Helen and Scott Nearing
Encyclopedia
Helen Knothe Nearing and Scott Nearing
(1883–1983) were well-known American back-to-the-landers who wrote extensively about their experience living what they termed "the good life
".
and former college professor (he had lost his position due to his socialist and pacifist
beliefs, and his anti-war activism during World War I
). He continued to tread the path of a social and political theorist. Helen had grown up in an economically comfortable family of Theosophists, and as a young woman had a romantic relationship with Jiddu Krishnamurti
. She was trained as a musician, and also had some brief experience in the factory work world before moving into the agrarian life with Scott.
During the Vietnam War
, the Nearings joined more than 400 other writers in signing a statement, published as a full page ad in the New York Post
, declaring their intention to refuse to pay taxes for the war.
on an old farm on the foot of Stratton Mountain
near Jamaica, Vermont
in 1932, in the pit of the Great Depression
. In 1952 they moved to Maine
, ultimately settling on their "Forest Farm" at Cape Rosier (in the village of Harborside, within the town of Brooksville
), where they lived until their deaths. Scott remained a thinker, writer, and lecturer on economics and social issues for many years. Their best known books (those they wrote together) are Living the Good Life (published 1954) and Continuing the Good Life (1979). The first of these is often credited with being a major spur to the U.S. back-to-the-land movement that began in the late 1960s.
Helen and Scott were devoted to a lifestyle giving importance to work, on the one hand, and contemplation or play, on the other. Ideally, they aimed at a norm that divided most of a day's waking hours into three blocks of four hours: "bread labor" (work directed toward meeting requirements of food, shelter, clothing, needed tools, and such); civic work (doing something of value for their community); and professional pursuits or recreation (for Scott this was frequently economics research, for Helen it was often music - but they both liked to ski, also). They clearly honored manual work, and viewed it as one aspect of the self-development process that they felt life should be.
The Nearings were experimenters and were also very widely read. They frequently quoted authors of centuries past in their own books. They found wisdom in some of the attitudes of the past, but did not feel tied to the life patterns or technologies of the past. In no way did they reject civilization, or sacrifice what they accepted as the enriching aspects of modernity. Apart from the necessity that drove them to the land, when they sought a good life during the Depression, keys to their success in the lifestyle included intelligence, commitment, self-discipline, and enjoyment.
Their New England climate sometimes provided as few as 100 frost-free days in a year. For people aiming at self-reliance, this was a big problem. About their subsistence crop raising, they wrote: “Our initial gardening experiences in Vermont... were conventional. We did as the neighboring natives did, planted what they did and when they did. Then we started to branch out.” They began to experiment first with cold-frames and later with greenhouse culture; those years being distinctly different from the present time, there was virtually no personal experience with greenhouses in their area and little accessible literature on the subject.
In Vermont, the Nearings also adopted some innovations in their structure and equipment for preparing maple syrup
and maple sugar
from the maple trees they tapped; these maple products were sources of cash income for them. During a period when it was becoming standard practice to use manufactured fertilizers and pesticides, they pursued the organic
approach to food gardening. In Maine, without sugar maples to provide a cash crop, they cultivated blueberries
. The Nearings utilized and refined the slipform stonemasonry method of building houses and outbuildings from stone and concrete (also known as the Flagg
method). The Nearings built 12 stone structures, from small to large, on their Vermont land, and nine on their Maine land. In Maine, projects on the new land included a concrete and rock dam the Nearings constructed, resulting in a 1.5 acre (6,000 m²) pond. If anything, Helen was more the stonemason than Scott, though Scott (21 years older than Helen) also worked hard physically, into advanced age.
Their best-known books draw mainly on their personal experience on their homesteads. Secondary content is drawn from reflections on mainstream-American society (which they were critical of and basically rejected), their neighbors, and the positive values they believed in: self-responsibility, healthy exercise and diet, social cooperation, environmental consciousness, etc. The cycles and rhythms of nature were the Nearings' guide as they successfully provided for about 80% of their food needs.
Their approach to living, based largely on the reduction of wants and a mostly non-monetary return from their organic horticulture
and other sorts of labor, appealed to many people. The Nearings offered an almost "open-house" situation on their land for several decades, so that visitors could experience this way of life and learn a bit from them. Living as a couple, without the chore support of a traditional New England farm family, meant they had to get needed assistance in other ways. They were impressively hard-working and self-reliant, but sought cooperation with neighbors. In their early years in Vermont, each season they worked with neighbors, the Hurd family, tapping their maple trees and condensing the syrup. The text and photos in their books also make it plain that the labor from guests helped the Nearings' projects along (as well, the Nearings wrote they had sometimes hired local expertise and help, when they needed it).
After nearly two decades, they assessed "we had built up our good life in Vermont, improving the soil, clearing out and enlarging the sugar orchard, replacing shacks with concrete and stone buildings, reconstructing roads, and generally converting a sickly, bankrupt farm into a vigorous, healthy enterprise..."
The Nearings saw opportunity for the cooperative development of the lumber industry (and other industries) in their Vermont valley. Ultimately, while they considered their original Vermont-homestead project to be successful in providing a livelihood, as well as contact with nature and enjoyment of life, they felt frustrated by an extreme local household independence—which they felt contrasted unfavorably with the reality in many rural parts of Europe. Their valley neighbors in Vermont, the Nearings wrote, “…looked upon cooperative enterprise as the first step toward super-imposed discipline and coercion. They were suspicious of organized methods and planning. They would have none of it.” For this reason — in addition to the fact that Scott disliked the development of a ski resort
at Stratton Mountain
, and the mindset of cityfolk who patronized it — the Nearings moved on to another rural place, Cape Rosier, Maine.
Due to the publication of their books, and to their open-house practices regarding guests, the Nearings' approach was emulated by thousands of people who wanted a life that afforded play and contemplation in addition to work.
Many sympathetic journalists and admiring friends have published articles about the Nearings. But another view of their lives was written by their sometime neighbor Jean Hay Bright, titled Meanwhile, Next Door to the Good Life (2003). The author notes that Helen and Scott spent winters traveling a lecture circuit (hinting that a reason might be that a stone house on the waterfront in Maine could be cold). Also (as mentioned in Helen Nearing's own autobiographical Loving and Leaving the Good Life), Hay Bright makes clear that they were not extremely "vegan" in their vegetarianism
(for instance, they ate yogurt and even ice cream), and that they made good and regular use of the volunteer labor of young idealistic visitors who were always warmly welcomed and fed a hearty meal of fresh greens, Helen's famous soup, and Scott's gruel — a combination of raw oats, raisins, peanut butter and honey. Hay Bright also conveys that, despite having been critical toward the electric transmission grid and its pitfalls (a nuclear power
plant was once proposed for Cape Rosier), the Nearings built a new house with normal modern conveniences, including grid electricity, next to the original Cape Rosier house. That house is now home of "The Good Life Center," which carries on the Nearings' work. (www.goodlife.org)
Scott Nearing
Scott Nearing was an American radical economist, educator, writer, political activist, and advocate of simple living.-The early years:...
(1883–1983) were well-known American back-to-the-landers who wrote extensively about their experience living what they termed "the good life
The good life
The good life is a term for the life that one would like to live, or for happiness, associated with the work of Aristotle and his teaching on ethics.-Religious approaches:...
".
Philosophy
Scott was a trained economistEconomist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
and former college professor (he had lost his position due to his socialist and pacifist
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
beliefs, and his anti-war activism during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
). He continued to tread the path of a social and political theorist. Helen had grown up in an economically comfortable family of Theosophists, and as a young woman had a romantic relationship with Jiddu Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti or J. Krishnamurti or , was a renowned writer and speaker on philosophical and spiritual subjects. His subject matter included: psychological revolution, the nature of the mind, meditation, human relationships, and bringing about positive change in society...
. She was trained as a musician, and also had some brief experience in the factory work world before moving into the agrarian life with Scott.
During the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, the Nearings joined more than 400 other writers in signing a statement, published as a full page ad in the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, declaring their intention to refuse to pay taxes for the war.
Life & Work
The Nearings began their simple lifeSimple living
Simple living encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify one's lifestyle. These may include reducing one's possessions or increasing self-sufficiency, for example. Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they need rather than want...
on an old farm on the foot of Stratton Mountain
Stratton Mountain (Vermont)
Stratton Mountain is a mountain located in Windham County, Vermont, in the Green Mountain National Forest.The mountain, a monadnock, is the highest point of Windham County, and of the southern Green Mountains generally. A fire tower located on the summit is generally open for climbing by the public...
near Jamaica, Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
in 1932, in the pit of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. In 1952 they moved to Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
, ultimately settling on their "Forest Farm" at Cape Rosier (in the village of Harborside, within the town of Brooksville
Brooksville, Maine
Brooksville is a town in Hancock County, Maine, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 934. It contains the villages of North Brooksville, South Brooksville , West Brooksville, Brooksville Corner, and Harborside .-History:It was first settled by John Wasson, Samuel Wasson and...
), where they lived until their deaths. Scott remained a thinker, writer, and lecturer on economics and social issues for many years. Their best known books (those they wrote together) are Living the Good Life (published 1954) and Continuing the Good Life (1979). The first of these is often credited with being a major spur to the U.S. back-to-the-land movement that began in the late 1960s.
Helen and Scott were devoted to a lifestyle giving importance to work, on the one hand, and contemplation or play, on the other. Ideally, they aimed at a norm that divided most of a day's waking hours into three blocks of four hours: "bread labor" (work directed toward meeting requirements of food, shelter, clothing, needed tools, and such); civic work (doing something of value for their community); and professional pursuits or recreation (for Scott this was frequently economics research, for Helen it was often music - but they both liked to ski, also). They clearly honored manual work, and viewed it as one aspect of the self-development process that they felt life should be.
The Nearings were experimenters and were also very widely read. They frequently quoted authors of centuries past in their own books. They found wisdom in some of the attitudes of the past, but did not feel tied to the life patterns or technologies of the past. In no way did they reject civilization, or sacrifice what they accepted as the enriching aspects of modernity. Apart from the necessity that drove them to the land, when they sought a good life during the Depression, keys to their success in the lifestyle included intelligence, commitment, self-discipline, and enjoyment.
Their New England climate sometimes provided as few as 100 frost-free days in a year. For people aiming at self-reliance, this was a big problem. About their subsistence crop raising, they wrote: “Our initial gardening experiences in Vermont... were conventional. We did as the neighboring natives did, planted what they did and when they did. Then we started to branch out.” They began to experiment first with cold-frames and later with greenhouse culture; those years being distinctly different from the present time, there was virtually no personal experience with greenhouses in their area and little accessible literature on the subject.
In Vermont, the Nearings also adopted some innovations in their structure and equipment for preparing maple syrup
Maple syrup
Maple syrup is a syrup usually made from the xylem sap of sugar maple, red maple, or black maple trees, although it can also be made from other maple species such as the bigleaf maple. In cold climates, these trees store starch in their trunks and roots before the winter; the starch is then...
and maple sugar
Maple sugar
Maple sugar is a traditional sweetener in the northeastern United States and Canada, prepared from the sap of the sugar maple tree.-Preparation:...
from the maple trees they tapped; these maple products were sources of cash income for them. During a period when it was becoming standard practice to use manufactured fertilizers and pesticides, they pursued the organic
Organic movement
The organic movement broadly refers to the organizations and individuals involved worldwide in the promotion of organic farming, which is a more sustainable mode of agriculture...
approach to food gardening. In Maine, without sugar maples to provide a cash crop, they cultivated blueberries
Blueberry
Blueberries are flowering plants of the genus Vaccinium with dark-blue berries and are perennial...
. The Nearings utilized and refined the slipform stonemasonry method of building houses and outbuildings from stone and concrete (also known as the Flagg
Ernest Flagg
Ernest Flagg was a noted American architect in the Beaux-Arts style. He was also an advocate for urban reform and architecture's social responsibility.-Biography:...
method). The Nearings built 12 stone structures, from small to large, on their Vermont land, and nine on their Maine land. In Maine, projects on the new land included a concrete and rock dam the Nearings constructed, resulting in a 1.5 acre (6,000 m²) pond. If anything, Helen was more the stonemason than Scott, though Scott (21 years older than Helen) also worked hard physically, into advanced age.
Their best-known books draw mainly on their personal experience on their homesteads. Secondary content is drawn from reflections on mainstream-American society (which they were critical of and basically rejected), their neighbors, and the positive values they believed in: self-responsibility, healthy exercise and diet, social cooperation, environmental consciousness, etc. The cycles and rhythms of nature were the Nearings' guide as they successfully provided for about 80% of their food needs.
Their approach to living, based largely on the reduction of wants and a mostly non-monetary return from their organic horticulture
Organic horticulture
Organic horticulture is the science and art of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, or ornamental plants by following the essential principles of organic agriculture in soil building and conservation, pest management, and heirloom variety preservation....
and other sorts of labor, appealed to many people. The Nearings offered an almost "open-house" situation on their land for several decades, so that visitors could experience this way of life and learn a bit from them. Living as a couple, without the chore support of a traditional New England farm family, meant they had to get needed assistance in other ways. They were impressively hard-working and self-reliant, but sought cooperation with neighbors. In their early years in Vermont, each season they worked with neighbors, the Hurd family, tapping their maple trees and condensing the syrup. The text and photos in their books also make it plain that the labor from guests helped the Nearings' projects along (as well, the Nearings wrote they had sometimes hired local expertise and help, when they needed it).
After nearly two decades, they assessed "we had built up our good life in Vermont, improving the soil, clearing out and enlarging the sugar orchard, replacing shacks with concrete and stone buildings, reconstructing roads, and generally converting a sickly, bankrupt farm into a vigorous, healthy enterprise..."
