Self-Reliance that would become "Self-Reliance" was presented by Ralph Waldo Emerson as part of a sermon in September 1830 a month after his first marriage. His wife Ellen was sick with tuberculosis and, as Emerson's biographer Robert D. Richardson wrote, "Immortality had never been stronger or more desperately needed!" From 1836 into 1837, Emerson presented a series of lectures on the philosophy of history at Boston's Masonic Temple. These lectures were never published separately, but many of his thoughts in these were later used in "Self-Reliance" and several other essays. Later lectures by Emerson led to public censure of his radical
Tools for Self Reliance Self Reliance struggled to survive, with 60-70 volunteer groups across the country putting in thousands of hours of practical and administrative work. Schools, universities, Rotarians and churches backed them up with tool collections, transport and money. Funds were always limited, though the situation occasionally improved thanks to a successful BBC Week's Good Cause appeal by Bishop Trevor Huddleston (1983), and support from Quaker and other foundations. By the late 1980s and early 1990s most of these problems had diminished and the organisation was providing some 40-50,000 tools a year to seven countries in Africa and Central America. Tools for Self