American Romanticism
1800–1860
Feature Menu
Interactive Time Line
Milestone: Rise of American
Romanticism
Milestone: The Louisiana Purchase
Milestone: Education and Reform
Milestone: Transcendental Influence
Milestone: The Gold Rush
Milestone: The Slavery Issue
What Have You Learned?
American Romanticism
1800–1860
Choose a link on the time line to go to a milestone.
1800
Rise of
American
Romanticism
1800
1803
The Louisiana
Purchase
1830s–1850s
Transcendental
Influence
1820
1826
Lyceum
Movement
1840
1850–1859
The Slavery Issue
1860
1849
The Gold Rush
Rise of American Romanticism
Reaction Against Rationalism
• Cities filled with poor
living conditions and
disease
• Value placed on
nature and exotic
settings
• Characteristic
Romantic journey to
the countryside,
away from city
Rise of American Romanticism
Romantic Escapism
• Valued feelings and
intuition over reason
• Found beauty in exotic
locales and supernatural
• Poetry highest expression
of imagination
Rise of American Romanticism
Fireside Poets
• Wrote about
American settings
and subject matter
using traditional
styles and forms
• Very popular—
families read their
poems at family
firesides for
entertainment
Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow
Oliver Wendell
Holmes
John Greenleaf
Whittier
James Russell
Lowell
Rise of American Romanticism
Romantic Heroes
• Frontier life idealized in
novels
• Typical Romantic hero
youthful, innocent intuitive,
close to nature
• James Fenimore Cooper’s Natty
Bumppo is the first American heroic
figure
The Louisiana Purchase
Westward Expansion
The United States
• gained all land between
Mississippi River and
Rocky Mountains
• paid about four cents
an acre for the land
• immediately doubled in
size
“Oh Susanna! Polka”
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase
Westward Expansion
• Louisiana purchase
launched 100 years of
westward expansion.
• President Jefferson
sent Lewis and Clark
to explore western
territory.
• More people moved
into frontier areas.
Education and Reform
The Lyceum Movement
• Original Lyceum founded in
Greece in 335 B.C.
• American movement
founded in Massachusetts
• Sought to teach adults,
train teachers, and institute
social reforms
Education and Reform
The Lyceum Movement
• People went to lyceums for lectures.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the most
popular speakers.
• Lyceums led to new ways of thinking and the
establishment of museums and libraries.
Emerson lecturing in Concord, Massachusetts
Education and Reform
Other Reform Movements
• Dorothea Dix worked
to help mentally ill
people.
• Horace Mann worked
to improve public
education.
• Abolitionists worked
to end slavery.
• Feminists campaigned
for women’s rights
Dorothea Dix
Horace Mann
Transcendental Influence
True Reality Is Spiritual
• Everything, including humans,
is a reflection of Divine Soul.
• Physical facts of natural world
are a doorway to spiritual
world.
• Intuition allows people to
behold God’s spirit revealed in
nature or in their own souls.
• Spontaneous feelings are superior to
intellectualism and rationality.
Transcendental Influence
Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Combined beliefs from Europe
and Asia with Puritan, revival,
and Romantic traditions
• Published important essays
such as “Self-Reliance” and
“The Over-Soul”
• Had an extremely optimistic
view of the world and nature
• Optimism appealed to people living in period of
economic downturn, strife, and conflict
Transcendental Influence
Dark Romantics
• Shared many beliefs with the
Transcendentalists
• Explored conflict between good and evil and the
effects of guilt and sin
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville
Edgar Allan Poe
The Gold Rush
The Rush West
• Gold was discovered in
Sutter’s Mill, California.
• Tens of thousands
traveled west, hoping
for wealth.
• New towns and cities
were founded along
routes to California and
near mining sites.
The Gold Rush
New Frontiers
• Journey to California long and dangerous
• Led to new settlements along the land route
and west coast
• Led to building of the
transcontinental
railroad
The Slavery Issue
A Nation Divided
• Missouri Compromise
barred slavery west of
Missouri.
• Compromise was
overturned by KansasNebraska Act, which
• opened territories to slavery
• led to violence in Kansas and to the founding
of the antislavery Republican Party
The Slavery Issue
A Nation Divided
• Dred Scott decision denied
Congress right to prohibit slavery
in territories.
Dred Scott
John Brown
Burning of
Harper’s Ferry
• John Brown’s raid
at Harpers Ferry
led to more
violence.
What Have You Learned?
Indicate whether the following statements refer to
the time before, during, or after the Gold Rush.
______ Novelists popularize the American
during
Romantic hero.
______ Western New York represents frontier of
before
the country.
______ The first transcontinental railroad is built.
after
before
______ Education reform begins in
Massachusetts.
The End