of which eternity is made.
To him who contemplates a trait of natural beauty
no harm nor disappointment can come.
Surely joy is the condition of life.
Laura dassow walls: From then on, he has a mission to spend
as much of his writing time as possible to express
what he sees and hears and feels outdoors,
and I think this is really the birth
of the henry that we know.
♪
narrator: After returning to live with the emersons,
thoreau spent as much time as he could reading, writing,
and going for long, solitary walks around concord.
Douglas brinkley: Emerson mentored him,
gave him books to read.
There was this whole other realm
of great world literature that
emerson put thoreau onto.
Narrator: Emerson was now the editor of "the dial."
he asked thoreau to work on a new column called
"ethnical scriptures," introducing readers
to eastern religious traditions like hinduism and buddhism.
♪
clay jenkinson: Every society faces
the fundamental questions of life.
What are we called upon to do in our life?
What happens when we die?
And for most of the history of western civilization,
we have simply accepted the bible.
What about islam?
What about judaism?
What about hinduism?
What about confucianism?
David mccullough: I often think about
where you could put a lens down on the map of the united states
and take what you would get in that lens
to reflect the substance
and the cast of characters
and the importance of
and the nature of the history of our country.
Concord, massachusetts, is to me a good choice.
You not only have the start of the revolution,
with the battles of concord and lexington,
but you have the creative residences
and workplaces of people like ralph waldo emerson
and hawthorne
and louisa may alcott
and henry david thoreau.
How these clusters of brilliant people can emerge
and flourish and change how we view the world,
is one of the mysteries of history.
Mary merrick brooks: Years ago, the ladies used to be admonished
to leave off meddling with what did not belong to them
and stay at home and mend stockings.
I always replied that I would be very happy
to do so when the men would fulfill their obligations.
Mary merrick brooks, president,
concord female anti-slavery society.
Sandra harbert petrulionis: Women weren't accepted
as public speakers at this time, so they directed their efforts
to bring in the most fervent speakers.
Frederick douglass became an important speaker
in the area, and mary merrick brooks insisted
that he visit concord.
Narrator: Douglass' impassioned and inspiring speeches
would make him one of the country's
most renowned abolitionists.
He and helen thoreau would become close friends and allies
in the fight against slavery.
Sandra harbert petrulionis: Presumably, he boarded
with the thoreaus in their home.
It must have been very fulfilling
for thoreau and inspiring.
Kerri greenidge: One of the things that can be taken
from thoreau's time is to look
at ways in which you read and interact
with writers and authors and thinkers that you might
not traditionally engage with
and then listen to them,
and then when you think you've listened enough,
keep your mouth closed and listen some more, right?
Just opening and appreciating a different lens
and appreciating how complex it is
because it's better to struggle with that complexity
than to imagine that it doesn't exist.
[people shouting]
[hoofbeats, horse neighing]
narrator: On August 1, 1844,
the concord female anti-slavery society held a rally
to celebrate the anniversary of the emancipation of slaves
in the british west indies.
The society convinced ralph waldo emerson
to give the keynote address.
[indistinct chatter]
the women had hoped to hold the event
at the unitarian meeting house, but church officials refused.
Sandra harbert petrulionis: The abolitionists by this time,
the mid-1840s, in concord were anathema.
The preachers didn't want them.
The institutional buildings didn't want them.
Narrator: When the event was moved to the courthouse,
no one dared ring the bell used for major announcements.
Sandra harbert petrulionis: Henry decides,
"well, that's ridiculous,"
and starts tolling the bell himself.
[bell tolling]
he made it clear that the talk you're about to hear
deserves the attention of ringing the bell
the same way that we would for a fire
or a community emergency.
I like to think of it as symbolically beginning
what will be a turn in his own anti-slavery thinking.
♪
narrator: Then emerson addressed the crowd.
Ralph waldo emerson: If we saw the whip applied to old men,
to tender women;
and, undeniably, though I shrink to say so--
pregnant women...
If we saw men's backs flayed with cowhides--
if we saw the runaways hunted with bloodhounds
into swamps and hills--
if we saw these things with eyes,
we too should wince.
They're not pleasant sights.
The blood is moral:
The blood is anti-slavery:
It runs cold in the veins:
The stomach rises with disgust,
and curses slavery.
Lois brown: Ralph waldo emerson's grandfather
enslaved folks,
so he's taking accountability
for the damage it did and the profit it made,
and he inspires others to do more.
[indistinct chatter]
narrator: Afterwards, henry arranged to have
copies of emerson's speech printed and distributed,
now openly identifying himself as an agent
for the concord female anti-slavery society.
Clay jenkinson: He's trying to figure out,
"what am I called upon to do?
