The Counter Culture
Movement of Transcendentalist
in the 1800’s relating to Hippies
in the 60’s.
Adora Kadiu
Freshman Year Seminar
Teddy Chocos
12/12/09
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 a time 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 was affecting America, woman
movement, and civil issues. Years pass by, and it seems like history was repeating itself in the
1960’s. Events started happened, like civil rights, woman issues and many more, the same events
related to 1800’s. The transcendentalists could be viewed as “the hippies”. The government had
no control in the 1960’s as well as the Transcendentalist era, because they both had one thing in
common. People were doing the same thing, and that was speaking up for their rights, which in
the end created change and process for America.
The transcendentalist, created 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 bribe people to listen to him in the streets. He did not like the
way the system of society worked, and felt as if he was not being heard. 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 having different views than him but also it was the main
reason that Concord was the city, and Fruitland was a farm. People’s views did not compliment
on his, because he had a different morality then others. He was willing to change his whole life,
and move his whole family to Fruitland, to make his ideas come true.
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 sisters, and there was very few rooms, outside the family enjoyed
beautiful views of nature all around, but mainly lived in close community that people shared the
same beliefs as they did.
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 agree with paying the taxes, because by
paying taxes it would support slavery and he did not agree with slavery. 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 want more to life, so he decided to go to the woods to experience a life he never had
before. “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 It was there in the woods
were he can have peace with himself and able to connect with nature. He 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 cope 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. For him
God was in nature.
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. Just like Bronson Alcott and Thoreau trying to bring attention to issue
that needed to be solved. They were both outspoken and fought again ideas such as in the 60’s.
Some people in the 60’s used 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 rights still relating to the issues of African American treated
equal. The woman issues, still the same issues having the voice and equality to speak up. Also
the traditional very non liberal people who went opposite of these people. All those events
people were outspoken and protested for their beliefs. They refused to support the goverement, in
laws and actions they did not find appropriate for. These were some issues and ideas that related
to the 1800s. But the sixties in the end were known for being different from other eras, all
because of the hippy phase and the time were the nation was changing.
The hippies had a connection to the transcendentalist because they all believed in the
same things, speaking out for equality. 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 which included nature. 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. A community that believes in the same ideas, like friutland.Hippies would get a reaction
of strange looks, such as 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. They did by protesting by what they
thought was wrong or right. There voice, led to the government hearing and agreeing to their
beliefs.
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. This relates to the transcendentalist and how they wanted nature to be kept, and not ruin
it the same with hippies, not ruining the planet for the future generation.
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. This showed that hippies were very involved in the 60’s and they
wanted to be heard, this was one of their issues.
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 .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. On Thoreau progress he made people thinks that, if they do have an
opinion they should stand up for it. For Alcott he was a great thinker and taught people about
how important nature is and learning. Finally the hippies, they were the most important because
they shifted a nation, before them nobody had the courage to protest and create action. Without
them, there still would be discrimination and more.
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 though the transcendentalist and the hippies were in different periods of time, there
actions meant the same. They wanted change such as a utopian world, education, equal rights,
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 had been similar, the
transcendentalist club and Woodstock. In the end the transcendentalist which included Thoreau,
Alcott then relating to the hippies, they were all not afraid of judgment and change.
Citations
The Transcendentalist
Cheever, Susan (2000s) American Bloomsbury –New York, NY
The Hippies
Carson, Rachel (1960’s) Silent Spring
Woodstock (late 1960’s)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLKKGHrGMxQ