Antebellum America, Transcendentalism, Emerson

Abstract This chapter explores the rapidly changing landscape of antebellum America, an era of dramatic techno-social change and intellectual ferment, particularly through the lens of the Transcendentalist movement and Henry David Thoreau’s participation in it. During his life, the United States transforms from an underdeveloped country into an emerging industrial superpower, marked by an unprecedented array of reform initiatives including antislavery, feminism, religious iconoclasm, and utopian socialism. Transcendentalism was a key example: a polyform human potential movement whose epicenter was Thoreau’s hometown of Concord and whose leading spokesperson became his primary mentor—Ralph Waldo Emerson. This chapter describes first the defining characteristics of Transcendentalism and then the complicated relation between mentor and mentee as the Emerson-Thoreau relation evolved. The final sections show how Thoreau became a more influential embodiment of Emerson’s key theories of individual intuition, self-reliance, and the sacredness of nature than Emerson himself even as Thoreau outgrew Transcendentalism and distanced himself from his mentor.