Fourier anticipated many inventions, mechanical devices for taking the
place of handiwork in the household, among others. The hard and the
disagreeable tasks now assigned to servants, would in the Phalanx be
performed on a large scale by machinery.
There were no servants at Brook Farm. Every one served but no one was
hired to serve. Household drudgery was reduced to the lowest practicable
minimum. We did not live on the fat of the land, and that made a
wonderful difference in the kitchen work,--that was at first. Later we
had to employ farm-laborers and mechanics and as they needed meat for
strong men, it became necessary for greasy Joan to keel the pot, and
Joan was imported for that purpose.
Our plain fare--very plain indeed it was--occasioned a good deal of
comment among our friends. They were afraid we would starve but we
didn't. We were all splendidly well, kept in fine condition and in the
best of high spirits. The very few-cases of sickness on the place were
every one of them brought there from elsewhere, until the advent of the
scourge--and that too, we brought or was possibly sent, from outside our
healthful borders.
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