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111-675: Active Defunct Publications Works Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist , he is best known for his book Walden , a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay " Civil Disobedience " (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument in favor of citizen disobedience against an unjust state. Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated
222-677: A Blackwood Article" (1838) and " Never Bet the Devil Your Head " (1841), the author ridicules transcendentalism, elsewhere calling its followers "Frogpondians" after the pond on Boston Common . The latter story specifically mentions the movement and its flagship journal The Dial , though Poe denied that he had any specific targets. Poe attacked the transcendentalist's writings by calling them "metaphor-run mad", lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or " mysticism for mysticism's sake". In Poe's essay " The Philosophy of Composition " (1846), he offers criticism denouncing "the excess of
333-602: A binder. The process of mixing graphite and clay, known as the Conté process, had been first patented by Nicolas-Jacques Conté in 1795. Thoreau made profitable use of a graphite source found in New Hampshire that had been purchased in 1821 by his uncle, Charles Dunbar. The company's other source of graphite had been Tantiusques , a mine operated by Native Americans in Sturbridge, Massachusetts . Later, Thoreau converted
444-536: A classic American work that explores natural simplicity, harmony, and beauty as models for just social and cultural conditions. The American poet Robert Frost wrote of Thoreau, "In one book ... he surpasses everything we have had in America." The American author John Updike said of the book, "A century and a half after its publication, Walden has become such a totem of the back-to-nature, preservationist, anti-business, civil-disobedience mindset, and Thoreau so vivid
555-789: A coherent movement and a sacred organization with the founding of the Transcendental Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts , on September 12, 1836, by prominent New England intellectuals, including George Putnam, Ralph Waldo Emerson , and Frederic Henry Hedge . Other members of the club included Sophia Ripley , Margaret Fuller , Elizabeth Peabody , Ellen Sturgis Hooper , Caroline Sturgis Tappan , Amos Bronson Alcott , Orestes Brownson , Theodore Parker , Henry David Thoreau , William Henry Channing , James Freeman Clarke , Christopher Pearse Cranch , Convers Francis , Sylvester Judd , Jones Very , and Charles Stearns Wheeler . From 1840,
666-523: A compromise, proclaiming the day as Patriots' Day . In April 1975, Concord hosted a bicentennial celebration of the battle, featuring an address at the Old North Bridge by President Gerald Ford . Concord has a remarkably rich literary history centered in the 19th century around Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), who moved there in 1835 and quickly became its most prominent citizen. A successful lecturer and philosopher, Emerson had deep roots in
777-495: A distinction made between individuality and individualism . Both advocate the unique capacity of the individual. Yet individualism is decidedly anti-government, whereas individuality sees all facets of society necessary, or at least acceptable for the development of the true individualistic person. Whether the Transcendentalists believed in individualism or individuality remains to be determined. While firmly rooted in
888-568: A leave of absence from Harvard, during which he taught at a school in Canton, Massachusetts , living for two years at an earlier version of today's Colonial Inn in Concord. His grandfather owned the earliest of the three buildings that were later combined. After he graduated in 1837, Thoreau joined the faculty of the Concord public school, but he resigned after a few weeks rather than administer corporal punishment . He and his brother John then opened
999-470: A manner indistinguishable from the American pronunciation of the word "conquered." In the local dialect of Greater Boston , it is frequently heard with the [ər] in the second syllable replaced by [ ʏ ] ( [ˈkɒŋkʏd] KAHN -kəd ). According to Concord's 2016 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the principal employers in the town are: Concord and West Concord stations are served by
1110-459: A philosopher and an analyst of ecological patterns in fields and woodlots. For instance, "The Succession of Forest Trees", shows that he used experimentation and analysis to explain how forests regenerate after fire or human destruction, through the dispersal of seeds by winds or animals. In this lecture, first presented to a cattle show in Concord, and considered his greatest contribution to ecology, Thoreau explained why one species of tree can grow in
1221-761: A place where a different tree did previously. He observed that squirrels often carry nuts far from the tree from which they fell to create stashes. These seeds are likely to germinate and grow should the squirrel die or abandon the stash. He credited the squirrel for performing a "great service ... in the economy of the universe." He traveled to Canada East once, Cape Cod four times, and Maine three times; these landscapes inspired his "excursion" books, A Yankee in Canada , Cape Cod , and The Maine Woods , in which travel itineraries frame his thoughts about geography, history and philosophy. Other travels took him southwest to Philadelphia and New York City in 1854 and west across
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#17327937796041332-553: A priori categories as a priori knowledge . Early transcendentalists were largely unacquainted with German philosophy in the original and relied primarily on the writings of Thomas Carlyle , Samuel Taylor Coleridge , Victor Cousin , Germaine de Staël , and other English and French commentators for their knowledge of it. The transcendental movement can be described as an American outgrowth of English Romanticism. Transcendentalists believe that society and its institutions—particularly organized religion and political parties—corrupt
1443-600: A protester, so perfect a crank and hermit saint, that the book risks being as revered and unread as the Bible." Thoreau moved out of Emerson's house in July 1848 and stayed at a house on nearby Belknap Street. In 1850, he moved into a house at 255 Main Street , where he lived until his death. In the summer of 1850, Thoreau and Channing journeyed from Boston to Montreal and Quebec City . These would be Thoreau's only travels outside
