Transcendentalism

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Transcendentalism
1836-1860
Amy Tatarzyn Brittany Eastley Amanda Burgess
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Harriet Martineau
Thoreau
Fuller
Prominent People
Theodore Parker
Whitman
Emerson
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody
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Elizabeth Palmer Peabody
1804-1894

• Margaret Fuller and William Ellery Channing were
  the only female charter members of the
  Transcendentalist Club founded in 1837.
• In 1840 she opened an influential bookstore, the
  headquarters in Boston for the Transcendental
  movement.
• She published Channing's and Hawthorne's works,
  and an issue of her own periodical, "Aesthetic
  Papers."
• Much of her later writing concerned kindergarten
  education.

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Theodore Parker
1810-1860
Serving as Unitarian minister in West Roxbury, he
was an associate of William Ellery Channing,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, and other Transcendentalists
He became a minister at a the Unitarian Church
in Boston. He was also active in social
movements, including school and prison reforms,
temperance, and the abolition of slavery. He was
one of the transcendentalists, contributed to the
Dial, and edited (1847-50) the Massachusetts
Quarterly Review.
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William Ellery Channing
1780-1842
American Unitarian minister and author.
A.K.A the apostle of Unitarianism Channing
influenced many American authors, including
Emerson and other transcendentalists and Holmes
and Bryant. Made sermons that changed the way
American people reacted towards religious views
concerning Calvinism and Utopianism.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882

• Most Famous Writings
• Nature
• The American Scholar
• Self Reliance

• Widely regarded as the key figure in
  transcendentalist thought and literature.
• Graduate of Harvard
• Served as the pastor of the historic Old North
  Church (Second Unitarian Church) in Boston.
• Traveled Europe and was influenced by the
  writings of Immanuel Kant
• Founded the Hedge Club in 1836, later called the
  Transcendentalist Club, which marked the
  beginning of the era.

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• Main Writings
• Society in America (1837).
• Retrospect of Western Travel (1838).
• Deerbrook (1839)

Harriet Martineau
1802-1876

• A journalist rather than a writer of literature.
• Her success is the remarkable since she was deaf
  from childhood and the victim of various other
  illnesses throughout her life.
• Sister of the Unitarian minister James
  Martineau.

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Margaret Fuller
The most significant of Fullers works are Woman
in the Nineteenth Century (1844) and Papers on
Literature and Art (1846). 
Her letters to the New York Tribune describing
her experiences in Europe during 1846 were
published as At Home and Abroad (1856). 
1810-1850

• In 1840 she also joined Emerson and others to
  found the Dial, a journal devoted to
  transcendentalist views, and became a contributor
  from the first issue and its editor.
• Published her feminist classic, Woman in the
  Nineteenth Century in 1845.
• In addition to writing a solid body of critical
  reviews and essays, she became active in various
  social reform movements.
• In 1846 she went to Europe as a foreign
  correspondent for the Tribune, and in England and
  France she was regarded as a serious intellectual
  and met many prominent people.

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Walt Whitman 1819-1892
                    

• Whitmans Themes
• Included transcendentalist power of love,
  brotherhood, and comradeship.
• Belief in regenerative and illustrative powers of
  nature.

• American Poet during the Transcendentalist Era.
• Borrowed techniques and themes from Poe and
  Hawthorne.
• Emerson helped Whitman to find himself.

Famous Writings and Poems Leaved of Grass,
Song of myself, and The Sleepers
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Bronson Alcott
1799-1888

• Opened his Temple School in Boston (1834).
• American advocate of educational and social
  reform.
• One of the leading exponents of
  transcendentalism, he wrote for the periodical
  Dial (the Orphic Sayings being his most famous
  contribution) and was a nonresident member of
  Brook Farm.
• Among his writings are Observations on the
  Principles and Methods of Infant Instruction
  (1830), Record of a School (1835), and Ralph
  Waldo Emerson (1882).

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Henry David Thoreau
1816-1872

• Opened a private school in Concord (1838), based
  on Transcendentalism
• In 1849 he would publish an essay on this
  experience, "Resistance to Civil Government'
  (later known as "On the Duty of Civil
  Disobedience'), which in its call for passive
  resistance to unjust laws was to inspire Gandhi
  and Martin Luther King, Jr.
• The journal he kept at Walden became the source
  of his most famous book, Walden, Or Life in the
  Woods (1854), in which he set forth his ideas on
  how an individual should best live to be attuned
  to his own nature as well as to nature itself.
• Walden or, Life in the Woods described a
  two-year period in Thoreau's life from March 1845
  to September 1847.

