In 1847 a citizen of Concord, Massachusetts, who had been in Harvard’s class of 1837, responded to a letter from his class secretary, asking about life ten years after college, by writing, with little regard for conventional punctuation: “I dont know whether mine is a profession, or a trade, or what not. … It is not one but legion. I will give you some of the monster’s heads. I am a Schoolmaster—a private Tutor, a Surveyor—a Gardener, a Farmer—a Painter. I mean a House Painter, a Carpenter, a Mason, a Day-Laborer, a Pencil-Maker, a Glass-paper Maker, a Writer, and sometimes a Poetaster. … For the last two or three years I have lived in Concord woods alone, something more than a mile from any neighbor, in a house built entirely by myself ”

Later in life this alumnus would also identify himself as a civil engineer. And while he would have had little inclination to join a professional society, his story is as relevant for an understanding of nineteenth-century engineering as it is for an appreciation of American transcendentalism. This Harvard alumnus was Henry David Thoreau.

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