1554-569: A similar refusal, were all pertinent, well considered, and reasoned. I took great pleasure in this deed of Thoreau's. Thoreau revised the lecture into an essay titled " Resistance to Civil Government " (also known as "Civil Disobedience"). It was published by Elizabeth Peabody in the Aesthetic Papers in May 1849. Thoreau had taken up a version of Percy Shelley 's principle in the political poem " The Mask of Anarchy " (1819), which begins with
1665-525: A small cabin near Walden Pond , where he wrote Walden (1854). After being imprisoned in the Concord jail for refusing to pay taxes in political protest against slavery and the Mexican–American War , Thoreau penned the influential essay "Resistance to Civil Government", popularly known as Civil Disobedience (1849). Evidencing their strong political beliefs through actions, Thoreau and many of his neighbors served as station masters and agents on
1776-530: A transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. Influenced by Emerson and the importance of nature, Charles Stearns Wheeler built a shanty at Flint's Pond in 1836. Considered the first Transcendentalist outdoor living experiment, Wheeler used his shanty during his summer vacations from Harvard from 1836 to 1842. Thoreau stayed at Wheeler's shanty for six weeks during
1887-475: A two-million-word document he kept for 24 years. He also kept a series of notebooks, and these observations became the source of his late writings on natural history, such as "Autumnal Tints", "The Succession of Trees", and "Wild Apples", an essay lamenting the destruction of the local wild apple species. With the rise of environmental history and ecocriticism as academic disciplines, several new readings of Thoreau began to emerge, showing him to have been both
1998-714: A two-year experiment in simple living , moving to a small house he had built on land owned by Emerson in a second growth forest around the shores of Walden Pond , having had a request to build a hut on Flints Pond , near that of his friend Charles Stearns Wheeler , denied by the landowners due to the Fairhaven Bay incident. The house was in "a pretty pasture and woodlot" of 14 acres (5.7 hectares) that Emerson had bought, 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 miles (2.5 kilometers) from his family home. Whilst there, he wrote his only extended piece of literary criticism, " Thomas Carlyle and His Works ". On July 24 or July 25, 1846, Thoreau ran into
2109-551: A vote of 265 to 272. The ban on selling water in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles of one liter or less passed in 2012 by a vote of 403 to 364, and a repeal effort in April failed by a vote of 621 to 687. According to the United States Census Bureau , the town has a total area of 25.9 square miles (67 km ), of which 24.9 square miles (64 km ) is land and 1.0 square mile (2.6 km ), or 3.75%,
2220-674: Is also influenced by Hinduism . Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833), the founder of the Brahmo Samaj , rejected Hindu mythology, but also the Christian trinity. He found that Unitarianism came closest to true Christianity, and had a strong sympathy for the Unitarians, who were closely connected to the Transcendentalists. Ram Mohan Roy founded a missionary committee in Calcutta, and in 1828 asked for support for missionary activities from
2331-592: Is also notable for its progressive and environmentalist politics, becoming in 2012 the first community in the United States to ban single-serving PET bottles. The area which became the town of Concord was originally known as "Musketaquid", situated at the confluence of the Sudbury and Assabet rivers. The name was an Algonquian word for "grassy plain", fitting the area's low-lying marshes and kettle holes . Native Americans had cultivated corn crops there;
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#17327937796042442-658: Is best which governs not at all;' and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.... But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government." Amos Bronson Alcott and Thoreau's aunt each wrote that "Thoreau" is pronounced like the word thorough ( / ˈ θ ʌr oʊ / THURR -oh —in General American , but more precisely / ˈ θ ɔːr oʊ / THOR -oh —in 19th-century New England). Edward Waldo Emerson wrote that
2553-540: Is closely related to Unitarianism , a religious movement in Boston in the early nineteenth century. It started to develop after Unitarianism took hold at Harvard University , following the elections of Henry Ware as the Hollis Professor of Divinity in 1805 and of John Thornton Kirkland as President in 1810. Transcendentalism was not a rejection of Unitarianism; rather, it developed as an organic consequence of
2664-691: Is near where the Sudbury and Assabet rivers join to form the Concord River . The area that became the town of Concord was originally known as Musketaquid , an Algonquian word for "grassy plain." Concord was established in 1635 by a group of English settlers; by 1775, the population had grown to 1,400. As dissension between colonists in North America and the British crown intensified, 700 troops were sent to confiscate militia ordnance stored at Concord on April 19, 1775. The ensuing conflict,
2775-633: Is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Brahmin , priest of Brahma , and Vishnu and Indra , who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas , or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water-jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in
2886-406: Is one of the first philosophical currents that emerged in the United States; it is therefore a key early point in the history of American philosophy . Emphasizing subjective intuition over objective empiricism , its adherents believe that individuals are capable of generating completely original insights with little attention and deference to past transcendentalists. Its rise was a protest against
2997-473: Is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor. ... Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?" Transcendentalism Antiquity Medieval Early modern Modern Iran India East-Asia Transcendentalism is a philosophical, spiritual, and literary movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the New England region of