The Nearings saw opportunity for the cooperative development of the lumber industry (and other industries) in their Vermont valley. Ultimately, while they considered their original Vermont-homestead project to be successful in providing a livelihood, as well as contact with nature and enjoyment of life, they felt frustrated by an extreme local household independence—which they felt contrasted unfavorably with the reality in many rural parts of Europe. Their valley neighbors in Vermont, the Nearings wrote, “…looked upon cooperative enterprise as the first step toward super-imposed discipline and coercion. They were suspicious of organized methods and planning. They would have none of it.” For this reason — in addition to the fact that Scott disliked the development of a ski resort
Ski resort
A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing and other winter sports. In Europe a ski resort is a town or village in a ski area - a mountainous area, where there are ski trails and supporting services such as hotels and other accommodation, restaurants, equipment rental and a ski lift system...
at Stratton Mountain
Stratton Mountain Resort
Stratton Mountain Resort is a ski area located on Stratton Mountain in Stratton, Vermont.-History:Stratton was established in 1961, and expanded rapidly into one of Vermont's largest ski areas...
, and the mindset of cityfolk who patronized it — the Nearings moved on to another rural place, Cape Rosier, Maine.
Due to the publication of their books, and to their open-house practices regarding guests, the Nearings' approach was emulated by thousands of people who wanted a life that afforded play and contemplation in addition to work.
Many sympathetic journalists and admiring friends have published articles about the Nearings. But another view of their lives was written by their sometime neighbor Jean Hay Bright, titled Meanwhile, Next Door to the Good Life (2003). The author notes that Helen and Scott spent winters traveling a lecture circuit (hinting that a reason might be that a stone house on the waterfront in Maine could be cold). Also (as mentioned in Helen Nearing's own autobiographical Loving and Leaving the Good Life), Hay Bright makes clear that they were not extremely "vegan" in their vegetarianism
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...
(for instance, they ate yogurt and even ice cream), and that they made good and regular use of the volunteer labor of young idealistic visitors who were always warmly welcomed and fed a hearty meal of fresh greens, Helen's famous soup, and Scott's gruel — a combination of raw oats, raisins, peanut butter and honey. Hay Bright also conveys that, despite having been critical toward the electric transmission grid and its pitfalls (a nuclear power
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
plant was once proposed for Cape Rosier), the Nearings built a new house with normal modern conveniences, including grid electricity, next to the original Cape Rosier house. That house is now home of "The Good Life Center," which carries on the Nearings' work. (www.goodlife.org)
Books
Books written or edited by Helen and Scott Nearing:- The New Education: A Review Of Progressive Educational Movements Of The Day (1915) by Scott Nearing ISBN 054874811X
- The Trial of Scott Nearing and the American Socialist (1919) by Scott Nearing ISBN 0306719665
- Living the Good Life (1954), by Helen and Scott Nearing ISBN 0883652366
- Man's Search for the Good Life (1954), by Scott Nearing
- Socialists Around the World (1958), by Helen and Scott Nearing
- Freedom: Promise and Menace (1961), by Scott Nearing
- The Conscience of a Radical (1965), by Scott Nearing
- The Maple Sugar Book (1972), by Helen and Scott Nearing
- The Making of a Radical: a Political Autobiography (1972), by Scott Nearing ISBN 006136066X
- The Good Life Picture Album (1974), by Helen Nearing
- Civilization and Beyond: Learning From History (1975), by Scott Nearing
- Building and Using Our Sun-Heated Greenhouse (1977), by Helen and Scott Nearing
- Continuing the Good Life (1979), by Helen and Scott Nearing
- Simple Food for the Good Life (1980), by Helen Nearing
- Wise Words for the Good Life (1980), by Helen Nearing
- Our Home Made of Stone (1983), by Helen Nearing
- Loving and Leaving the Good Life (1992), by Helen Nearing
- Light on Aging and Dying (1995), by Helen Nearing
External links
- The Good Life Center, Forest Farm, Harborside, Maine: advancing Helen and Scott Nearing's commitment to social justice and simple living
- The Scott and Helen Nearing Papers housed at the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods
- Nearing, Helen (1905–1995), Maine State Library
- Excerpts from The Good Life of Helen K. Nearing, read aloud by biographer Mimi Killinger
- Scott Nearing: The Making of a Homesteader, John Saltmarsh(Chelsea Green, 1998)
- A Scott Nearing Reader, Edited and introduced by Steve Sherman (Scarecrow Press, 1989)
See also
- Simple livingSimple livingSimple living encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify one's lifestyle. These may include reducing one's possessions or increasing self-sufficiency, for example. Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they need rather than want...
- Slipform Stone MasonrySlipform stoneSlipform stone masonry is a method for making a reinforced concrete wall with stone facing in which stones and mortar are built up in courses within reusable slipforms. It is a cross between traditional mortared stone wall and a veneered stone wall. Short forms, up to 60 cm high, are placed on...