Education, the Arts, and Entertainment in

the Antebellum Period

By Max Hall and David Leahy

The Romantic Movement A English philosophical movement, Romanticism was a

direct opposition to Classicism, the idea that standards of beauty were universal

Romanticism introduced the concept of writing the longings of the individual’s soul; a unique reflection of the creators inner feelings rather than the idea that beauty was universal and was only to be interpreted by learned gentleman

Romanticism was translated into an Americanized version, Transcendentalism; Leaders of the transcendentalist movement, or the American Renaissance, include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Fenimore Cooper, Walt Whitman, and Edgar Allen Poe

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar”

Emerson is considered to be the leading light of Transcendentalism

The most influential speaker for American literary nationalism, Emerson believed learned people had no particular advantage in pursuing truth; all persons could glimpse the truth if they simply trust the prompting in their hearts

In “The American Scholar”, published in 1837 by Emerson, he presented the conclusion that Americans could produce as noble a literature and art as the traditional societies in Europe

Emerson’s essays mixed themes such as beauty and wealth with vivid language

His writing style was not to cultivate evidence or present systematic arguments to prove his point, rather, he used sequences of visual but mostly unconnected assertions whose truth the reader would instantly see; Emerson confused many readers this way but inspired millions

Henry David Thoreau An Emersonian, Thoreau was more of a

doer than Emerson, who preferred to lay back and watch it all happen, while Thoreau acted

Thoreau spent a night in jail unjustly, which prompted him to write the famous novel “Civil Disobedience”, in which he defended the citizen’s right to disobey unjust laws

While spending nearly two years alone in the Maine woods, Thoreau wrote “Walden”, a practical book that contained descriptions of the many wild pigeons, hawks, and other wildlife he observed, and a description of a cabin he built for himself

There was a larger message to Walden; that the feeling of material wants could be satisfied with only a few weeks work each year and have the rest of the year for observing the self and life’s purpose

Thoreau bore an uncomfortable truth to Americans: That material and moral progress were not nearly as related as much as Americans thought

Margaret Fuller A extremely unique woman for her time,

Margaret Fuller received a male’s Harvard education from her father, who wanted a son to educate but instead taught his daughter

Fuller grew up reading Modern German Romantics and English literary classics

Like the many in her age, Fuller’s exposure to Emersonian ideas pushed her into transcendentalism, with its vindication of the need for each person to discover the truth for themselves

Transcendentalism influenced her classic about American feminism, “Woman in the Nineteenth Century”, which contended that no woman could achieve the kind of personal fulfillment lauded by Emerson unless she developed her intellectual abilities and overcame her fear of being called masculine

Nathaniel Hawthorne A fiction writer in the 1840s and 50s,

Hawthorne refused to head Emerson's call for a literature that would comprehend the everyday experiences of Americans

The unusual settings in his books like “The Scarlet Letter”, in New England's Puritan Past, “The House of the Seven Gables”, in a haunted mansion, and “The Marble Faun”, in Rome, reflected his view that American life lacked the materials needed for great fiction

Hawthorne believed more in psychology with his fiction rather than society, and his preoccupation with analyzing the mental sates of his characters grew out of his underlying pessimism about the human condition. This pessimism caused him to create characters obsessed by pride, guilt, a desire for revenge, or a quest for perfection

Ironically, Hawthorne's conviction that the lives of ordinary Americans provided inadequate materials for fiction led him to create a uniquely American fiction less about the description of complex social dilemmas and more about the analysis of moral dilemmas and mental states

James Fenimore Cooper The first important figure in the literary

upsurge known as the American Renaissance, Cooper introduced a distinctly American fictional character, the frontiersman Natty Bumppo in “Leatherstocking”, in 1823

In “The Pioneers” Natty appears as an old man settled on the shores of lake Otsega in upstate New York. A hunter, he blames farmers for the wanton destruction of game and turning majestic forests into deserts of tree stumps

As a spokesman for nature against the march of civilization, Natty immediately became a popular figure, and in subsequent novels such as “The Last Mohicans”, “The Pathfinder”, and “The Deerslayer”, Cooper unfolded Natty's earlier life for an appreciative public

The Hudson River School

A school of painters

Students painted scenes of the region around the Hudson river- a waterway that Americans compared in majesty to the Rhine river

Mainly represented by three extremely influential men: Thomas Cole and Fredrick Church, and Asher Durand

The Hudson River School Painters

The Hudson river school was represented by three men: Thomas Cole, Fredrick Church, and Asher Durand

Thomas Cole’s most popular paintings were allegories, including The Fall of An Ancient City, a sequence of canvases depicting the rise and fall of an ancient city and clearly implying that luxury declined Republican virtue

Fredrick Church, a student of Cole’s and internationally the best known of the three, painted the Andes Mountains during a trip to South America

The Hudson River School Painters wanted to do more than preserve a piece of passing nature; their contribution was to emphasize the importance of emotional effect in their artwork rather than a stressing over the accuracy of the work; all in line with transcendentalist thinking

The works of Washington Irving were greatly influenced by the Hudson River and the land surrounding it, including The Legend of Sleepy Hallow and Rip Van Winkle

Thomas Cole's The Fall of An Ancient City

Fredrick Church, The Andes Mountains

The Public School Movement An epic movement beginning in the 1830s, The Public

School Movement started as reformers began to argue for a greater government role in the schooling of children

Horace Mann, often referred to as the father of the common school, left his career in law to assume the duties of secretary to the newly established board of education. Mann believed that political stability and social harmony depended on universal education – he argued for public schools that would be open to all children; Mann felt that it was a right prescribed to every human being to receive an education

Horace was joined by other similar minded reformers like James G. Carter, who played an important role in pushing Massachusetts to establish schools that prepared teachers for the emerging profession of teaching; Also joining the movement was Catherine Breecher, a woman who took up the cause of educational reform and the promotion of women as teachers and exemplars of self improvement

Besides Horace Mann, the main reason behind the movement was a response to the threat of social fragmentation and the public fear of moral and cultural decay

Schools were seen as a means of turning Americans whether native or foreign born into patriotic and law abiding citizens

The McGuffey readers, used frequently by schools at the time, preached industry, honesty, sobriety, and patriotism

Henry Garnett

A black graduate of the African Free School

Henry Garnett ran a black self-help society called New York's Phoenixonian Literary Society, devoted to encouraging the education of blacks in American Society

Sylvester Graham Alarmed by the 1832 cholera epidemic (cholera is a

bacteria-caused disease), Graham propounded a health system that anybody could adopt - a counseled change in regimen and diet as well as total abstinence from alcohol

Graham urged Americans to substitute vegetables, fruits, and coarse, whole grain bread (called Graham bread) for meat and to abstain from spices, coffee, and tea as well as alcohol. He also urged to abstain from sex for it was a wealth of problems

Much like Graham, some health reformers traced the trials of American society to the unnatural cravings of its people

For example, abolitionists contended that slavery intensified white men's lust and contributed to the violent behavior of the white southerner, while Graham similarly believed that eating meat stimulated lust and other aggressive impulses

Attracting a broad audience, Graham influenced many towns and cities to set tables in their boarding houses according to his principles

Grahamism, as it became to be called, addressed the popular desire for better health when orthodox medicine did more harm than good at the time

Works Cited United States History: Preparing for the

Advanced Placement Exam The Enduring Vision: A History of The

American People StateUniversity.com Wikipedia.com