3108-537: Is the outward sign of inward spirit, expressing the "radical correspondence of visible things and human thoughts", as Emerson wrote in Nature (1836). On April 18, 1841, Thoreau moved in with the Emersons . There, from 1841 to 1844, he served as the children's tutor; he was also an editorial assistant, repairman and gardener. For a few months in 1843, he moved to the home of William Emerson on Staten Island , and tutored
3219-413: Is water. The city of Lowell is 13 miles (21 km) to the north, Boston is 19 miles (31 km) to the east, and Nashua, New Hampshire , is 23 miles (37 km) to the north. Massachusetts state routes 2 , 2A , 62 , 126 , 119 , 111 , and 117 pass through Concord. The town center is near the confluence of the Sudbury and Assabet rivers, forming the Concord River , which flows north to
3330-605: The Los Angeles Times characterized the ban as "born of convoluted reasoning" and "wrongheaded." Some residents believed the ban would do little to affect the sales of bottled water, which was still highly accessible in the surrounding areas, and that it restricted consumers' freedom of choice. Opponents also considered the ban to unfairly target one product in particular, when other, less healthy alternatives such as soda and fruit juice were still readily available in bottled form. Nonetheless, subsequent efforts to repeal
3441-754: The Great Lakes region in 1861, when he visited Niagara Falls , Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee , St. Paul and Mackinac Island . He was provincial in his own travels, but he read widely about travel in other lands. He devoured all the first-hand travel accounts available in his day, at a time when the last unmapped regions of the earth were being explored. He read Magellan and James Cook ; the arctic explorers John Franklin , Alexander Mackenzie and William Parry ; David Livingstone and Richard Francis Burton on Africa; Lewis and Clark ; and hundreds of lesser-known works by explorers and literate travelers. Astonishing amounts of reading fed his endless curiosity about
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3552-455: The MBTA 's Fitchburg Line . Yankee Line provides commuter bus service between Concord and Boston. Concord's sister cities are: Concord is featured in the 2012 video game Assassin's Creed 3 , the 2020 video game Assassin's Creed Valhalla and the 2015 video game Fallout 4 . The video game Walden, a game , based on Henry David Thoreau's Walden, is set in the town. Scenes from
3663-693: The Merrimack River in Lowell. Gunpowder was manufactured from 1835 to 1940 in the American Powder Mills complex extending upstream along the Assabet River. Local government consists of a five-member executive Select Board and a legislature utilizing open town meeting . On the federal level, Concord is part of Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district , represented by Lori Trahan . The state's senior ( Class I ) member of
3774-654: The Underground Railroad . The Wayside , a house on Lexington Road, has been home to several authors. It was occupied by scientist John Winthrop (1714–1779) when Harvard College was temporarily moved to Concord during the Revolutionary War. The Wayside was later the home of the Alcott family (who referred to it as "Hillside"); the Alcotts sold it to Hawthorne in 1852, and the family moved into
3885-511: The United States . A core belief is in the inherent goodness of people and nature, and while society and its institutions have corrupted the purity of the individual , people are at their best when truly " self-reliant " and independent. Transcendentalists saw divine experience inherent in the everyday. Transcendentalists saw physical and spiritual phenomena as part of dynamic processes rather than discrete entities. Transcendentalism
3996-739: The United States Senate is Elizabeth Warren . The junior ( Class II ) senator is Ed Markey . At the 2020 census, there were 18,491 people, 7,295 housing units and 6,439 families residing in the town. The population density was 714.0 inhabitants per square mile (275.7/km ). The average density of housing units was 282.0 per square mile (108.9/km ). The racial makeup of the town was 82.94% White , 2.61% African American , 6.18% Asian , 4.55% Hispanic or Latino (of any race), 0.02% Native American , 0.02% Pacific Islander , 1.02% from other races , and 6.86% from two or more races. There were 6,439 families, of which 35.98% had children under
4107-636: The battles of Lexington and Concord , were the incidents (including the shot heard round the world ) that triggered the American Revolutionary War . A rich literary community developed in Concord during the mid-19th century, centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson . Emerson's circle included Nathaniel Hawthorne , Louisa May Alcott and Henry David Thoreau . Major works written in Concord during this period include Alcott's novel Little Women , Emerson's essay Self-Reliance , and Thoreau's Walden and Civil Disobedience . In this era,
4218-508: The 19th century, including Moncure Conway , Octavius Brooks Frothingham , Samuel Longfellow and Franklin Benjamin Sanborn . The transcendence of the spirit, most often evoked by the poet's prosaic voice, is said to endow in the reader a sense of purpose. This is the underlying theme in the majority of transcendentalist essays and papers—all of which are centered on subjects which assert a love for individual expression. The group
4329-579: The 2017 comedy film Daddy's Home 2 were filmed at Concord scout house. Parts of the 2019 film Little Women were shot on the Concord River . Jane Langton 's Homer Kelly murder mystery novels are largely set in Concord. Her 1964 novel 'The Transcendental Murder' was described in the Boston Globe in 1975 as 'a hymn to Concord, its history, its houses, its hallowed ground, its people and patriots, and its ghosts (Emerson and Thoreau)'. Italian director Lucio Fulci 's 1981 horror film The House by
4440-517: The Alcotts are buried on Authors' Ridge in Concord's Sleepy Hollow Cemetery . The 20th-century composer Charles Ives wrote his Concord Sonata ( c. 1904–1915 ) as a series of impressionistic portraits of literary figures associated with the town. Concord maintains a lively literary culture to this day; notable authors who have called the town home in recent years include Doris Kearns Goodwin , Alan Lightman , Robert B. Parker , and Gregory Maguire . In 1849, Ephraim Wales Bull developed
4551-745: The American Unitarians. By 1829, Roy had abandoned the Unitarian Committee, but after Roy's death, the Brahmo Samaj kept close ties to the Unitarian Church, who strove towards a rational faith, social reform, and the joining of these two in a renewed religion. Its theology was called " neo-Vedanta " by Christian commentators, and has been highly influential in the modern popular understanding of Hinduism, but also of modern western spirituality, which re-imported
