Transcendentalism

The Unitarians of New England started transcendentalism, which peaked during the 1840's. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the foremost American Transcendentalist. He thought that the physical world was minor to the spiritual world but the physical world served society by showing splendor, discipline, language and by providing comedy. He also believed in the idea that people should educate themselves as much as they can about science through observation. Emerson and his followers believed in individuality. They …

…order that brought skepticism in transcendentalist thinking. Young men were beginning to view slavery as an institutional problem more than an ethical one. But Ralph Waldo Emerson was the only individual who publicly opposed slavery with regularity. The effects of Transcendentalism are seen in modern changes. The transcendentalists’ reform efforts provided to later social movements, notably the drive given to Gandhi and to the American civil rights movement of the 1960s by Thoreau’s group.