The association was the outcome of many discussions which had taken place at Mr.Ripley's house in Boston during the winter of 1840-41.

Among the prominent Bostonians who took part in these informal talks were Theodore Parker, Adin Ballou, Samuel Robbins, John S.Dwight, Warren Burton, and Orestes Brownson.

Each of these men, and, if we do not mistake, George Ripley also, presided at the time over some religious body.
Mr.Ballou, who was a Universalist minister of much local renown, was, perhaps, the only exception to the prevailing Unitarian complexion of the assembly.
The object of their discussions seems to have been, in a general way, the necessity for some social reform which should go to the root of the commercial spirit and the contempt for certain kinds of labor so widely prevalent; and, in a special way, the feasibility of establishing at once, on however small a scale, a co-operative experiment in family life, having for its ulterior aim the reorganization of society on a less selfish basis.

They probably considered that, a beginning once made by people of their stamp, the influence of their example would work as a quickening leaven.

They hoped to be the mustard-seed which, planted in a congenial soil, would grow into a tree in whose branches all the birds of the air might dwell.