Many people unfamiliar with Henry David Thoreau think of him as a hermit who eschewed society to live alone in the woods were he wrote his most popular book, Walden. The truth, however, is that Thoreau is one of the most celebrated American thinkers and was a surveyor, naturalist par excellence, and champion of social justice whose writings have inspired the likes of Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King. Outside of his public written works, Thoreau was a prolific journal writer, penning nearly two-million words in his fourteen-volume journal. Thoreau’s own words provide great insight into a man who did not reap much literary success while alive, yet today is one of the most influential writers in the world. Henry David Thoreau died of tuberculosis in 1862 at the age of 44, but left a legacy celebrating a love of natural history and wilderness preservation, along with many contributions to scientific knowledge.
The Bruce Museum’s new display, “Henry David Thoreau: A Bicentennial Celebration” – running from July 1 to 31 – includes several items related to Thoreau from its own collection, as well as pieces loaned by a local Thoreau enthusiast. The exhibit will be on display for the month of July to celebrate the bicentennial of his birth, July 12, 1817.
Items include an inscribed copy of Edward Emerson’s biography, Thoreau as Remembered by a Young Friend; the controversial letter from Thoreau to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s wife, Lidian; dried flowers picked by Thoreau on Mt. Monadnock; a 1917 photo of the Bruce Museum’s first curator, Edward Fuller Bigelow, visiting the Thoreau memorial cairn at Walden Pond; and a letter from 1903 describing the creation of the cairn.
Visitors of “Henry David Thoreau: A Bicentennial Celebration” will get a glimpse into the man whose good friend, Edward Waldo Emerson, son of Ralph Waldo Emerson, sought to dispel the many “false impressions” of him written by persons “who really knew him hardly at all.”
