Transcendentalism and Transcendentalism and the Hudson River Schoolthe Hudson River School

Interpretations of Nationalism and Interpretations of Nationalism and SectionalismSectionalism

ObjectivesObjectives

• Trace the creation of a distinctive American cultural identity by writers and artists of the period.

What is transcendentalism?What is transcendentalism?

• Transcendentalism questions established cultural forms and focuses on being educated (enlightened). It urged people to fulfill their human potential and to be fully human. Also stressed self-reliance.

• It spread throughout religion, education, literature, philosophy, and social reform

TranscendentalismTranscendentalism

• Romanticism is directly correlated with Transcendentalism

• Also manifested in the creation of Utopian Societies like Brook Farm and Oneida

• Gave more support to the anti-slavery movement

Authors Authors

• Ralph Waldo Emerson- Nature

• Henry David Thoreau- Walden

• James Fenimore Cooper- Last of the Mohicans

• Legacy lived on in Louisa Mae Alcott, Emily Dickinson, and Walt Whitman

What was the Hudson River What was the Hudson River School?School?

• The Hudson River School was a group of painters, led by Thomas Cole, who painted awesomely Romantic images of America's wilderness, in the Hudson River Valley and also in the newly opened West.

Thomas ColeThomas Cole

Albert BierdstadtAlbert Bierdstadt

Martin Johnson HeadeMartin Johnson Heade

The Rise of ReformThe Rise of Reform

• 2nd Great Awakening

• Rise of Mormonism

• Education

• Prisons and Asylums

• Women’s Movement

• Temperance

• Utopian Communities

ReligionReligion

• Movement from the Puritan ideals of the previous century to more evangelical.

22ndnd Great Awakening Great Awakening

• Unitarianism: spoke of the “humanness” of God– rebuked all Puritan ideals

• Charles Grandison Finney- preacher– Stressed that people were moral free agents,

but to be saved they had to hurry to salvation– Led to secular (non-religious) reform

movements– Women encouraged to be missionaries

Rise of MormonismRise of Mormonism

• Founded by Joseph Smith

• Led to Salt Lake City, Utah by Brigham Young

• Established Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

• Experienced persecution because of their belief and practice of polygamy

EducationEducation

• Horace Mann- introduced public school education to New England states– Stressed that school should be compulsory

(children made to go)– States should pay (not the federal gov)– Introduced McGuffey Readers

Prisons and AsylumsPrisons and Asylums

• Led by Dorothea Dix

Women’s MovementWomen’s Movement

• Catherine Beecher: – one of the chief proponents of the "cult of

domesticity," devoting much of her writing to domestic and household topics both ideological and practical.

– stressed that women should become teachers and have more autonomy and power

Women’s MovementWomen’s Movement

• Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Blackwell.

• Held the Seneca Falls Convention in NY, where they issued the Declaration of Sentiments, which modeled after the Declaration of Independence

• Stated how men had deprived women of the right to vote and equality

TemperanceTemperance

• The attempt to limit or ban the consumption of alcohol.

Utopian CommunitiesUtopian Communities

• Utopia: the perfect society

• Brook Farm

• Oneida Community

• Both failed once people, with all of their imperfections, started bickering

To Come….To Come….

• The largest and most controversial reform movement of the 19th Century: Abolition

• Women were very influential in all of the reform movements (education, prisons, abolition, religion)

Due Wednesday, Nov. 16Due Wednesday, Nov. 16

• Essay:– “American reform movements between 1820

and 1860 reflected both optimistic and pessimistic views of human nature and society.” Assess the validity of this statement in reference to reform movements in 3 of the following areas:

– Education, Temperance, Women’s Rights, Utopian experiments, and Penal institutions