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Home » Topics » Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism

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Margaret Fuller: Asking the Right Questions

April 25, 2025
Victor Curran
2 Comments

In a world where men claimed to have all the answers, Margaret Fuller made it her mission to ask all the right questions. “How came I here?” she wrote as a young adult. “How is it that I seem to be this Margaret Fuller? What does it mean? What shall I do about it?” She was only a visitor in Concord, but this town was electrified by her presence.


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Sowing the Seeds of Thoreauvian Studies in Brazil

August 29, 2024
Carolina Maciel
One Comment

The First Online Thoreau Conference, if briefly presented, could be described as a collaborative effort between students, scholars, and educators based in Brazil, who are dedicated to the study and outreach of Henry David Thoreau’s work. However, such a description wouldn’t do much justice to the interconnectedness of readers of Thoreau across the globe.


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Prophets of Truth and Enchantment: Thomas Carlyle and the Transcendentalists

August 29, 2024
Richard Smith
No Comments

Of all the writers and philosophers who influenced the New England Transcendentalists, none had a bigger impact than Thomas Carlyle. Born in Scotland in 1795, as an essayist, historian, and philosopher, Carlyle had a profound influence on the 19th century, not just in the United Kingdom, but also in America, particularly with the writers in Concord, Massachusetts. 

Virtually every member of the Transcendentalist circle read Carlyle’s writings with great enthusiasm; Bronson Alcott, Orestes Brownson, Theodore Parker, William Henry Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Frederic Henry Hedge, George Ripley, and Henry Thoreau all drew inspiration from Carlyle. In particular, it was his writings on Germanic literature that lit a flame under the Transcendentalists. 


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Tnumarya: A Profile of Mary Moody Emerson

June 15, 2024
Marybeth Kelly
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Ralph Waldo Emerson referred to her as Tnumarya, an anagram he created for his beloved aunt, Mary Moody Emerson. Many scholars believe her to be Emerson’s most seminal influencer. 


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Finding Margaret Fuller in Concord: A Book Review

June 15, 2024
Kristi Lynn Martin
No Comments

Fiction is a fun introduction to history! Allison Pataki encourages her readers to visit Concord, where her novel is predominately set—to tour the Emerson House, The Old Manse, and Orchard House—as she did while writing. Indeed, shortly after Finding Margaret Fuller: a novel’s publication (Ballentine Books, 2024), book clubs scheduled group tours at Emerson’s home.


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Walden-Pond

From Walden Pond to The Wayside

A Transcendental Amble
March 15, 2024
Beth van Duzer
No Comments

Some folks visit Concord for its role in the American Revolution, while others are on a mission to see a favorite author’s home. If you are eager to visit sites related to Concordians who influenced American culture thanks to their connection to Transcendentalism, here is a nice way to turn that interest into a pleasant walk in Concord, Massachusetts.


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The Death of Margaret Fuller

Safely Sailing On: Margaret Fuller’s Spirit in Concord

March 15, 2024
Kristi Lynn Martin
No Comments

It was nearly twelve hours since the Elizabeth ran aground on a sandbar in a raging hurricane. Returning home from Italy in July 1850, after years abroad as a foreign correspondent, Margaret Fuller huddled before the ship’s mast, clutching her two-year-old son, as waves violently washed over the deck. Fuller had given her life preserver to a sailor, who swam to shore for help.


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The Mystery of The Old Manse

March 15, 2024
Marybeth Kelly
No Comments

There’s nothing like getting wrapped up in a good cozy mystery. For the Agatha Christie lover, true crimes close to home are particularly enlivening. At Concord’s Old Manse Museum, home of the famous Emerson family and witness house to two revolutions, there lurks an unsolved puzzler.


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Waldo in the Woods: Emerson and the Philosophers’ Camp

June 15, 2023
Victor Curran
No Comments

“Is it true that Emerson is going to take a gun?” asked Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “Then I shall not go, somebody will be shot.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson was no marksman, but in July 1858, he bought a “rifle & gun” (a two-barreled rifle-shotgun combination) for twenty-five dollars, prompting his friend Henry David Thoreau to quip, “The story on the Mill Dam is that he has taken a gun which throws shot from one end and ball from the other.”1


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Concord Free Public Library Stories From Special Collections

Sophia Thoreau – Henry David Thoreau’s First Curator

June 15, 2023
Anke Voss
No Comments

Henry David Thoreau’s younger sister, Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau (1819–1876), was a botanist, artist, editor, and abolitionist who worked as a teacher and managed the family’s pencil business. She significantly shaped her brother’s legacy to an extent that modern scholars argue was under-acknowledged by Thoreau’s early biographers. 


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