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4662-537: The Beagle . He kept detailed observations on Concord's nature lore, recording everything from how the fruit ripened over time to the fluctuating depths of Walden Pond and the days certain birds migrated. The point of this task was to "anticipate" the seasons of nature, in his word. He became a land surveyor and continued to write increasingly detailed observations on the natural history of the town, covering an area of 26 square miles (67 square kilometers), in his journal,
4773-545: The Concord Academy, a grammar school in Concord, in 1838. They introduced several progressive concepts, including nature walks and visits to local shops and businesses. The school closed when John became fatally ill from tetanus in 1842 after cutting himself while shaving. He died in Henry's arms. Upon graduation Thoreau returned home to Concord, where he met Ralph Waldo Emerson through a mutual friend. Emerson, who
4884-483: The Concord Transcendentalists, John Brown would have had little cultural impact." Thoreau contracted tuberculosis in 1835 and suffered from it sporadically afterwards. In 1860, following a late-night excursion to count the rings of tree stumps during a rainstorm, he became ill with bronchitis . His health declined, with brief periods of remission, and he eventually became bedridden. Recognizing
4995-518: The Concord grape") Concord grape spread worldwide, bringing him up to $ 1,000 a cutting, but he died a relatively poor man. The inscription on his tombstone reads, "He sowed—others reaped." On September 5, 2012, Concord became the first community in the United States to approve a ban on the sale of water in single-serving plastic bottles. The law banned the sale of PET bottles of one liter (34 U.S. fl oz) or less starting January 1, 2013. The ban provoked national controversy. An editorial in
5106-904: The Individual in relation to Government", explaining his tax resistance at the Concord Lyceum . Bronson Alcott attended the lecture, writing in his journal on January 26: Heard Thoreau's lecture before the Lyceum on the relation of the individual to the State—an admirable statement of the rights of the individual to self-government, and an attentive audience. His allusions to the Mexican War, to Mr. Hoar 's expulsion from Carolina, his own imprisonment in Concord Jail for refusal to pay his tax, Mr. Hoar's payment of mine when taken to prison for
5217-665: The Lakes , Margaret Fuller noted that "the noble trees are gone already from this island to feed this caldron", and in 1854, in Walden, Thoreau regarded the trains being built across America's landscape as a "winged horse or fiery dragon" that "sprinkle[d] all the restless men and floating merchandise in the country for seed". Transcendentalism is, in many aspects, the first notable American intellectual movement. It has inspired succeeding generations of American intellectuals, as well as some literary movements. Transcendentalism influenced
5328-484: The Unitarian emphasis on free conscience and the value of intellectual reason. The transcendentalists were not content with the sobriety , mildness, and calm rationalism of Unitarianism. Instead, they wanted a more intense spiritual experience. Thus, transcendentalism was not born as a counter-movement to Unitarianism, but as a parallel movement to the very ideas introduced by the Unitarians. Transcendentalism became
5439-698: The Unitarian influences in the disguise of the seemingly age-old Neo-Vedanta . Major figures in the transcendentalist movement were Ralph Waldo Emerson , Henry David Thoreau , Margaret Fuller , and Amos Bronson Alcott . Some other prominent transcendentalists included Louisa May Alcott , Charles Timothy Brooks , Orestes Brownson , William Ellery Channing , William Henry Channing , James Freeman Clarke , Christopher Pearse Cranch , John Sullivan Dwight , Convers Francis , William Henry Furness , Frederic Henry Hedge , Sylvester Judd , Theodore Parker , Elizabeth Palmer Peabody , George Ripley , Thomas Treadwell Stone , Jones Very , and Walt Whitman . Early in
5550-702: The United States. It is as a result of this trip that he developed lectures that eventually became A Yankee in Canada . He jested that all he got from this adventure "was a cold". In fact, this proved an opportunity to contrast American civic spirit and democratic values with a colony apparently ruled by illegitimate religious and military power. Whereas his own country had had its revolution, in Canada history had failed to turn. In 1851, Thoreau became increasingly fascinated with natural history and narratives of travel and expedition. He read avidly on botany and often wrote observations on this topic into his journal. He admired William Bartram and Charles Darwin 's Voyage of
5661-538: The adjacent Orchard House in 1858. Hawthorne dubbed the house "The Wayside" and lived there until his death. The house was purchased in 1883 by Boston publisher Daniel Lothrop and his wife, Harriett, who wrote the Five Little Peppers series and other children's books under the pen name Margaret Sidney . Today, The Wayside and the Orchard House are both museums. Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and
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#17327937796045772-535: The advice of Emerson, using Emerson's publisher, Munroe, who did little to publicize the book. In August 1846, Thoreau briefly left Walden to make a trip to Mount Katahdin in Maine , a journey that was later recorded in "Ktaadn", the first part of The Maine Woods . Thoreau left Walden Pond on September 6, 1847. At Emerson's request, he immediately moved back to the Emerson house to help Emerson's wife, Lidian, manage
5883-480: The age of 18 living with them, 62.98% were married couples living together, 22.4% had a female householder with no spouse present, 12.4% had a male householder with no spouse present, and 28.42% were non-families, and 24.59% of all households were made up of individuals. The average family size was 3.18. 25.1% of the population were under the age of 18, 4.2% from 18 to 24, 25.8% from 25 to 44, 28.4% from 45 to 64, and 16.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age
