Ralph Waldo Emerson

1
Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Born 25 May 1803 in Boston on Summer Street
• Father and grandfather were ministers
• From academic class Ancestors for five
  generations had been scholars

2
Early Life and Education

• Father William died when RW Emerson was eight
• Household in serious financial difficulty, with
  five boys to be clothed, fed and educated
• Mrs. Emerson succeeded

3
Education

• Attended Boston Latin School
• Entered Harvard College at 14, where he was
  appointed Presidents messenger
• Gentle, amiable, not noteworthy as a student, but
  seen early as a scholar
• Harvard Divinity School

4
Education-ministry

• 1823 began studying for the ministry
• Deeply spiritual and philosophical in nature
• Also followed in line with his family
• Ordained as Unitarian minister

• Became assistant pastor of Second Church in
  Boston
• Shortly became its incumbent
• Active interest in social policy member of
  school board
• Chaplain of state senate
• Married 1829 wife died in 1831

5
Concord

• 1832 expressed disapproval of church practice
• Quietly withdrew from church
• 1834 moved to Concord lived with mother in
  parsonage earlier occupied by grandfather

6
Transcendentalism

• From his home path led to Walden Pond
• Married Lydia Jackson 1835 son Waldo born 1836
• Published a small volume Nature in 1836
  (anonymously)
• This was first enunciation of transcendentalist
  principles

7
Life in Concord

• Nature text that so influenced young Thoreau
• 1834 Started new career lecturing
• 1835 moves to Concord
• 1836 Son Waldo is born
• 1839 daughter Ellen born
• 1841 daughter Edith born
• 1842 son Waldo dies
• 1844 son Edward born
• 1855 Meets Walt Whitman

8
Later Life

• 1862 Civil War Battle of Shiloh, loss of 3,000
  men
• A month later in Concord, Henry David Thoreau
  died of tuberculosis
• Emerson, who considered Thoreau his best friend,
  wrote the eulogy
• Eulogy was his last sustained piece of writing
• Claimed Thoreau was the only really free man he
  knew

9
End of Life

• In later years had increasing problems with
  memory
• House burned in 1872 was rebuilt during trip to
  Europe (funded by spontaneous gifts)
• Died April 27, 1882
• Buried on Authors Ridge, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery