The Counter Culture
Movement of transcendentalist
in the 1800’s relating to hippies
in the 60’s.
Adora Kadiu
Freshman year Seminar
Teddy Chocos
11/10/09
The 1800s was a time for a change in the American lifestyle and upbringing. There was a
movement and a new group of people that changed American society forever. Those people were
called “transcendentalist”, which means a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture and
many more existing in New England. It was times were America was beginning to process and
so were its thinkers, a time for change. This was a counter culture movement, meaning people
were starting to realize what they wanted and not follow the government, so they started to speak
about important issues, such as slavery problems and how it is affecting America, woman
movement, and civil issues. Years pass by, and it seems like the same thing was going on. The
transcendentalists this time were considered “the hippies”. Due to the government controlling the
people, people had no voice on what was going too happened to them and this country, so they
tried to rebel, and due to rebellion problems occurred such as death and very important progress,
that has shifted this country to become what it is now.
The most important issues that effected the transcendentalist, was new ideas such as
literature, philosophy, etc but nature really brought them to themselves and really think about
life, and what their purpose as people were. A man who was known for the education, but
bringing it in a natural and spiritual way was Bronson Alcott. Living in Concord, Ma people did
not really see his point on society and nature. He felt like in Concord, Ma people were not really
feeling his ideas and did not agree with his teachings of education. He had to brag people to
listen to him in the streets. He did not like the way the system of society worked, and kind of felt
like an outcast. Later on Bronson Alcott decided he wanted to move to fruitland, and get his
whole family with him. He decided to move to Fruitland to be close to nature, and its purpose of
life. In Fruitland, were he can be free, and have peace with nature and himself. He wanted a
utopian world, which was not possible in Concord, Ma due to so many people have different
views than him. Some views were that people did not have the same concept, as he on life.
In Fruitland, a place, for Alcott to get closer to nature and escape reality, he also felt that
he should preserve the animals and what god had created to not be harmed. Instead of eating
food with meat in it, all the Alcott family would do was sacrifice and drink water, while eating
bread and fruit, everyday in their life. He was like in a dreamy world that he wanted to, to be one
with nature. [According to Alcott,” We had made an arrangement with the proprietor of an estate
of about a hundred acres” (Cheever, page # 63)]. Even though Louisa May Alcott was sleeping
in the attic with her three sister, and there was very few rooms, outside the family enjoyed
beautiful views of nature all around, but mainly lived in close community that people had to help
one another to survive, unlike in Concord.
Another experimental man of the time in the 1800s was Henry David Thoreau. Unlike
Alcott, he was not a family man, but both men were very similar in their ways of thinking and
lifestyle. Thoreau did not agree with the system of the government. He would not pay his taxes
because of money problems, but also because he did not see the need of paying for it. This
caused him to go to jail, but a nice friend helped him bail out. Thoreau rebelled but not in a
violent way. He felt like he did not belong into that society, and due to his weird behavior and
odd personality, he decided to go to the woods. “I went to the woods because I wished to live
deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life. And see if I could not learn what it had to
teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”(Thoreau). He went to the
woods because he wanted to get away from the society that was ruled by the government instead
of its people. It was in the woods were he can have peace with himself and able to connect with
nature. Some people called it lazy, but he would have described it as looking at himself, and
seeing how life is and what you want from it. It seemed that every time he had a bad experience
such as his brother, dying in his arms, he went back to nature to cob with his feelings of sadness.
Nature to him meant God, and being with another life instead of everyday people. Every time he
looked at nature, he felt closer and closer to who he was and God.
From the 60’s due to America changing as a country with its people, people started to
realize that they had no control. Such as getting drafted in the army, not agreeing with the
Vietnam war, woman issues and civil war, people started to rebel against the government. It was
here were the counter culture movement happened and people started to speak up and protest for
their believes and rights. Some more than others, some using violence as a voice, such as killing
others. While others tried to use peace wanting to get every one in the same idea. The peace sign
became a symbol of hope and change.
There was so much happening in the 1960’s, just like in the transcendentalist era, history
repeating itself. Free speech, civil war still relating to the issues of African American treated
equal. The feminine mystique, woman issues, stills the same issues having the voice, to speak up.
Also the traditional very non liberal people who went opposite of these people. These were all
some issues and ideas that related to the 1800s. But the sixties in the end were known from being
different from other eras, all because of the hippy phase.
The hippies had a connection to the transcendentalist because they all believed in the
same things, speaking out. They both connected in their views, such as on the education system,
experimenting on new ideas, such as sexual relationship, and a new revolution of thinkers and
ideas. They had the same actions, and the main important one was the environment. Just like the
Alcott family, the hippies would travel too. It was part of the hippy culture. Moving in
communes, and moving all together with family and friends. Hippies would get a reaction of
strange looks, of like there outcasts. Hippies got an image of being crazy, when in reality they
just wanted to be heard. The hippies were working together, too create a change in the American
society, for making peace rather than violence and war.
The culture movement included hippies, but within that there was the environment
movement going on. Rachel Carson was a writer that was famously known for the book called
“Silent Spring”. She talks about how people are ruining the environment for themselves, but also
the animals. The book questions people attempt of saving the planet. In the book she uses the
evidence of birds to show, what is happening to the environment. The birds appear to die very
quietly due to the mosquitos’ mystery, but also the ones who manage to say alive, appear to have
smaller eggs than normal, then the birds come out to be abnormal. She uses these facts to relate
to people and show that the environment is part of us and we should not ruin it for the generation
to come.
The Huron statement was also another event that talked about nature and the effects of
the environment in 1960s. It had to deal with student activist movement in college lives. It dealt
also at the same time with racial issues, which also supported utopian kind of life that will help
human nature. “We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in
universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit,”(students for a democratic society).
That explained that these children grew up in a certain way, but then in the end, they look at the
world with fear, because of worrying about nature and the environment. They were also a group
who were very into politics, and with politics they took the advantages to speak about things that
they strongly disagreed with like anti-communist.
The transcendentalists were like philosophers they looked at life in a new way, and found
out things they enjoyed. They are the history of America and its beautiful environment. The
same with hippies, they were history basically repeating itself in the sixties. The lifestyle of
transcendentalist was not like others, not everyone was liberal, and had the money, to stop what
they were doing and live in the woods for a moment. The same with hippies, not everyone was
hippies , so they weren’t allowed to purpose and be independent. For a while these people related
to one another because in the end, what they tried to do is create change, even thou they didn’t
change fully, they had made progress for the next generation that was coming.
They believed that nature was part of who they were as human beings. It was an escape
method from them to get away from the government or the society for a while. Some believed
that they would find themselves and be one with nature, but then others thought the more they
got to nature, the closer they got to god and his beliefs. This land, they did not want to ruined
because in the end it cause pollution but also, it ruined the animals, and it affected the humans.
Even thou the transcendentalist and the hippies were in different periods of time, there
actions meant the same. They wanted change, but also people’s reactions about them meant the
same, people did not accept their ideas and beliefs, the government or the society. Even the
events that both groups had, has been similar, the transcendentalist club, and Woodstock. The
transcendentalist club was when the entire philosopher like Alcott, Emerson and more, meant up
and communicated about utopia, and new ideas. While Woodstock was a concert meant to be for
peace, in a time was that was hard to find. Hippies came up with new ideas that people dared not
to do before.
Citations
Transcendentalist
Thoreau, 1800’s (American Bloomsbury)
Alcott, Bronson, 1800’s (Fruitland, American Bloomsbury)
Hippies-60
SDS, 1962(students for a democratic society)
Carson.L.Rachel, 1960(Silent Spring)