5994-403: The ban have failed in open town meetings . An effort to repeal Concord's ban on the sale of plastic water bottles was resoundingly defeated at a Town Meeting. Resident Jean Hill, who led the initial fight for the ban, said, "I really feel at the age of 86 that I've really accomplished something." Town Moderator Eric Van Loon didn't even bother taking an official tally because opposition to repeal
6105-430: The basis of the new town, called "Concord" in appreciation of the peaceful acquisition. The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War . On April 19, 1775, 700 British Army troops led by Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Smith marched from Boston to Concord to confiscate a cache of arms stored in the town. Unbeknownst to them, Patriot leaders had moved most of
6216-485: The boat so perfectly, either with two paddles or with one, that it seemed instinct with his own will, and to require no physical effort to guide it." He was not a strict vegetarian, though he said he preferred that diet and advocated it as a means of self-improvement. He wrote in Walden , "The practical objection to animal food in my case was its uncleanness; and besides, when I had caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. It
6327-634: The cache elsewhere. 150 Patriot minutemen from local towns, who had been forewarned of the Army's march by Samuel Prescott on April 18, quickly mustered and confronted the British in Lexington . Though who fired the first shot is unknown, a firefight broke out and the British fired a volley at the Americans before dispersing them with a bayonet charge , killing eight. The British proceeded into Concord and dispersed into company-sized formations to search for
6438-527: The cache. At 11:00am, 400 minutemen engaged 100 British troops at the Old North Bridge , leading to a number of casualties on both sides and forcing them to fall back and rejoin the Army's main force. After the British completed their search for the cache in Concord, they marched back to Boston, but were constantly attacked by minutemen in hit-and-run attacks, suffering more casualties before reaching Charlestown, Boston . The minutemen then blockaded
6549-522: The college". He commented, "Let every sheep keep its own skin", a reference to the tradition of using sheepskin vellum for diplomas. Thoreau's birthplace still exists on Virginia Road in Concord. The house has been restored by the Thoreau Farm Trust, a nonprofit organization, and is now open to the public. The traditional professions open to college graduates—law, the church, business, medicine—did not interest Thoreau, so in 1835 he took
6660-556: The editor, Margaret Fuller, to publish those writings. Thoreau's first essay published in The Dial was "Aulus Persius Flaccus", an essay on the Roman poet and satirist, in July 1840. It consisted of revised passages from his journal, which he had begun keeping at Emerson's suggestion. The first journal entry, on October 22, 1837, reads, " 'What are you doing now?' he asked. 'Do you keep a journal?' So I make my first entry to-day." Thoreau
6771-590: The empiricism of science. Transcendentalists desire to ground their religion and philosophy in principles based upon the German Romanticism of Johann Gottfried Herder and Friedrich Schleiermacher . Transcendentalism merged " English and German Romanticism , the Biblical criticism of Herder and Schleiermacher, the skepticism of Hume ", and the transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant (and of German idealism more generally), interpreting Kant's
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#17327937796046882-436: The face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true essential needs. Thoreau was a lifelong abolitionist , delivering lectures that attacked the fugitive slave law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending the abolitionist John Brown . Thoreau's philosophy of civil disobedience later influenced
6993-449: The family's sons while seeking contacts among literary men and journalists in the city who might help publish his writings, including his future literary representative Horace Greeley . Thoreau returned to Concord and worked in his family's pencil factory, which he would continue to do alongside his writing and other work for most of his adult life. He resurrected the process of making good pencils with inferior graphite by using clay as
7104-542: The first of three trips to northern Maine. His expectations were high because he hoped to find genuine, primeval America. But contact with real wilderness in Maine affected him far differently than had the idea of wilderness in Concord. Instead of coming out of the woods with a deepened appreciation of the wilds, Thoreau felt a greater respect for civilization and realized the necessity of balance." Of alcohol, Thoreau wrote, "I would fain keep sober always. ... I believe that water
7215-876: The first recorded student protest in the American colonies. David Henry was named after his recently deceased paternal uncle, David Thoreau. He began to call himself Henry David after he finished college; he never petitioned to make a legal name change. He had two older siblings, Helen and John Jr., and a younger sister, Sophia Thoreau . None of the children married. Helen (1812–1849) died at age 37, from tuberculosis. John Jr. (1814–1842) died at age 27, of tetanus after cutting himself while shaving. Henry David (1817–1862) died at age 44, of tuberculosis. Sophia (1819–1876) survived him by 14 years, dying at age 56, of tuberculosis. He studied at Harvard College between 1833 and 1837. He lived in Hollis Hall and took courses in rhetoric , classics, philosophy, mathematics, and science. He
7326-643: The general state of intellectualism and spirituality at the time. The doctrine of the Unitarian church as taught at Harvard Divinity School was closely related. Transcendentalism emerged from "English and German Romanticism , the Biblical criticism of Johann Gottfried Herder and Friedrich Schleiermacher , the skepticism of David Hume ", and the transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant and German idealism . Perry Miller and Arthur Versluis regard Emanuel Swedenborg and Jakob Böhme as pervasive influences on transcendentalism. Transcendentalism
7437-405: The group frequently published in their journal The Dial , along with other venues. By the late 1840s, Emerson believed that the movement was dying out, and even more so after the death of Margaret Fuller in 1850. "All that can be said", Emerson wrote, "is that she represents an interesting hour and group in American cultivation." There was, however, a second wave of transcendentalists later in
