Unit 4.9 - The Development of American Culture

key terms/events and significance

Transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson, & Henry David Thoreau (SOC)

• A small group of New England thinkers who expressed clear romanticism (emphasis on reason, order, balance → tuition, feelings, individual acts of heroism, study of nature)

• Popular American write & speaker / individualistic & nationalistic spirit instead of imitating Europeans / argued for self-reliance, independent thinking, spiritual over materialistic / critic of slavery + supporter of Union in civil war

• Emerson’s friend / a writer, pioneer ecologist & conservationist/ opposed war + inspired nonviolent movement / observe nature to search for truth about life & universe

Communal Experiments (ARC)

• George Ripley launched an experiment to see if people can live out of the transcendentalist ideal at Brook Farm in MA → goal is to achieve more natural union between intellectual & manual labor

• Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker & Nathaniel Hawthorne went there → load fire + heavy debt ended it

• Remembered for its artistic creativity, innovative school, & apeal to New England intellectual elite & their children

Hudson River School & Romantic Literature (SOC)

• Thomas Cole & Frederick Church depicted the heroic beauty of American landscapes especially in Hudson River School → expressed the Romantic Age’s fascination with the natural world

• Writers helped to create literature that is both Romantic & American (people were more nationalistic & eager for American works) / prominent writers from New England & Mid - Atlantic states

Significance

Rise of Romanticism, Art, & Literature