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Reasons for its Name
The Transcendentalists received their name
because of what they were rebelling against, what
they saw was the current situation and that was
what they were trying to be different from. The
Transcendentalists were a generation of well
educated people who lived in decades before the
American Civil War and the national division that
both reflected and helped to create. They were
mostly New Englanders from around Boston who were
attempting to create a uniquely American body of
literature, they believed it was time for
literary independence. They went about creating
literature, essays, novels, philosophy, poetry
and other writing that was clearly different from
anything from England, France, Germany, or any
other European nation.
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Reasons for its Name Continued...
The Transcendentalist period dealt with the idea
that something in human beings transcended human
nature a spark of divinity. A great emphasis was
placed on individual conscience, and a guide to
behavior and intuition in the discovery of truth
and artistic inspiration. Transcendentalist
period began as a reform movement in the
Unitarian Church Began in Concord Massachusetts
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Prominent Authors
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803
- 1882 Emerson was the founder of the
Transcendental movement and founder of a
distinctly American philosophy emphasizing
optimism, individuality and mysticism. Emerson
sought to create all new things with a
philosophy stressing the recognition of God
Immanent. Emersons works also emphasize
individualism and each persons quest to break
free from trapping of the illusory world in order
to discover the godliness of the inner self.
The Conduct of Life illustrated Emersons
mature effort of his thoughts in his 50s tried
out in journal entries and on lecture platforms
and finally published forth in 1860.
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Emerson Continued...
Representative Men was published along with The
Conduct of Life and included George Washington,
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Daniel
Webster as important figures in Emersons life.
English Traits is one of Emersons works that
represent the fullness of his achievement.
English Traits questions the country of the
question, how shall I live?
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1817 - 1862 Thoreau was a fragile Narcissus
embodied in a homely New Englander. Published
many novels. A Week on the Concord and
Merrimack Rivers Walden Hojoki Dial (Thoreau
helped with the editorial chores) A Week
Henry David Thoreau
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Edgar Allan Poe
1809 - 1849 Published Tamerlane and Other
Poems Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor
Poems Philadelphia Saturday Courier Poems South
ern Literary Messenger (Poe was the assistant
editor)
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Philip Freneau

1752 - 1832 Wrote the romantic poem of The Wild
Honey Suckle Wrote novel Father Bombos
Pilgrimage to Mecca Composed Columbus to
Ferdinand Author of The Power of
Fancy Published the novel The American Village
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Margaret Fuller
1810 - 1850 Published Woman in the
Nineteenth Century in 1845 Wrote Summer on the
Lakes in 1843 on her travels to the West, Fuller
won a position as the first woman member of the
working press at Horace Greeleys New York
Tribune because of this novel. Composed a two
volume Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli which
interposes her informal writings with the
recollections of friends, and resembles a rush to
judgement. Wrote Blithedale Romance Was the
head editor of the journal the Dial of the
Transcendentalists
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Bret Harte
1836 - 1902 Wrote the short story
The Luck of Roaring Camp in 1868 Wrote the
poem Autumn Musings in the New York Sunday
Morning Atlas Composed The Crusade of the
Excelsior Created short story of How I Went to
the Mines Author of novel Tales of the Argonauts
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Louisa May Alcott
1832 - 1888 Author of Little
Women Wrote the novel, An Old Fashioned Girl
Published the novel Eight Cousins Wrote the
novel Work Published Jos Boys
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James Russell Lowell
1819 - 1891 Wrote the novel A
Years Life in 1841 Was the editor of The
Pioneer A Literary and Critical Magazine
Composed Conversations on Some of the Old
Poets Was a regular contributor in the
Pennsylvania Freeman Created The Biglow Papers
which is a series of poems in Yankee dialect
attacking the Mexican War as a national crime
committed in behalf of slaver.
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William Cullen Bryant
1794 - 1878 Created the poem The
Embargo Wrote the poem Thanatopsis Created
the poem The Yellow Violet Wrote To a
waterfowl Published the poem Inscription for
the Entrance to a Wood
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Oliver Wendell Holmes
1809 - 1894 Published Urania A
Rhymed Lesson in 1846 which declares the city to
be the victorious result of mankinds long
struggle against barbarism and ignorance. Holmes
wrote Autobiographical Notes which analyzed his
youthful religious experience and it gave a key
to many of the essential features of his life and
personality. Author of Jonathan Edwards in
1880 Wrote The Pulpit and the Pew in
1881 Published The Moral Bully in 1850
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Fine Art
All of the artists felt some attraction to the
use of nature as the voice through which they
expressed their amazement at what we see around
us every day, God's great power, or some human
struggle.
Thomas Cole, Tornado, 1835
The new significance of nature coincided with
the development of landscape painting and the
destruction of the wilderness.
The nature of the new world exceeds the culture
of the old.
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Joseph Mallord William Turner, Snowstorm, 1842
Thomas Cole, The Clove, Catskills, 1827
F I N E A R T
Caspar David Friedrich, Morning Mist in the
Mountains, 1808
Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire The Savage
State, 1836
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Thomas Cole Wilderness
The Oxbow, 1836
Author and Title Unknown
Thomas Cole Name Unknown
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Fashion

