American Culture, Transcendentalism and Education

10) James Fenimore Cooper

The First American novelist to explore native themes, settings, and characters. He is the author of "The Last of the Mohicans (1826). Cooper's work shifted us from classicism of the eighteen century to the romanticism of the nineteenth century.

9) Johnson 1. Hooper

Hooper was the first American author to discover humor. He realized that Americans not only wanted a fast pace novel they also wanted humor in their reading. He wrote about a fictional character named Simon Suggs who was a parody on your common western cowboy.

8) Horace Mann

Mann was on of the most effective leader of the common school movement. He was a Whig from new England and believed that you can improve the human race through education.

7) Charles Bulfinch

Bulfinch was a Boston architect much of his work was influenced by British architects however he used that to developed an American style of design. He developed much of Boston and gave the city dignity and charm that was equal to London.

6) Walt Whitman

Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" (1855) was the was the last of his great outpouring of genius. It was by far his best written of most romantically written book of all. He was born on Long Island and at the age of 13 left school and became a printer and then started printing his own work.

5) Herman Melville

Melville was one of Americas greatest writers among his writings he produced Moby Dick. Melville was born in New York in 1819 and was one of eight children. Melville left school at 15 when his dad died to go to work.

4) Nathaniel Hawthrone

Hawthrone was born in Massachusetts in 1804. Hawthrone was fascinated by the past particularly by the Puritan heritage of New England. Much of his early work reflected that. His greatest piece of work was the "The Scarlet Letter" in 1850.

3) Edgar Allan Poe

Poe was one of the most remarkable authors he was able to capture the romantic images of even a tortured genius. Poe was born in Boston in 1809, the son of poor actor who died before he was three he was raised by John Allan a wealthy Virginian.

2) Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau objected to many of the restrictions that society placed on people. In 1845 he built a cabin in Walden Pond and tried to see if it was possible for man to be self sufficient for two years.

1) Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson was born in 1803 and educated at Harvard after traveling to Europe he settled in Concord Massachusetts where he began a long career of lecturing. He. became Americas first real philosopher and possibly the greatest.

Quotes:

"We Have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe"

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It's good to be shifty in a new country"

J.J. Hooper

Summary

During the 1840s, for the first time Americans became Americans with their own American style of writing with authors such as J.J. Hooper who filled our hearts with humor. America also has discovered other great novelists such as Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Because of the times we needed to start developing our educational system. We had great educational reformers such as Horace Mann. Mann thought that we must all be educated to get along better. In the mid 1800's we now discover that America to now has great knowledge and philosopher such as Emerson and Thoreau. At this point America starts to develop its own culture completely different from England.