Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.
In 1867, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. ==Early life, family, and education== Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 25, 1803, a son of Ruth Haskins and the Rev.
Another of Emerson's bright and promising younger brothers, Charles, born in 1808, died in 1836, also of tuberculosis, making him the third young person in Emerson's innermost circle to die in a period of a few years. Emerson met his first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker, in Concord, New Hampshire, on Christmas Day, 1827, and married her when she was 18 two years later.
Emerson was entirely of English ancestry, and his family had been in New England since the early colonial period. Emerson's father died from stomach cancer on May 12, 1811, less than two weeks before Emerson's eighth birthday.
She lived with the family off and on and maintained a constant correspondence with Emerson until her death in 1863. Emerson's formal schooling began at the Boston Latin School in 1812, when he was nine.
. ===Archival sources=== Ralph Waldo Emerson papers, 1814–1867 (25 boxes) are housed at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University Finding aid to Ralph Waldo Emerson letters at Columbia University.
In October 1817, at age 14, Emerson went to Harvard College and was appointed freshman messenger for the president, requiring Emerson to fetch delinquent students and send messages to faculty.
In the early 1820s, Emerson was a teacher at the School for Young Ladies (which was run by his brother William).
Emerson served as Class Poet; as was custom, he presented an original poem on Harvard's Class Day, a month before his official graduation on August 29, 1821, when he was 18.
In a journal entry written in 1822, Emerson wrote about a personal observation: "It can hardly be true that the difference lies in the attribute of reason.
Emerson was accepted into the Harvard Divinity School in late 1824, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 1828.
In his honor, this area is now called Schoolmaster Hill in Boston's Franklin Park. In 1826, faced with poor health, Emerson went to seek a warmer climate.
Another of Emerson's bright and promising younger brothers, Charles, born in 1808, died in 1836, also of tuberculosis, making him the third young person in Emerson's innermost circle to die in a period of a few years. Emerson met his first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker, in Concord, New Hampshire, on Christmas Day, 1827, and married her when she was 18 two years later.
Emerson was accepted into the Harvard Divinity School in late 1824, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 1828.
Edward's physical health began to deteriorate, and he soon suffered a mental collapse as well; he was taken to McLean Asylum in June 1828 at age 23.
In a journal entry dated March 29, 1832, he wrote, "I visited Ellen's tomb & opened the coffin". Boston's Second Church invited Emerson to serve as its junior pastor, and he was ordained on January 11, 1829.
Less than two years after that, on February 8, 1831, Ellen died, at the age of 20, after uttering her last words: "I have not forgotten the peace and joy".
In a journal entry dated March 29, 1832, he wrote, "I visited Ellen's tomb & opened the coffin". Boston's Second Church invited Emerson to serve as its junior pastor, and he was ordained on January 11, 1829.
His church activities kept him busy, though during this period, facing the imminent death of his wife, he began to doubt his own beliefs. After his wife's death, he began to disagree with the church's methods, writing in his journal in June 1832, "I have sometimes thought that, in order to be a good minister, it was necessary to leave the ministry.
His disagreements with church officials over the administration of the Communion service and misgivings about public prayer eventually led to his resignation in 1832.
He left aboard the brig Jasper on Christmas Day, 1832, sailing first to Malta.
As one Emerson scholar has pointed out, "Doffing the decent black of the pastor, he was free to choose the gown of the lecturer and teacher, of the thinker not confined within the limits of an institution or a tradition". Emerson toured Europe in 1833 and later wrote of his travels in English Traits (1856).
The two maintained a correspondence until Carlyle's death in 1881. Emerson returned to the United States on October 9, 1833, and lived with his mother in Newton, Massachusetts.
On November 5, 1833, he made the first of what would eventually be some 1,500 lectures, "The Uses of Natural History", in Boston.
He had begun lecturing in 1833; by the 1850s he was giving as many as 80 lectures per year.
Although he recovered his mental equilibrium, he died in 1834, apparently from long-standing tuberculosis.
In October 1834, he moved to Concord, Massachusetts, to live with his step-grandfather, Dr.
He received $11,600 in May 1834 (), and a further $11,674.49 in July 1837 ().
In 1834, he considered that he had an income of $1,200 a year from the initial payment of the estate, equivalent to what he had earned as a pastor. ==Literary career and transcendentalism== On September 8, 1836, the day before the publication of Nature, Emerson met with Frederic Henry Hedge, George Putnam, and George Ripley to plan periodic gatherings of other like-minded intellectuals.
