Homesteading: Flight From the City: An Experiment in Creative Living on the Land
Ralph Borsodi (1886 – October 26, 1977[1]) was an agrarian theorist and practical experimenter interested in ways of living useful to the modern family desiring greater self-reliance (especially so during the Great Depression). Much of his theory related to living in rural surroundings on a modern homestead. Borsodi is chiefly known for his practical experiments in self-sufficient living during the 1920s and 1930s, and for the books he wrote about these experiments. The Distribution Age (1927), This Ugly Civilization (1929), and Flight from the City (1933) are his best known works.[6] He established a School of Living in Rockland County, New York during the winter of 1934–1935. Before long about 20 families began attending regularly from New York City, spending the weekends at the school. Some commentators claim Borsodi’s books inspired "hundreds of thousands of people" to follow his example during the Great Depression. In 1948 Borsodi self published, even doing his own typesetting, Education and Living a two-volume work designed to suggest a curriculum for the ongoing School of Living. In 1950, Borsodi moved to the Town of Melbourne Village, whose founders had been influenced by his teachings. Mildred Loomis, his most devoted student, continued the work of the School of Living into the 1970s when it was headquartered at Heathcote Community in Freeland, Maryland.