Unit 4 18401855 New England Renaissance

1
Unit 4 - 1840-1855New England Renaissance

• Andrew Jackson, 2 terms
• new states entering union 1836 Arkansas,
  Michigan
• New Statesmen Daniel Webster, Henry Clay,
  Thomas Hart Benton, John C. Calhoun
• American Literature blossomed
• cultural history termed flowering, renaissance
  golden day - its guiding spirit Ralph Waldo
  Emerson, a unitarian minister

2
History of Time (contd.)

• New England Literary group - Boston (a
  cosmopolitan city) -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
  (Boston physician) and Charles Dickens (at 29
  world famous author/writer)
• 1200 cotton factories in U.S. in 1840 (2/3
  located in New England)

3
History Overview (contd.)

• Francis C. Lowell - 1st American power loom
• hired women (lived in boarding houses under
  strict supervision)
• worked 5 A.M. to 730 P.M.
• 2 1/2 hour breaks for meals
• The factory system was a success and textile
  companies prospered
• town of Lowell, Massachusetts in 1820 had 200
  people in 1845 had 30,000 people

4
History Overview (contd.)

• Mass production changed the face of America
• Mostly, for now, still an agricultural nation
• period of spectacular growth
• 1825 Erie Canal in NY completed
• 1840s railroads
• 1840s plank roads (highways) - hemlock boards to
  support wagons and stage coaches
• 1855 railroads clear advantage over plank roads

5
History Overview (contd.)

• John Deere - steel plow (made farming practical)
• Cyrus mcCormick - reaper (made farming practical)
• 1844 telegraph - Samuel F. D. Morse (instant
  messaging)

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History Problems

• Mid-late 19th century PROBLEMS
• not always clean boarding houses, matronly
  chaperones, pleasant camaraderie
• wages cut
• brought fierce factory competition
• anthracite mines in PA, boys 7-8 years old spent
  long hours working
• fathers spent 12-14 hour days in the mines
• THOUGHTS OF STRIKING

7
History Womens Rights

• Women in many states could not vote, make a will
  or file a lawsuit (her property under absolute
  control of her husband)
• 1840-1850 womens rights
• 1848 most pivotal, Seneca Falls Convention
  organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady
  Stanton (Susan B. Anthony joined on shortly)
• Dorothea Dix better treatment for mentally ill

8
History Womens Rights

• Julia Ward Howe and Harriet Beecher Stowe -
  institution of slavery
• Sarah and Angelina Grimke - womens rights and
  freedom for slaves (as well as Lucy Stone and
  Sojourner Truth)
• period of women activists

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Utopian Communities

• The latest fervor was for Utopian Communities
  (all but one failed - one left today Amana Church
  Society (700 members))

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Another Trend - better Education

• Better public and private education
• 1850 free/public education offered (higher
  education had to pay)
• Lyceum Movement society established for
  literary and scientific study (1839, Bostons
  Lowell Institute)
• lyceums offered lectures, debates, scientific
  demonstrations

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Literature of Time

• Ralph Waldo Emerson believed it was time for
  American writers to stop listening to the
  courtly muses of Europe, start interpreting our
  own culture
• (many critics did not take Poes work seriously)

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4 Writing Giants of the Time (1850)

• Emerson
• Thoreau
• Walden, 1854
• Hawthorne
• The Scarlet Letter, 1850 (achieved immediate
  fame)
• Melville
• Moby Dick, 1851 (no fame till after his death)
• Poetry, Emily Dickinson (class of her own)

13
Poetry of Time

• As stated on previous slide, Emily Dickinson was
  in a category of her own)
• Longfellow
• Holmes
• Whittier antislavery crusader as well as poet
• Lowell antislavery crusader as well as poet

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TRANSCENDENTALISM MOVEMENT

• Kant, Plato, Pascal, Swedenborg, Buddhist
  thought, German idealism and unitarianism/Channing
  
• Transcendentalism was a Philosophy, Religion,
  Literature - a blend of romantic, intuitive,
  mystical writing
• intense individualism and self-reliance
• single-minded commitment to improving the poor

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Transcendentalism (contd.)

• A democracy of intellect
• fundamental truths lay outside the experience of
  the senses, residing in the soul (mystic
  enthusiasm)
• revered nature

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Transcendentalist Writers

• 1840-1844 Margaret Fuller The Dial (editor)
• Emerson, Nature (beauty, discipline, idealism,
  spirit)
• Thoreau, Walden, A Week on the Concord and
  Merrimack Rivers (individualism, simplicity,
  passive resistance to injustice)
• Although the Transcendentalists were widely
  influential, their view of life seemed far too
  rosy to many writers

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Anti-Transcendentalists

• dark tales, the dark side of society portrayed
• Hawthorne
• Scarlet Letter - deals with sin, guild,
  hypocrisy, humility, evil and moral
  responsibility
• shrewd man, no illusions about life
• Melville
• Moby Dick
• an emotional man, artist raging against fates,
  rejected by public, had a hard time dealing with
  this and sought solace from his friend, Hawthorne

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Writing of the Time (factions)

• Literature was part of the national consciousness
  (poets/writers grouped)
• Group of commonly know poets FIRESIDE POETS
  (Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Lowell)
• created verse that the average person could
  understand - themes included inspiring,
  patriotic, love nature, home family, children

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Writing of the Time / factions

• Emily Dickinson
• unique poetry
• a recluse last 25 years of life
• did not write for publication
• brevity and breath-taking images
• published in 1890 by a family member/not by
  permission - definitive edition published in 1955

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Last Note on History/Writing

• As war loomed, creativity wained
• Emerson, Melville, Whittier, Lowell supported the
  North
• Thoreau, Hawthorne - died before the last shot
  was fired
• Holmes wrote Last Leaf

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VOCABULARY

• Transcendentalism an intellectual movement that
  directly or indirectly affected most of the
  writers of the New England Renaissance
• Apostrophe literary device in which a writer
  directly addresses an inanimate object, an
  abstract idea, or an absent person
• Style manner in which a writer puts his or her
  thoughts into words

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VOCABULARY

• Anti-Transcendentalism literary movement that
  essentially consisted of only two writers
  (Hawthorne, Melville)
• Symbolism a symbol is a person, place, thing
  that has a meaning in itself and also represents
  something larger than itself
• Stanza Forms unit of poetry consisting of two
  or more lines arranged in a pattern according to
  rhyme, meter, rhythm (stanzas organize ideas into
  units - page 337)

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VOCABULARY

• Tone writers attitude toward his or her
  subject, characters or audience
• Imagery words or phrases that create mental
  pictures or images that appeal to one or more of
  the five senses
• Meter and Scansion
• Meter is the systematic arrangement of stressed
  and unstressed syllables
• Scansion analysis of meter (page 347)

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VOCABULARY

• Theme central idea or insight into life that a
  writer conveys in a work of literature
• Simile explicit comparison between two
  seemingly dissimilar things (using like or as)
• Metaphor same as simile but the comparison is
  implied rather than stated (no like or as)

Notes gathered from textbook, The American
Experience, Prentice Hall