Carlyle in particular was a strong influence on him; Emerson would later serve as an unofficial literary agent in the United States for Carlyle, and in March 1835, he tried to persuade Carlyle to come to America to lecture.
In this lecture, he set out some of his important beliefs and the ideas he would later develop in his first published essay, "Nature": On January 24, 1835, Emerson wrote a letter to Lidian Jackson proposing marriage.
In July 1835, he bought a house on the Cambridge and Concord Turnpike in Concord, Massachusetts, which he named Bush; it is now open to the public as the Ralph Waldo Emerson House.
He gave a lecture to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the town of Concord on September 12, 1835.
Though they had likely met as early as 1835, in the fall of 1837, Emerson asked Thoreau, "Do you keep a journal?" The question went on to be a lifelong inspiration for Thoreau.
In a speech given in 1835 titled "Permanent Traits of the English National Genius", he said, "The inhabitants of the United States, especially of the Northern portion, are descended from the people of England and have inherited the traits of their national character".
He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay "Nature".
Another of Emerson's bright and promising younger brothers, Charles, born in 1808, died in 1836, also of tuberculosis, making him the third young person in Emerson's innermost circle to die in a period of a few years. Emerson met his first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker, in Concord, New Hampshire, on Christmas Day, 1827, and married her when she was 18 two years later.
He inherited a fair amount of money after his first wife's death, though he had to file a lawsuit against the Tucker family in 1836 to get it.
In 1834, he considered that he had an income of $1,200 a year from the initial payment of the estate, equivalent to what he had earned as a pastor. ==Literary career and transcendentalism== On September 8, 1836, the day before the publication of Nature, Emerson met with Frederic Henry Hedge, George Putnam, and George Ripley to plan periodic gatherings of other like-minded intellectuals.
Its first official meeting was held on September 19, 1836.
Fuller would prove to be an important figure in transcendentalism. Emerson anonymously published his first essay, "Nature", on September 9, 1836.
This collection included "The Poet", "Experience", "Gifts", and an essay entitled "Nature", a different work from the 1836 essay of the same name. Emerson made a living as a popular lecturer in New England and much of the rest of the country.
This two week camping excursion (1858 in the Adirondacks) brought him face to face with a true wilderness, something he spoke of in his essay "Nature" published in 1836.
Following this work, he gave a speech entitled "The American Scholar" in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
He received $11,600 in May 1834 (), and a further $11,674.49 in July 1837 ().
On September 1, 1837, women attended a meeting of the Transcendental Club for the first time.
A year later, on August 31, 1837, he delivered his now-famous Phi Beta Kappa address, "The American Scholar", then entitled "An Oration, Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge"; it was renamed for a collection of essays (which included the first general publication of "Nature") in 1849.
Another member of the audience, Reverend John Pierce, called it "an apparently incoherent and unintelligible address". In 1837, Emerson befriended Henry David Thoreau.
Though they had likely met as early as 1835, in the fall of 1837, Emerson asked Thoreau, "Do you keep a journal?" The question went on to be a lifelong inspiration for Thoreau.
Some scholars consider the journal to be Emerson's key literary work. In March 1837, Emerson gave a series of lectures on the philosophy of history at the Masonic Temple in Boston.
In the years leading up to the Civil War, he did give a number of lectures, however, beginning as early as November 1837.
Louis, Des Moines, Minneapolis, and California. On July 15, 1838, Emerson was invited to Divinity Hall, Harvard Divinity School, to deliver the school's graduation address, which came to be known as the "Divinity School Address".
In early 1838, provoked by the murder of an abolitionist publisher from Alton, Illinois named Elijah Parish Lovejoy, Emerson gave his first public antislavery address.
They planned the journal as early as October 1839, but work did not begin until the first week of 1840.
He was not invited back to speak at Harvard for another thirty years. The transcendental group began to publish its flagship journal, The Dial, in July 1840.
They planned the journal as early as October 1839, but work did not begin until the first week of 1840.
Fuller stayed on for about two years, when Emerson took over, using the journal to promote talented young writers including Ellery Channing and Thoreau. In 1841 Emerson published Essays, his second book, which included the famous essay "Self-Reliance".
This book, and its popular reception, more than any of Emerson's contributions to date laid the groundwork for his international fame. In January 1842 Emerson's first son, Waldo, died of scarlet fever.
In the same month, William James was born, and Emerson agreed to be his godfather. Bronson Alcott announced his plans in November 1842 to find "a farm of a hundred acres in excellent condition with good buildings, a good orchard and grounds".