7548-543: The growing movement of "Mental Sciences" of the mid-19th century, which would later become known as the New Thought movement. New Thought considers Emerson its intellectual father. Emma Curtis Hopkins ("the teacher of teachers"), Ernest Holmes (founder of Religious Science ), Charles and Myrtle Fillmore (founders of Unity ), and Malinda Cramer and Nona L. Brooks (founders of Divine Science ) were all greatly influenced by Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism
7659-612: The household while her husband was on an extended trip to Europe. Over several years, as he worked to pay off his debts, he continuously revised the manuscript of what he eventually published as Walden, or Life in the Woods in 1854, recounting the two years, two months, and two days he had spent at Walden Pond. The book compresses that time into a single calendar year, using the passage of the four seasons to symbolize human development. Part memoir and part spiritual quest, Walden at first won few admirers, but later critics have regarded it as
7770-495: The ideal grape. Early ripening, to escape the killing northern frosts, but with a rich, full-bodied flavor, the hardy Concord grape thrives where European cuttings had failed to survive. In 1853, Bull felt ready to put the first bunches of Concord grapes before the public and won a prize at the Boston Horticultural Society Exhibition. From these early arbors, the fame of Bull's ("the father of
7881-474: The introduction of the American Scholar address, "that there is One Man, – present to all particular men only partially, or through one faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the whole man". Such an ideal is in harmony with Transcendentalist individualism, as each person is empowered to behold within him or herself a piece of the divine Over-Soul. In recent years, there has been
7992-418: The latter. In his 1842 lecture " The Transcendentalist ", he suggested that the goal of a purely transcendental outlook on life was impossible to attain in practice: You will see by this sketch that there is no such thing as a transcendental party ; that there is no pure transcendentalist; that we know of no one but prophets and heralds of such a philosophy; that all who by strong bias of nature have leaned to
8103-473: The local indigenous tribes . Bulkeley was an influential religious leader who "carried a good number of planters with him into the woods"; Willard was a canny trader who spoke the Algonquian language and had gained the trust of Native Americans. They exchanged wampum , hatchets, knives, cloth, and other useful items for the six-square-mile (16 km ) purchase from Squaw Sachem of Mistick , which formed
8214-476: The local tax collector , Sam Staples, who asked him to pay six years of delinquent poll taxes . Thoreau refused because of his opposition to the Mexican–American War and slavery , and he spent a night in jail because of this refusal. The next day Thoreau was freed when someone, likely to have been his aunt, paid the tax, against his wishes. The experience had a strong impact on Thoreau. In January and February 1848, he delivered lectures on "The Rights and Duties of
8325-424: The luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. Thoreau was an early advocate of recreational hiking and canoeing , of conserving natural resources on private land, and of preserving wilderness as public land. He was himself a highly skilled canoeist; Nathaniel Hawthorne , after a ride with him, noted that "Mr. Thoreau managed
8436-409: The methods and findings of ecology and environmental history , two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity , and attention to practical detail. He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in
8547-543: The most varied and unusual instructive sayings. Henry David Thoreau was born David Henry Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts , into the "modest New England family" of John Thoreau, a pencil maker, and Cynthia Dunbar. His father was of French Protestant descent. His paternal grandfather had been born on the UK crown dependency island of Jersey . His maternal grandfather, Asa Dunbar, led Harvard's 1766 student " Butter Rebellion ",
8658-427: The movement's history, the term "transcendentalists" was used as a pejorative term by critics, who were suggesting their position was beyond sanity and reason. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a novel, The Blithedale Romance (1852), satirizing the movement, and based it on his experiences at Brook Farm , a short-lived utopian community founded on transcendental principles. In Edgar Allan Poe's satires "How to Write
8769-491: The name should be pronounced "Thó-row", with the h sounded and stress on the first syllable. Among modern-day American English speakers, it is perhaps more commonly pronounced / θ ə ˈ r oʊ / thə- ROH —with stress on the second syllable. Thoreau had a distinctive appearance, with a nose that he called his "most prominent feature". Of his appearance and disposition, Ellery Channing wrote: His face, once seen, could not be forgotten. The features were quite marked:
8880-635: The narrow land accesses to Charlestown, initiating the siege of Boston . Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson subsequently described the shot fired by the minutemen at the Old North Bridge in his 1837 poem " Concord Hymn " as the " shot heard round the world ". In 1894, the Lexington Historical Society petitioned the Massachusetts State Legislature to proclaim April 19 "Lexington Day"; Concord countered with "Concord Day". Governor Frederic T. Greenhalge opted for
8991-486: The nose aquiline or very Roman, like one of the portraits of Caesar (more like a beak, as was said); large overhanging brows above the deepest set blue eyes that could be seen, in certain lights, and in others gray,—eyes expressive of all shades of feeling, but never weak or near-sighted; the forehead not unusually broad or high, full of concentrated energy and purpose; the mouth with prominent lips, pursed up with meaning and thought when silent, and giving out when open with
9102-454: The now-ubiquitous Concord grape at his home on Lexington Road, where the original vine still grows. Welch's , the first company to sell grape juice, maintains a headquarters in Concord. The Boston-born Bull developed the Concord grape by experimenting with seeds from some of the native species. On his farm outside Concord, down the road from the Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and Alcott homesteads, he planted some 22,000 seedlings before producing
9213-411: The now-ubiquitous Concord grape was developed in Concord by Ephraim Wales Bull . In the 20th century, Concord developed into an affluent Boston suburb and tourist destination, drawing visitors to the Old North Bridge , Orchard House and Walden Pond . The town retains its literary culture and is home to notable authors, including Doris Kearns Goodwin , Alan Lightman and Gregory Maguire . Concord
9324-550: The pencil factory to produce plumbago, a name for graphite at the time, which was used in the electrotyping process. Once back in Concord, Thoreau went through a restless period. In April 1844 he and his friend Edward Hoar accidentally set a fire that consumed 300 acres (120 hectares) of Walden Woods. I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what
9435-461: The peoples, cultures, religions and natural history of the world and left its traces as commentaries in his voluminous journals. He processed everything he read, in the local laboratory of his Concord experience. Among his famous aphorisms is his advice to "live at home like a traveler". After John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry , many prominent voices in the abolitionist movement distanced themselves from Brown or damned him with faint praise . Thoreau
9546-618: The philosopher Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888), the father of Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888). A native Concordian, Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was another notable member of Emerson's circle. This substantial collection of literary talent in one small town led Henry James to dub Concord "the biggest little place in America." Among the products of this intellectually stimulating environment were Emerson's many essays, including Self-Reliance (1841), Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women (1868), and Hawthorne's story collection Mosses from an Old Manse (1846). Thoreau famously lived in
9657-631: The political thoughts and actions of notable figures such as Leo Tolstoy , Mahatma Gandhi , and Martin Luther King Jr. Thoreau is sometimes referred to retrospectively as an anarchist , but may perhaps be more properly regarded as a proto-anarchist . In his seminal essay, "Civil Disobedience", Thoreau wrote as follows: "I heartily accept the motto,— 'That government is best which governs least;' and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,— 'That government
9768-537: The powerful images of the unjust forms of authority of his time and then imagines the stirrings of a radically new form of social action. At Walden Pond, Thoreau completed a first draft of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers , an elegy to his brother John, describing their trip to the White Mountains in 1839. Thoreau did not find a publisher for the book and instead printed 1,000 copies at his own expense; fewer than 300 were sold. He self-published on
9879-472: The purity of the individual. They have faith that people are at their best when truly self-reliant and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community can form. Even with this necessary individuality, transcendentalists also believe that all people are outlets for the " Over-Soul ". Because the Over-Soul is one, this unites all people as one being. Emerson alludes to this concept in
9990-526: The rivers were rich with fish and the land was lush and arable. The area was largely depopulated in 1633 by an epidemic of smallpox , a disease likely to have been introduced to the New World by European explorers and settlers. In 1635, a group of English settlers led by Rev. Peter Bulkley and Major Simon Willard received a land grant from the General Court and negotiated a land purchase with
10101-773: The same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges. In 1844, the first English translation of the Lotus Sutra was included in The Dial , a publication of the New England Transcendentalists, translated from French by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody . Transcendentalists differ in their interpretations of the practical aims of will. Some adherents link it with utopian social change; Brownson , for example, connected it with early socialism , but others consider it an exclusively individualist and idealist project. Emerson believed
10212-461: The spiritual side in doctrine, have stopped short of their goal. We have had many harbingers and forerunners; but of a purely spiritual life, history has afforded no example. I mean, we have yet no man who has leaned entirely on his character, and eaten angels' food; who, trusting to his sentiments, found life made of miracles; who, working for universal aims, found himself fed, he knew not how; clothed, sheltered, and weaponed, he knew not how, and yet it
10323-637: The spreading mass of humanity in North America. He decried the latter endlessly but felt that a teacher needs to be close to those who needed to hear what he wanted to tell them. The wildness he enjoyed was the nearby swamp or forest, and he preferred "partially cultivated country". His idea of being "far in the recesses of the wilderness" of Maine was to "travel the logger's path and the Indian trail", but he also hiked on pristine land. In an essay titled, "Henry David Thoreau, Philosopher", environmental historian Roderick Nash wrote, "Thoreau left Concord in 1846 for
10434-585: The structured inner workings of the natural world. Emerson emphasizes the Transcendental beliefs in the holistic power of the natural landscape in Nature : In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, – no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, – my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, – all mean egotism vanishes. I become
10545-547: The suggested meaning... which turns into prose (and that of the very flattest kind) the so-called poetry of the so-called transcendentalists". Topic sites Encyclopedias Other Concord, Massachusetts Concord ( / ˈ k ɒ ŋ k ər d / ) is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts , United States. In the 2020 census , the town population was 18,491. The United States Census Bureau considers Concord part of Greater Boston . The town center
