Transcendentalism
Transcend: To go beyond the range or limits of a
thing or an experience.
American Transcendentalism
Emerged in New England in the 1830s
A group of new ideas and thinkers in:
Literature
Religion
Philosophy
Culture
Promoted the notion of self-reliance and
independent thought
Rebels with a Cause
Transcendentalists were intellectual, religious, and
social rebels
Defined by what they were rebelling against:
conformity, tradition, political & social corruption
Created a uniquely American body of literature.
Openly spoke up against injustice
Redefined spirituality and the role of human beings in
the world
"We will walk on our own feet; we will
work with our own hands; we will speak
our own minds...A nation of men will for
the first time exist, because each believes
himself inspired by the Divine Soul
which also inspires all men."
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
Civil Rights
Transcendentalists were involved in social
reform movements:
Abolition (Anti-slavery)
Women’s rights
Democratic Education
Religious Freedom
Native American Rights
"The Transcendentalist adopts the whole
connection of spiritual doctrine…the perpetual
openness of the human mind to new influx of
light and power; he believes in inspiration, and in
ecstasy. He wishes that the spiritual principle
should be suffered to demonstrate itself to the
end, in all possible applications to the state of
man, without the admission of anything
unspiritual; that is, anything positive, dogmatic,
personal. Thus, the spiritual measure of
inspiration is the depth of the thought, and never,
who said it? And so he resists all attempts to palm
other rules and measures on the spirit.”
•
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882)
American essayist, philosopher and poet
Best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist
movement of the early 19th century.
His teachings directly influenced the growing New
Thought movement of the mid 1800s
He was seen as a champion of individualism and critic
of the pressures of society.
School Years
Emerson studied at the Boston Latin School, and
entered Harvard at fourteen.
Through his appointment as President's messenger, he
had his lodging free in the President's house, and his
board was paid by waiting on table in the commons.
Like most students who develop into geniuses, he read
widely in authors not prescribed in his course. He won
prizes in English composition
Margaret Fuller
(May 23, 1810–July 19, 1850)
American journalist, critic, educator, women’s rights
advocate, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist
Her book Woman in the Nineteenth Century is considered the
first major feminist work in the United States
Earned a reputation as the best-read person in New
England, male or female, and became the first woman
allowed to use the library at Harvard College
Criticized the “cancer of slavery,” and suggested that those
who were interested in the abolition movement follow the
same reasoning when considering the rights of women
Henry David Thoreau
(July 12, 1817–May 6, 1862)
Born David Henry Thoreau
American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister,
development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher,
and leading transcendentalist
Best known for his writing:
Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural
surroundings, and his essay,
“Civil Disobedience,” an argument for individual
resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an
unjust state
Civil Disobedience
Thoreau is sometimes cited as an anarchist, though
“Civil Disobedience” calls for improving rather than
abolishing government.
"I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a
better government.”
“‘That government is best which governs not at all;’
and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind
of government which they will have.”
Walden
Around 1835, Emerson met Henry David Thoreau.
Thoreau embarked on a two-year experiment in simple
living on July 4, 1845
He moved to a small, self-built house on land owned
by Emerson in a second-growth forest around the
shores of Walden Pond
Thoreau’s journals evolved into one of the greatest
reflective novels in American History
The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail
In1846, Thoreau ran into the local tax collector who
asked him to pay six years of delinquent poll taxes.
Thoreau refused because of his opposition to the
Mexican-American War and slavery
He spent a night in jail because of this refusal
The Mexican-American War
Armed conflict between the United States and Mexico
from 1846 to 1848
In 1845 the U.S. claimed ownership of Texas
Mexico claimed ownership of Texas as a breakaway
province and refused to recognize the secession and
subsequent military victory by Texas in 1836
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)
Mexican territories of Alta California and Santa Fe de
Nuevo México were ceded to the United States
Other Notable Transcendetalists
Amos Bronson Alcott: teacher, author, Utopian, and
father of Little Women author Louisa May Alcott
Orestes Brownson: intellectual, activist, preacher and
labor organizer
Frederic Henry Hedge: minister and founder of the
Transcendental Club
Theodore Parker: church reformer
Walt Whitman: poet, humanist
American History Timeline
Historic Transcendentalism Highlights
•
•
•
•
1780-1865
1780: An Act for the Gradual Abolition of
Slavery passed in Pennsylvania: one of the first
attempts by a government in the Western
Hemisphere to begin the abolition of slavery.
1802: Ohio outlaws slavery
1803: Louisiana Purchase
1804: The expedition led by Meriwether Lewis
and William Clark departs, moving up the
Missouri River
•
1819: Alabama admitted as slave state, bringing the
number of slave states and free states to equal
numbers
•
Unitarian Church established by
William Ellery
Channing
•
1820: Missouri Compromise, admitting Missouri as a
slave state and Maine as a free state. Maine
immediately gives right to vote and education to all
male citizens. The compromise also prohibited slavery
in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase
•
1821: New York gives free Blacks the right to vote
•
1824: Mexico becomes a republic—outlaws slavery
• 1827: Slavery made illegal in New York
• 1828: Election of Andrew Jackson
• 1829: Georgia prohibits the education of slaves
• 1830: Underground Railroad established
• Transcendentalism begins as small movement in New England
• 1831: Nat Turner, a Baptist slave preacher, leads a revolt in
Southampton County, Virginia, killing at least 57
whites. Alabama makes it illegal for Blacks to preach
• 1832: Oberlin College founded in Ohio (admitted
blacks)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson resigns from Second Church
• 1835: Texas declares independence from Mexico
• Frederick Douglass secretly organizes Sunday School and teaches
slaves to read
• 1836: Martin van Buren elected President
• Transcendental Club formed; Emerson’s Nature published;
Emerson’s son Waldo, born
• 1837: Emerson delivers The American Scholar address at
Harvard
• 1839: Margaret Fuller holds “conversations with women on
a variety of intellectual topics” (1839-1844)
• 1840: Dial Magazine published (edited by Margaret
Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson)
• 1842: Emerson’s son Waldo dies
• 1845: Santa Anna presidency is overthrown in
Mexico
• Thoreau begins his stay at Walden Pond
• Susan B. Anthony offers home to anti-slavery activists
• 1846: Mexican-American War
• Thoreau jailed for refusal to pay poll tax
• 1848: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo—war ends
• Zachary Taylor elected President
• 1850: Compromise of 1850 admits California as free
state & Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 requires the return
of runaway slaves
• 1853: Susan B Anthony begins Women’s Suffrage Movement
• 1854: Bleeding Kansas conflict begins between antislavery & pro-slavery forces—considered prelude to
American Civil War
• Walden Published
• Henry David Thoreau delivers address “Slavery in
Massachusetts”
• 1855: Walt Whitman publishes Leaves of Grass
• 1856: James Buchanan elected President
• 1857: Dred Scott Decision—Supreme Court rules that
blacks have no claim on freedom or citizenship
• 1859: John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry—attempt to
start an armed slave revolt; Brown executed
• Thoreau delivers address “A Plea for Captain John
Brown”
• 1860: Abraham Lincoln elected President
• 1861: Civil War begins—Confederate states secede from
the Union
• 1862: Slavery is abolished in the District of Columbia.
• Julia Ward Howe publishes “Battle Hymn of the
Republic”
• Henry David Thoreau dies in Concord
• 1863: Emancipation Proclamation—frees slaves in the
South
• 1864: Lincoln re-elected
• 1865: Civil War ends—Robert E. Lee surrenders (May)
• Lincoln assassinated (April)