1831–1882 (10 linear feet) are housed at Houghton Library at Harvard University. Ralph Waldo Emerson letters to Charles King Newcomb, 1842 March 18 – 1, 858 July 25 (22 items) are housed at the Concord Public Library. ==External links== The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harvard University Press, Ronald A.
Charles Lane purchased a farm in Harvard, Massachusetts, in May 1843 for what would become Fruitlands, a community based on Utopian ideals inspired in part by transcendentalism.
After its failure, Emerson helped buy a farm for Alcott's family in Concord which Alcott named "Hillside". The Dial ceased publication in April 1844; Horace Greeley reported it as an end to the "most original and thoughtful periodical ever published in this country". In 1844, Emerson published his second collection of essays, Essays: Second Series.
A number of his friends and family members were more active abolitionists than he, at first, but from 1844 on he more actively opposed slavery.
He also had a number of romantic interests in various women throughout his life, such as Anna Barker and Caroline Sturgis. === Race and slavery === Emerson did not become an ardent abolitionist until 1844, though his journals show he was concerned with slavery beginning in his youth, even dreaming about helping to free slaves.
By August 1, 1844, at a lecture in Concord, he stated more clearly his support for the abolitionist movement: "We are indebted mainly to this movement, and to the continuers of it, for the popular discussion of every point of practical ethics". Emerson is often known as one of the most liberal democratic thinkers of his time who believed that through the democratic process, slavery should be abolished.
In 1845, Emerson's journals show he was reading the Bhagavad Gita and Henry Thomas Colebrooke's Essays on the Vedas.
One of the clearest examples of this can be found in his essay "The Over-soul": The central message Emerson drew from his Asian studies was that "the purpose of life was spiritual transformation and direct experience of divine power, here and now on earth." In 1847–48, he toured the British Isles.
He also visited Paris between the French Revolution of 1848 and the bloody June Days.
Emerson later came to see the American Civil War as a "revolution" that shared common ground with the European revolutions of 1848. In a speech in Concord, Massachusetts on May 3, 1851, Emerson denounced the Fugitive Slave Act: That summer, he wrote in his diary: In February 1852 Emerson and James Freeman Clarke and William Henry Channing edited an edition of the works and letters of Margaret Fuller, who had died in 1850.
A year later, on August 31, 1837, he delivered his now-famous Phi Beta Kappa address, "The American Scholar", then entitled "An Oration, Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge"; it was renamed for a collection of essays (which included the first general publication of "Nature") in 1849.
He often referred to Thoreau as his best friend, despite a falling-out that began in 1849 after Thoreau published A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.
He had begun lecturing in 1833; by the 1850s he was giving as many as 80 lectures per year.
Emerson later came to see the American Civil War as a "revolution" that shared common ground with the European revolutions of 1848. In a speech in Concord, Massachusetts on May 3, 1851, Emerson denounced the Fugitive Slave Act: That summer, he wrote in his diary: In February 1852 Emerson and James Freeman Clarke and William Henry Channing edited an edition of the works and letters of Margaret Fuller, who had died in 1850.
Emerson later came to see the American Civil War as a "revolution" that shared common ground with the European revolutions of 1848. In a speech in Concord, Massachusetts on May 3, 1851, Emerson denounced the Fugitive Slave Act: That summer, he wrote in his diary: In February 1852 Emerson and James Freeman Clarke and William Henry Channing edited an edition of the works and letters of Margaret Fuller, who had died in 1850.
Emerson later came to see the American Civil War as a "revolution" that shared common ground with the European revolutions of 1848. In a speech in Concord, Massachusetts on May 3, 1851, Emerson denounced the Fugitive Slave Act: That summer, he wrote in his diary: In February 1852 Emerson and James Freeman Clarke and William Henry Channing edited an edition of the works and letters of Margaret Fuller, who had died in 1850.
Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Ralph Waldo Emerson additional papers, 1852–1898 (.5 linear feet) are housed at Houghton Library at Harvard University. Ralph Waldo Emerson lectures and sermons, c.
Even so, it was the best-selling biography of the decade and went through thirteen editions before the end of the century. Walt Whitman published the innovative poetry collection Leaves of Grass in 1855 and sent a copy to Emerson for his opinion.
His 1856 book English Traits is based largely on observations recorded in his travel journals and notebooks.
In June 1856, shortly after Charles Sumner, a United States Senator, was beaten for his staunch abolitionist views, Emerson lamented that he himself was not as committed to the cause.
