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.