Name: Eduardo Castaneda

Period: 2
Transcendentalism Web Quest
"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and
absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think about the quotation listed above while you answer the following questions in this
webquest.
Step one: Gain a basic understanding of Transcendentalism
http://womenshistory.about.com/bltranscend.htm?once=true&What is Transcendentalism?
http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/amtrans.htm
1. What authors are associated with this movement?
Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau are just some of the
authors associated with the movement.
2. What century did this movement take place in?
This movement took place in the 19th century, around 1836-1860.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/icon/transcend.html

3. The Transcendentalists stood at the heart of The American Renaissance-- the flowering of
our nation's thought in literature, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, and music in
the period roughly designated from 1835-1880.
4. What area of the U.S. did this movement begin in?
The movement began in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
5. Emerson attempted to define the philosophy in simple terms as "What is popularly called
Transcendentalism among us, is Idealism; Idealism as it appears in 1842." But it is much
larger and more complex than that. How is it described further along in this paragraph?
He says that by meditating, reflecting with nature, through work and art, humans could
transform his senses and get an understanding of beauty, goodness, and truth.

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/ideas/club.html
6. What was the Transcendentalist club?
The Transcendentalist club was a protest against the arid intellectual climate of Harvard
and Cambridge.

7. How/why/where did it develop?

The Transcendentalist club was created on September 8, 1863 at the Willards Hotel in
Cambridge. It was created to make new ideas.
8. How difficult was it to become a member of this club?
It wasnt difficult at all. All you had to do was attend a meeting.
9. Who called the first-ever meeting of this club?

No one called the first meeting but Henry Hedge, George Putnam, George Ripley, and
Emerson met in a place for the first meeting.

Step two: Explore several figures from the Transcendentalist movement.

Write 5 to 6 sentences in regards to what you learned about each author. Take your time reading
each of the web pages before writing your summary; we will be reading literature from these
four authors in class.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poet/emerson.html
10. Ralph Waldo Emerson :
Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in 1803 to a Unitarian minister and a devout
mother. His father died when he was just 8 years old. Emerson has lost a lot of people to
death including his three brothers, his first wife, and oldest son. In 1835 he married Lydia
Jackson, and they lived in Concord and had 4 children. He with 3 other people decided to
write a magazine called The Dial in 1840. In the year 1851, he started giving many
lectures which eventually became known as The Conduct of Life. In 1882 Ralph Waldo
Emerson died quietly of pneumonia.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poet/thoreau.html
11. Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was born in 1817. He grew up closely with his older
brother John. Like Emerson, he too attended Harvard. While he lived in Walden, he gave
many lectures and wrote a book about a memory he had with his brother on a trip. He
supported John Browns efforts to end slavery. Thoreau died of tuberculosis in 1862, at

the age of 44. After his death people found his journal which was later published into 20
volumes.
Step 3: Transcendental Art
12. Your mission is to find a piece of artwork (painting/photography/etc) that represents
Transcendentalism in some way. Copy/paste the artwork into this document and explain
in at least 2 sentences how this art represents Transcendentalism.
This artwork is called manhood. This
is a painting from the Transcendentalism
period in which the man in the picture is
approaching a dangerous river, which
represents the struggle a man faces when he
is in his middle age. The man, as you can
see, is praying to God and asking him for
help in his future struggles. This represents
Transcendentalism because it involves man,
God, and nature.