Is a lyceum lecture enough?"
and the answer is no,
that this situation calls upon us to rise
to an unprecedented level
of personal moral courage and integrity.
Narrator: Henry was 27 years old and caught up in a myriad
of social, political, and personal crises.
As the united states moved westward,
the question of the expansion of slavery ripped
at the union of the country,
dividing states and communities.
Industry and innovation were transforming the landscape.
Train tracks had recently been laid across concord.
Telegraph lines would soon follow.
Thoreau's writing career had stalled.
He felt himself a failure,
and the memory of his brother's death
still weighed heavily on his heart.
♪
henrik otterberg: In our time,
crisis is strenuously to be avoided
at all costs,
whereas in the older sense, it signified a juncture
where a decision should be made.
It's a defining moment.
It's one where one's character, one's mettle,
one's courage will be tested,
and that is often when he felt himself most fully.
Kristen case: He was at that point
that I think many people have experienced
and many people continue to experience,
particularly in their 20s,
deciding what to do and how to live.
That was daunting for him as it is daunting
for people today.
Bill mckibben: It was very easy to just be dragged along
by the currents of the world around you,
and I think thoreau was questioning all of that
and saying, "I want to figure out for myself
"what I actually want to do.
I want to live deliberately."
[insects chirping]
narrator: It was time for henry to make real
that woodland vision of his childhood,
to find a place where he could quiet himself and write
at the pond he had visited so many times
since he was a boy.
His friends encouraged him.
Ellery channing: My dear thoreau, I see nothing for you
on this earth but that field
which I once christened "briars";
go out upon that, build yourself a hut,
and there begin the process of devouring yourself alive.
Eat yourself up.
Concord is just as good a place as any other.
Ellery channing.
Margaret fuller: Dearest henry, do not say constantly of nature
she is mine; for she is not yours
until you have been more hers.
Seek the lotus, and take a draft of rapture.
Let me know whether you go to the lonely hut.
Margaret fuller.
Henry david thoreau: What I began by reading
I must finish by acting.
[loon calling]
announcer: Stay tuned for a behind the scenes look.
♪
announcer: Next time on
"henry david thoreau"...
Henry david thoreau: I went to
the woods because I
wished to live deliberately.
Announcer: An experiment
in living...
Michael pollan: I think he went
to walden not to escape
human society
but to criticize it.
Announcer: A night in jail...
Henry david thoreau: I did not
pay a tax to...The state,
which buys and sells men,
women and children.
Announcer: And a daring
expedition...
Henry david thoreau: Not till we
have lost the world,
do we begin to find ourselves.
Announcer: When
"henry david thoreau" continues.
Announcer: Scan this qr code with your smart device
to watch the whole series
and learn more about henry david thoreau.
Announcer: The "henry
david thoreau" dvd
is available online
and in stores.
The series is also
available with pbs passport
and on amazon prime video.
The digital companion
soundtrack
is also available online.
♪
announcer: Major funding for "henry david thoreau"
was provided by...
The better angels society,
jeff skoll,
the mansueto foundation,
tyson foods,
and the arthur vining davis foundations.
Funding was also provided by the tyson family foundation,
the neil and anna rasmussen foundation,
and by the better angels society members:
The keith campbell foundation for the environment
and mark a. Tracy.
Additional funding was provided by roxanne quimby foundation,
jim and mona mylen through the heartspace fund,
and elizabeth kenny.
Jeff goldblum: Ready? [clears throat]
erik ewers: Ok. We're rolling.
Jeff goldblum, as thoreau: 1841.
I want to go soon, and live away by the pond...
Chris ewers: Erik and I wanted to make a film that allows
the viewers to experience life in the 19th century
as henry david thoreau experienced it.
Erik ewers: It takes a village to make a film,
but it also--as we learned--
takes a village to make a village.
Our producer cauley powell and a team of prop experts
went to different historic places, like sturbridge village,
and the replica cabin at walden pond,
to recreate history itself.
Chris ewers: There was very little
photographic archival material from thoreau's time,
so we did the best that we could
and tried to bring his time alive.
George clooney narrating: Douglass' impassioned
and inspiring speeches would make him
one of the country's most renowned abolitionists.
Erik ewers: As a director and an editor,
one of the most important things for me is to make sure
that our viewers always feel like they're in a place.
And we create that place. That's true relatability.
Chris ewers: As the cinematographer,
it was important to me to be able to look at walden pond
and the woods in concord and the surrounding areas
through henry's lens.
Over the course of five years-- through all seasons--
we got to experience these places
much in the same way that thoreau did.
Erik ewers: Not the way we typically do today.
We just kind of walk through.
We had to really explore and dive deep to find the gems,
the true beauty of that place.
And like thoreau, we discovered
we can take that with us anywhere.
[birds and insects calling, oars splashing]
♪♪
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