Examining the Historical Context of Walden

1. Inventing
America
Forging National
Identity in the
19th century

2. men fighting during Shays’s Rebellion
at first the United States was
an unstable nation . . .
– Economic depression
– Diplomatic weakness
– Social unrest
– Uncertain status of West
“We are going and doing wrong,
and therefore I look forward to
evils and calamities, but without
being able to guess at the
instrument, nature, or measure
of them.”

3. Louisiana Purchase
of 1803
vast new lands for
exploration and settlement
War of 1812
With victory over the
British, the United States
becomes an established
world power

4.  European powers rebuffed
 Territory doubled in size
 Hegemony on the continent secured!

5. Americans embarked upon a period of
dramatic growth and change. . .

6. • Expansion of democracy
• Population growth
• Growth of cities
• Industrial revolution
• Westward expansion
• Religion/reform

7. Expansion of democracy
extension of the franchise
to all white men

8. Population
Growth
The population of the country was four
times larger in 1850 than it was in 1815
– Natural increase
– Influx of immigrants

9. Growth of cities
• By mid-century, 1 in 7 Americans was a city-dweller
• 10 of the nations cities exceeded 50,000 people

10. Expansion of transportation and commerce
• railroads
• canals
• steamboats
• factories
Industrial Revolution

11. Westward Expansion
• Louisiana Purchase 1803
• Lewis and Clark 1804-1806
• Mexican War 1846-1848
• Manifest Destiny

12. Religion and Reform
Second Great Awakening
inspired
• Abolition
• Women’s Rights
• Other social reforms
– Prisons/Insane Asylums
– Education
– Temperance
– Moral Reform

13. Observing this widespread
growth and change . . .
artists and intellectuals
begin wondering
what “what is an American?”
makes us
unique?
what
have we
become?
who are
we?

14. Cultural renaissance
• Ralph Waldo Emerson declares the intellectual
independence of America
• Hudson river school explores the beauty of
American landscapes
• Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, Whitman, develop
new literary schools
• Henry David Thoreau takes to the woods

15. “Perhaps the time is
already come . . . when
the sluggard intellect of
this continent will look
from under its iron lids,
and fill the postponed
expectation of the
world with something
better than the
exertions of mechanical
skill. Our day of
dependence, our long
apprenticeship to the
learning of other lands,
draws to a close.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar”

17. “I celebrate myself;
And what I assume you shall assume;
For every atom belonging to me, as good
belongs to you.”

18. “No truer American existed than Thoreau”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

19. “No truer American existed than Thoreau”
Ralph Waldo Emerson