• Men
• Suits-included Ties, dress shirts, dress pant.
• Dress Shoes
• Hair- out of the face and usually brushed back.

• Women
• Skirts down to ankles
• Shirts up to neck
• Shawls, minimum jewelry, flat shoes.

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Inventions

• Telegraph- 1837- Samuel Morse
• Photography- 1839- Daguerre
• Photovoltaic Panel (solar power)-1839
• Fax Machine-1842-Alexander Bain
• Fiber Optics-1854-John Tyndall
• Steel-1855-Sir Henry Bessemer
• Electric Generator-1860- Zénobe-Théophile Gramme
  
• Telephone- 1861-Alexander Graham

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Major Historical Events
Texas becomes independent from Mexico
(1836) Trail of Tears Thousands of Native
Americans are forced to move West, many die
(1838) Opium War between Britain and China
(1839-1842) Texas and Florida become U.S. states
(1845) Famine in Ireland due to failure of
potato crop (many Irish migrate to the states)
(1846)
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Major Historical Events
Mexican War (1846-1842) U.S. forces capture
Mexico City (1847) Wisconsin becomes a state
(1848) Coup detat of Louis Napoleon against the
republican constitution (1851)
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Major Historical Events
United States Senate ratifies the Gadsden
Purchase for acquisition of parts of New Mexico
and Arizona (1854) Ostend Manifesto advises U.S.
to annex Cuba (1854) Massacre of Potawatomie
Creek, Kansas slaves are murdered by
free-staters (1856) Afghanistans independence
is recognized (1857)
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Music
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Simple Gifts
'Tis the gift to be simple,'Tis the gift to be
free,'Tis the gift to come down where we ought
to be,And when we find ourselves in the place
just right,It will be in the valley of love and
delight.When true simplicity is gained,to bow
and to bend, we will not be ashamedTo turn,
turn, will be our delight,'Til by turning,
turning, we come round right.
written by Shaker Elder Joseph Brackett Jr. in
1848
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Long, Long Ago
Tell me the tales that to me were so dear,Long,
long ago, long, long ago,Sing me the songs I
delighted to hear,Long, long ago, long ago,Now
you are come all my grief is removed,Let me
forget that so long you have roved.Let me
believe that you love as you loved,Long, long
ago, long ago.Do you remember the paths where
we met?Long, long ago, long, long ago.Ah, yes,
you told me you'd never forget,Long, long ago,
long ago.Then to all others, my smile you
preferred,Love, when you spoke, gave a charm to
each word.Still my heart treasures the phrases I
heard,Long, long ago, long ago.
Tho' by your kindness my fond hopes were
raised,Long, long ago, long, long ago.You by
more eloquent lips have been praised,Long, long
ago, long, long ago,But, by long absence your
truth has been tried,Still to your accents I
listen with pride,Blessed as I was when I sat by
your side.Long, long ago, long ago.
written by Thomas Haynes Bayley in 1843
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Turkey in the Straw
Paid five dollars for a blind old hossWouldn't
go ahead, nor he wouldn't stand still,So he went
up and down like an old saw mill.Turkey in the
straw, turkey in the hay,Roll 'em up and twist
'em up a high tuckahawAnd twist 'em up a tune
called Turkey in the Straw.As I came down the
new cut road,Met Mr. Bullfrog, met Miss ToadAnd
every time Miss Toad would sing,Old Bullfrog cut
a pigeon wing.Turkey in the straw, turkey in the
hay,Roll 'em up and twist 'em up a high
tuckahawAnd twist 'em up a tune called Turkey in
the Straw.Oh I jumped in the seat and I gave a
little yellThe horses ran away, broke the wagon
all to hellSugar in the gourd and honey in the
hornI never been so happy since the day I was
born.Turkey in the straw, turkey in the
hay,Roll 'em up and twist 'em up a high
tuckahawAnd twist 'em up a tune called Turkey in
the Straw.
As I was a-gwine down the road,With a tired team
and a heavy load,I crack'd my whip and the
leader sprung,I says day-day to the wagon
tongue.Turkey in the straw, turkey in the
hay,Roll 'em up and twist 'em up a high
tuckahawAnd twist 'em up a tune called Turkey in
the Straw.Went out to milk, and I didn't know
how,I milked the goat instead of the cow.A
monkey sittin' on a pile of straw,A-winkin' at
his mother-in-law.Turkey in the straw, turkey in
the hay,Roll 'em up and twist 'em up a high
