Weekly Response 6

    Transcendentalism was a movement that individualized certain ideals in the 1830s and 1840s. Transcendentalism was defined as "ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition." It focused mainly on Literature, Religion, Culture, Social Reform, and Philosophy. The two most important individuals behind transcendentalism were Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Some major writers were Emily Dickonson and Nathanial Hawthorne, although Hawthorne was more of a critic, he was affected by transcendentalism. Edgar Allan Poe was another critic. Emerson and Thoreau founded a club called "the Hedge Club." They started two communal living projects, one near Boston and another near Harvard. The plan for the community was to bring together all kinds of artists to work together to build more financial security than they could get on their own. They believed that artists drew inspiration from a divine source. In the communities they followed a system was made by the French socialist Charles Fourier, who believed that in a properly organized society, people could accomplish all necessary social work by doing only what they were naturally inclined to do. Both these community failed.

    Most members of the group were active in other movements such as universal suffrage, antisabbatarianism, and anti slavery. They helped with the underground railroad, so obviously there were more transcendentalists in the north than in the south. The group published a journal called "the Dial." They also supported Feminism. The feminist, social reformer, and author Margaret Fuller was also a big part of the group. The transcendentalism ideals emerged from Unitarianism, which is a "liberal-Christian" church. German idealism also had an effect on the group. They had a tendency toward individualism, a belief in the importance of literature, and an interest in moral reform. They believed that god gave them ideas, so every thought was inspiration from God. The ideals of Transcendentalists were similar to those of Romantics.