Aims & Scope
The purpose of this collection is to preserve the legacy of School of Living founder Ralph Borsodi and co-founder Mildred Loomis. The content covers a period from 1920, when Borsodi founded a homesteading experiment near Suffern, NY, until the death of Mildred Loomis in 1986. Both remained active leaders until their deaths.
In 1929 Borsodi proposed an alternative, lifelong educational program as the foundation for homesteading communities in his book This Ugly Civilization. With the founding of the School of living, chartered in 1934, he established a problem centered, also known as “universal problems of living,” framework. Mildred Loomis established, edited and published a series of newsletters and journals to support Borsodi educational and homesteading programs.
Borsodi, his wife and staff published several periodical issues prior to 1945 but few have been preserved. Loomis began The Interpreter in 1945 which became Green Revolution in 1963. The volume numbering of these two publications is continuous. There were also two additional periodicals published by the School of Living: Balanced Living, published between 1958 and 1962, and Way Out, published 1962 until 1967. Loomis remained editor of the newsletter, and as Director of Education for the School of Living, until her death.
The Interpreter was published twice monthly from January 1945 until September 1952 when it became a monthly newsletter. The Green Revolution was published monthly from January 1963 until 1980 when it became a quarterly publication until it was discontinued at the end of 2018.
Borsodi wrote fifteen books, including those related to his educational framework mentioned. Borsodi independently published the Journal of Praxiology (ten issues between 1955 and 1957) to support his Melbourne University experiment in Florida. The Journal of Praxiology includes the graduate level curriculum for the universal problems system – also being preserved.
With the death of Mildred Loomis the editorial policy of the School of Living shifted. Several editors continued the journal. The last editor, Bob Flatley, published a series of articles written by Bill Sharp about the history, philosophy and principles of Borsodi and Loomis ending with the last issue of the Green Revolution.