Introduction and Personal Connections

• Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant discuss their personal experiences with transcendentalism
• Josh discovered transcendentalists at age 14, drawn to ethos but not intellectual aspects
• Chuck encountered it in college as English major
• Josh: transcendentalism led him away from church, started going to woods on Sunday mornings instead
• Chuck shares story about trail cam capturing bear at family camp
  • Got 400 pictures of crows since setup
  • Bear fatality statistics: never in Georgia, only 2 in southeastern US history

Origins and Influences of Transcendentalism

• Mid-1830s Boston, Massachusetts movement
• Minister George Ripley formed transcendental club
• Core beliefs: everyone has divine light, should be self-reliant, look within for truth
• Influenced by multiple sources:
  • Puritans: individualism, self-reliance, direct connection to God without intermediaries
  • European Romanticism: feelings and emotion over reason and order
  • Paris Peace Treaty 1815: opened travel/literature access between America and Europe
• Americans studied Goethe, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth after 1815
• Response to Enlightenment and French Revolution aftermath
  • French Revolution killed 40,000 people in 1-2 years
  • Recoiled from cold rationalism, embraced imagination, beauty, goodness
• Called first distinctive American philosophy

The Dial Literary Magazine

• Published 3 times annually by transcendental club
• 300 subscribers at peak, cost $3
• 4 volumes over 4 years
• Featured poetry, prose, literary/music criticism
• Focused on beauty, imagination, transcendental ideals
• Emphasized imagination over facts as path to divine communion

Henry David Thoreau and Walden

• Went to Walden Pond 1845 to "live deliberately"
• Built one-room cottage on Emerson's property near Concord
• Common misconceptions debunked:
  • Only half mile from main road
  • Went to town regularly
  • Less than 2 miles from main house
  • Ate dinner at Emerson's frequently
  • Mother and sister brought baked goods/donuts weekends
• Reality: spent time writing, reading Greek philosophers/religious texts, walking in woods
• Made money as surveyor or at family pencil factory (finest in country)
• Radical for 1845: grown men expected to work, not read/write/walk for pleasure

Civil Disobedience and Tax Resistance

• Thoreau refused to pay poll tax for years due to slavery
• Mexican-American War 1836 prompted organized protests
• Arrested and spent night in jail
• Anonymous relative paid debt, he was released unwillingly
• Inspired by Amos Alcott (Louise May's father) who also refused taxes
• Mexican-American War: unjust, unprovoked, American volunteers committed war crimes
• Quote: "not a man's duty to eradicate enormous wrong, but duty to wash hands of it and not give practical support"
• Civil Disobedience essay grew from jail experience

Educational Reform

• Transcendentalists believed education should be free for all races/creeds
• Many were teachers who founded progressive schools
• Included Peabody, Thoreau, Bronson Alcott
• Identified education as key to social change
• Their educational ideals closely resemble modern system

Abolition and Underground Railroad

• Fervent anti-slavery activists from 1830s-1840s
• Not just writing/speaking - took direct action
• Thoreau personally conducted Underground Railroad
• Many women involved in anti-slavery movement

Margaret Fuller - Feminist Pioneer

• Never comfortable being labeled transcendentalist
• Not religious, possibly agnostic/atheist
• Editor of The Dial for 2 of 4 years, big friend of Emerson
• Wrote "Woman in the 19th Century" (1845) - early feminist tome
• Started "conversations" series at age 29 - feminist discussions
• Advocated women could have any job, including ship captain
• Interviewed women in prisons, worked as literary critic/editor/writer
• Died at age 40 in shipwreck 50 yards from Fire Island shore
• Productive years only 11 years (age 29-40)
• Went to Italy for revolution, fell in love with younger revolutionary, had child
• Thoreau and Emerson searched for her body after shipwreck

Movement's End and Legacy

• Burned bright like sparkler, lasted only to 1850s
• Key figures died young: Fuller age 40, Thoreau early 40s from tuberculosis
• Scientific method gained ground 1850s-1860s, returned focus to logic/reason
• Philosophy continues today in different forms
• Influences: 1960s-70s kids, environmental justice, social justice movements
• Simple appreciation of beauty in nature = transcendentalist ideal