They would begin their journey on August 2, 1858, traveling by train, steam boat, stagecoach, and canoe guide boats.
He voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1860, but was disappointed that Lincoln was more concerned about preserving the Union than eliminating slavery outright.
Once the American Civil War broke out, Emerson made it clear that he believed in immediate emancipation of the slaves. Around this time, in 1860, Emerson published The Conduct of Life, his seventh collection of essays.
It "grappled with some of the thorniest issues of the moment," and "his experience in the abolition ranks is a telling influence in his conclusions." In these essays Emerson strongly embraced the idea of war as a means of national rebirth: "Civil war, national bankruptcy, or revolution, [are] more rich in the central tones than languid years of prosperity." Emerson visited Washington, D.C, at the end of January 1862.
He gave a public lecture at the Smithsonian on January 31, 1862, and declared:, "The South calls slavery an institution ...
Stanton, the secretary of war; Gideon Welles, the secretary of the navy; and William Seward, the secretary of state. On May 6, 1862, Emerson's protégé Henry David Thoreau died of tuberculosis at the age of 44.
She lived with the family off and on and maintained a constant correspondence with Emerson until her death in 1863. Emerson's formal schooling began at the Boston Latin School in 1812, when he was nine.
Another friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, died two years after Thoreau, in 1864.
Emerson served as a pallbearer when Hawthorne was buried in Concord, as Emerson wrote, "in a pomp of sunshine and verdure". He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1864. ==Final years and death== Starting in 1867, Emerson's health began declining; he wrote much less in his journals.
In 1865, he spoke at a memorial service held for Lincoln in Concord: "Old as history is, and manifold as are its tragedies, I doubt if any death has caused so much pain as this has caused, or will have caused, on its announcement." Emerson also met a number of high-ranking government officials, including Salmon P.
In 1867, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. ==Early life, family, and education== Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 25, 1803, a son of Ruth Haskins and the Rev.
Emerson served as a pallbearer when Hawthorne was buried in Concord, as Emerson wrote, "in a pomp of sunshine and verdure". He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1864. ==Final years and death== Starting in 1867, Emerson's health began declining; he wrote much less in his journals.
Beginning as early as the summer of 1871 or in the spring of 1872, he started experiencing memory problems and suffered from aphasia.
By the end of the decade, he forgot his own name at times and, when anyone asked how he felt, he responded, "Quite well; I have lost my mental faculties, but am perfectly well". In the spring of 1871, Emerson took a trip on the transcontinental railroad, barely two years after its completion.
Originally, the anthology had been prepared as early as the fall of 1871, but it was delayed when the publishers asked for revisions. The problems with his memory had become embarrassing to Emerson and he ceased his public appearances by 1879.
Beginning as early as the summer of 1871 or in the spring of 1872, he started experiencing memory problems and suffered from aphasia.
Part of his California visit included a trip to Yosemite, and while there he met a young and unknown John Muir, a signature event in Muir's career. Emerson's Concord home caught fire on July 24, 1872.
He left on October 23, 1872, along with his daughter Ellen, while his wife Lidian spent time at the Old Manse and with friends.
Emerson and his daughter Ellen returned to the United States on the ship Olympus along with friend Charles Eliot Norton on April 15, 1873.
Emerson's return to Concord was celebrated by the town, and school was canceled that day. In late 1874, Emerson published an anthology of poetry entitled Parnassus, which included poems by Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Julia Caroline Dorr, Jean Ingelow, Lucy Larcom, Jones Very, as well as Thoreau and several others.
Originally, the anthology had been prepared as early as the fall of 1871, but it was delayed when the publishers asked for revisions. The problems with his memory had become embarrassing to Emerson and he ceased his public appearances by 1879.
The two maintained a correspondence until Carlyle's death in 1881. Emerson returned to the United States on October 9, 1833, and lived with his mother in Newton, Massachusetts.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.
It is painful to witness his embarrassment at times". On April 21, 1882, Emerson was found to be suffering from pneumonia.
Emerson's own journal was published in 16 large volumes, in the definitive Harvard University Press edition issued between 1960 and 1982.
Emerson's own journal was published in 16 large volumes, in the definitive Harvard University Press edition issued between 1960 and 1982.
In his belief that line lengths, rhythms, and phrases are determined by breath, Emerson's poetry foreshadowed the theories of Charles Olson. ==Namesakes== In May 2006, 168 years after Emerson delivered his "Divinity School Address", Harvard Divinity School announced the establishment of the Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Professorship.
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