The Flowering of
1840-1860
I. This period can be characterized simply by the word GROWTH
· Geography
o Westward expansion
· Industry & Urban Society
o With this growth came increased poverty, a decline in education, child labor
· Science & Technology
o Agricultural machines, soil and mineral surveys
· Transportation
o Expansion of the railroad
· Communication
o The first telegraph line strung in 1844
II. With this growth came SOCIAL COSTS
· Industry replaces skilled workers with machines manned by unskilled workers, mostly women and children
· Child labor prevented many from getting a solid education
· Many felt expanse of industry left American values behind
III. Response to Social Costs
· Reform groups
o Some
sought not to build a new society but recover the promise of
o Some sought a new society and created Utopian communities
· Tax-supported public education
· Growth of newspapers, magazines, and other adult education
o Libraries
o Museums
o Trade and professional organizations
o The lyceum
§ Circuit of intellectual speakers brought into communities
§ Did a great deal to education and shape public opinion
· Women’s Rights
o Women took leadership roles in reform movements
o Growth of education brought job opportunities
§ Success as teachers made it hard to rationalize that women were not smart enough for other professions
o Focus on basic human rights for women
· Anti-Slavery Movement
o Many writers took up this cause
IV. The American Renaissance
· American literature takes its place in the world
· Technological growth in publishing led to a wider reading audience
· American literature achieved a universal voice
V. Transcendentalism
· View that the basic truths of the universe lie beyond the knowledge we obtain from our senses
· Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman
· Relies heavily on intuition
· Everyone can experience God firsthand (adaptation of Puritan doctrine of Grace)
· God, humanity, and nature share a universal soul
· Valued individualism and goodness of natural world
· Thoreau felt studying nature led to self-knowledge
VI. Anti-Transcendentalism
·
James Russell Lowell, Henry
o Known as the Brahmins
o Good taste and distinguished achievement
· Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville
o Contradictions exist between nature and human nature (therefore there can’t be universal soul)
o Believed in a mixture of good and evil in humans – humans are tragic
*All information taken from Adventures in American
Literature, Athena Edition