10656-629: The summer of 1837, and got the idea that he wanted to build his own cabin (later realized at Walden in 1845). The exact location of the Wheeler shanty site was discovered by Jeff Craig in 2018, after a five-year search effort. The conservation of an undisturbed natural world is also extremely important to the Transcendentalists. The idealism that is a core belief of Transcendentalism results in an inherent skepticism of capitalism , westward expansion , and industrialization . As early as 1843, in Summer on
10767-578: The terminal nature of his disease, Thoreau spent his last years revising and editing his unpublished works, particularly The Maine Woods and Excursions , and petitioning publishers to print revised editions of A Week and Walden . He wrote letters and journal entries until he became too weak to continue. His friends were alarmed at his diminished appearance and were fascinated by his tranquil acceptance of death. When his aunt Louisa asked him in his last weeks if he had made his peace with God, Thoreau responded, "I did not know we had ever quarreled." Aware he
10878-561: The town: his father, Rev. William Emerson (1769–1811), grew up in Concord before becoming an eminent Boston minister, and his grandfather, William Emerson Sr. , witnessed the battle at the North Bridge from his house, and later became a chaplain in the Continental Army. Emerson was at the center of a group of like-minded Transcendentalists living in Concord. Among them were the author Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) and
10989-651: The western philosophical traditions of Platonism , Neoplatonism , and German idealism , Transcendentalism was also directly influenced by Indian religions . Thoreau in Walden spoke of the Transcendentalists' debt to Indian religions directly: In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavat Geeta , since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy
11100-431: The world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. Thoreau felt a need to concentrate and work more on his writing. In 1845, Ellery Channing told Thoreau, "Go out upon that, build yourself a hut, & there begin the grand process of devouring yourself alive. I see no other alternative, no other hope for you." Thus, on July 4, 1845, Thoreau embarked on
11211-486: Was 14 years his senior, took a paternal and at times patron-like interest in Thoreau, advising the young man and introducing him to a circle of local writers and thinkers, including Ellery Channing , Margaret Fuller , Bronson Alcott , and Nathaniel Hawthorne and his son Julian Hawthorne , who was a boy at the time. Emerson urged Thoreau to contribute essays and poems to a quarterly periodical, The Dial , and lobbied
11322-433: Was 42 years. For every 100 females, there were 100.3 males. For every 100 women aged 18 and over, there were 101.8 men. At the time of the 2020 census , the median household income was $ 184,086. About 2.5% of the population was below the poverty line, including 1.7% of those under age 18 and 1.1% of those aged 65 or over. The town's name is pronounced by its residents as / ˈ k ɒ ŋ k ər d / KONG -kərd , in
11433-575: Was a member of the Institute of 1770 (now the Hasty Pudding Club ). According to legend, Thoreau refused to pay the five-dollar fee (approximately equivalent to $ 153 in 2023) for a Harvard master's diploma, which he described thus: Harvard College offered it to graduates "who proved their physical worth by being alive three years after graduating, and their saving, earning, or inheriting quality or condition by having Five Dollars to give
11544-413: Was a philosopher of nature and its relation to the human condition. In his early years he followed transcendentalism , a loose and eclectic idealist philosophy advocated by Emerson, Fuller, and Alcott. They held that an ideal spiritual state transcends, or goes beyond, the physical and empirical, and that one achieves that insight via personal intuition rather than religious doctrine. In their view, Nature
11655-687: Was disgusted by this, and he composed a key speech, " A Plea for Captain John Brown ", which was uncompromising in its defense of Brown and his actions. Thoreau's speech proved persuasive: the abolitionist movement began to accept Brown as a martyr, and by the time of the American Civil War entire armies of the North were literally singing Brown's praises . As a biographer of Brown put it, "If, as Alfred Kazin suggests, without John Brown there would have been no Civil War, we would add that without
11766-464: Was done by his own hands. ... Shall we say, then, that transcendentalism is the Saturnalia or excess of Faith; the presentiment of a faith proper to man in his integrity, excessive only when his imperfect obedience hinders the satisfaction of his wish. Transcendentalists have a deep gratitude and appreciation for nature, not only for aesthetic purposes, but also as a tool to observe and understand
11877-553: Was dying, Thoreau's last words were "Now comes good sailing", followed by two lone words, "moose" and "Indian". He died on May 6, 1862, at age 44. Amos Bronson Alcott planned the service and read selections from Thoreau's works, and Channing presented a hymn. Emerson wrote the eulogy spoken at the funeral. Thoreau was buried in the Dunbar family plot; his remains and those of members of his immediate family were eventually moved to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts. Most of
11988-420: Was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble and filth." Thoreau neither rejected civilization nor fully embraced wilderness. Instead he sought a middle ground, the pastoral realm that integrates nature and culture. His philosophy required that he be a didactic arbitrator between the wilderness he based so much on and
12099-485: Was mostly made up of struggling aesthetes , the wealthiest among them being Samuel Gray Ward , who, after a few contributions to The Dial , focused on his banking career. Transcendentalists are strong believers in the power of the individual and are primarily concerned with personal freedom . Their beliefs are closely linked with those of the Romantics , but differ by an attempt to embrace or, at least, to not oppose
12210-454: Was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to
12321-406: Was so overwhelming. It appeared that upwards of 80 to 90 percent of the 1,127 voters in attendance raised their ballots against the repeal measure. The issue had been bubbling in Concord for several years. In 2010, a ban approved in a town meeting, which wasn't written as a bylaw, was rejected by the state attorney general's office. In 2011, a new version of the ban narrowly failed at a town meeting by
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