tuckahawAnd twist 'em up a tune called Turkey in
the Straw. Met Mr. Catfish comin' down
stream.Says Mr. Catfish, "What does you
mean?"Caught Mr. Catfish by the snout,And
turned Mr. Catfish wrong side out.Turkey in the
straw, turkey in the hay,Roll 'em up and twist
'em up a high tuckahawAnd twist 'em up a tune
called Turkey in the Straw. Came to a river and
I couldn't get across,
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The Marine's Hymn
From the Halls of MontezumaTo the shores of
Tripoli,We will fight out country's battlesIn
the air, on land and sea.First to fight for
right and freedomAnd to keep our honor clean.We
are proud to claim the titleOf United States
Marine.Our flag's unfurl'd to ev'ry breezeFrom
dawn to setting sunWe have fought in ev'ry clime
and placeWhere we could take a gun.In the snow
of far off northern lands,And in sunny tropic
scenes,You will find us always on the job - The
United States Marines.
Here's health to you and to our corps,Which we
are proud to serveIn many a strife we've fought
for life,And never lost our nerve.If the Army
and the NavyEver look on Heaven's scenes,They
will find the streets are guardedBy United
States Marines.
The words to this song are have said to have
been composed in Mexico around 1840 by the
Marines Stationed there.
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Elder Joseph Brackett Jr.
Was born on May 6, 1797 in Cumberland,
Maine. Composed the folk tune Simple Gifts in
1848 in Alfred, Maine which he is most famous
for. He was a Shaker, (the United Society of
Believers in Christs Second Appearing), which
was founded in England around 1747. He died on
July 4, 1882 in New Gloucester, Maine. His
portrait still hangs in the music room of the
last remaining Shaker community in Sabbathday
Lake, Maine.
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Robert Schumann
Born June 8, 1810. He began taking piano
lessons at age 8. At the age of 12, he composes
his first piece Psalm 150 which was an overture
for chorus and opera. in 1843 he began to teach
composition, score reading, and piano. Could
speak English, French, German, Italian, Latin,
and Spanish.
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John Sullivan Dwight
Born May 13, 1813 in Boston, MA. Graduated from
Harvard College in 1832. Was an ordained
minister for the Unitarian church in
Northampton. Served as a director of the Brook
Farm school, and wrote a regular column on music
in the Harbinger. Felt that there was a very
strong parallel between a communitys social
cause and passion for music. He felt that music
was essential for expression and education. He
largely established Beethovens popularity in
America.
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William Henry Fry
He was born August 10, 1815 in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. Considered the Father of American
Opera. His Leonora was the first opera by an
American composer to be performed in the United
States. His other works include Aurelia the
Vestal Giulio e Leonore
Notre Dame of Paris
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Johannes Brahms
He was born May 7, 1833 in Hamburg. Began piano
lessons at age seven, and theory and composition
at age 13. He continued to study his fathers
style of music, which was a Hungarian folk
music. His first highly recognized piece was his
D Minor Piano Concerto, op. 15. In addition to
composing piano music, he composed chamber music
and string sextets. His most famous piece is
entitled St. Anthonys Chorale.
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Architechture
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Brook Farm
Founded by George Ripley in 1841. This farm was
created for a select few important
Transcendentalists to share and help spread the
common ideas. The ideas included individual
freedom and humane relationships. They believed
that manual labor was uplifting, so every member
of the farm engaged in some form of physical
labor for at least a few hours. They believed
they could create a utopian society.
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Walden Pond
This is where Henry Thoreau lived and worked for
two years, 1845-1847. He kept a journal of his
thoughts and encounters of society and nature.
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Oneida Noyes
The Oneida Noyes Community was founded in 1834
by John Humphrey Noyes. Noyes began and taught a
new way of life, through his publication, The
Witness. They adopted communism as a way to live.