The document summarizes important American reformers and cultural figures from the 1820s onwards who helped change the country. It discusses the Second Great Awakening spiritual revival movement and the rise of Transcendentalism. Key figures mentioned include poets Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer Henry David Thoreau, and author Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose influential novel Uncle Tom's Cabin opposed slavery and contributed to growing abolitionist sentiment in the North.
2. Starting in the 1820s, American’s started emerging as
influential and great cultural people.
Only a few Americans were important to the world that
WEREN’T military leaders in the past (George Washington,
Andrew Jackson, William Fenemore Cooper)
As in, the world didn’t care about Americans before the 1820s.
As in, Americans didn’t make any global waves.
As in, no one cared about America because we weren’t important.
As in, Americans don’t matter.
As in, this was an actual conversation:
“Hey, did you hear about that American President?”
“What’s America?”
“You know, that chunk of land under Canada.”
CULTURAL CHANGE
3. The spirit of reform
Unification of God, man,
and nature
Started with the 2nd
Great Awakening
Makes people start
focusing on bettering the
world and getting right
with God.
As in, God likes a world
that is honest and
decent, so we should do
the same.
TRANSCENDENTALISTS
4. Poet, Activist
Possibly America’s
greatest poet.
Plus, just LOOK at
that BEARD!!!
Served as a nurse in
the American Civil
War (1861-1865)
Leaves of Grass
Greatest work is a
classic collection of his
poems,
WALT WHITMAN
5. When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns
before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add,
divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured
with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
LEAVES OF GRASS (1855)
7. “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to
make you something else is the greatest
accomplishment.”
“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty
seconds of happiness.”
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny
matters compared to what lies within us.”
“Always do what you are afraid to do.”
EMERSON QUOTES
8. What event started the transcendentalist movement
in America?
How did the rest of the world look at America before
the 1800s?
Who were the transcendentalists and what few
things they believe in?
Who is Walt Whitman?
Who was Ralph Waldo Emerson and what was he
talking about?
CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING
9. Super-Awesome female
poet.
Completely crazy and
suicidal, rarely left her
house.
Wrote a bazillion
poems, mostly about
dark things like death
and loneliness.
Possibly one of the
world’s greatest and
most influential writers.
EMILY DICKINSON
10. Because I could not stop for
Death-- He kindly stopped for
me-- The Carriage held but
just Ourselves-- And
Immortality. We slowly drove-
-He knew no haste And I had
put away My labor and my
leisure too, For His Civility—
We passed the School, where
Children strove At Recess--in
the Ring-- We passed the
Fields of Gazing Grain-- We
passed the Setting Sun--
We paused before a house that
seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ’t is centuries; but
each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’
heads
Were toward eternity.
BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH
11. Pacifist, civil rights
protestor, naturalist
Believed in living at one
with nature
Civil Disobedience
If a law is unjust, it does
not have to be followed.
Peaceful protesting
against the government
Went to jail instead of
serving in the Mexican War
Lived in a cabin in the
woods alone for a long
time to be at peace
Walden
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
12. “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave
with the song still in them.”
We all want to do great things, but we are afraid or just don’t know
how to. So most of us die without making a mark on the world.
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up
to live.”
Most writers don’t actually do anything. Thoreau has been to jail for
his beliefs and he is calling out the rest of the world to do the same.
Stand up for yourself and what you believe in!
“I was not designed to be forced. I will breathe after my own
fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.”
A government that is unjust does not deserve to exist. You can be
whipped, imprisoned, punished, but those are nothing compared to
being a sellout. Stand for what is right even if you stand alone.
WALDEN AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
13. America’s bizarre
poet
Pioneered a new
kind of poetry in
short, crisp lines.
Poetry now
something that
everyone can read
instead of just the
super smart.
HENRY LONGFELLOW
14. The day is cold, and dark, and
dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never
weary;
The vine still clings to the
mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead
leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and
dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never
weary;
My thoughts still cling to the
mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick
in the blast,
And the days are dark and
dreary.
Be still, sad heart, and cease
repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still
shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of
all,
Into each life some rain must
fall,
Some days must be dark and
dreary.
THE RAINY DAY
15. What female was one of America’s greatest poets? What
topics did she write about?
What kinds of things did Thoreau believe and write about?
Who said “Into each life some rain must fall”?
DID YOU NOTICE THAT ALL THESE DUDES HAVE CRAZY
BEARDS?!?
CHECK AGAIN
16. And finally… the one who
changed the world…
America’s
most
profound
writer in
the 1800s.
HARRIET
BEECHER
STOWE
17. Spent years in the south and learning about the
treatment of slaves on plantations.
Heard many first-hand accounts of the atrocities of
slavery.
Wrote America’s most influential book, Uncle Tom’s
Cabin, exposing the horrors of slavery to the rest of the
country.
No television, no music, no internet… Everyone is
reading books and going to book readings.
Becomes wildly popular and controversial.
Exposes northerners to the evils of slavery and
becomes the most important work for the abolitionist
cause, angers southerners because their way is at risk.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
18. "A day of grace is yet held out to us. Both North and
South have been guilty before God; and the Christian
church has a heavy account to answer. Not by
combining together, to protect injustice and cruelty,
and making a common capital of sin, is this Union to
be saved,--but by repentance, justice and mercy; for,
not surer is the eternal law by which the millstone
sinks in the ocean, than that stronger law, by which
injustice and cruelty shall bring on nations the wrath
of Almighty God!" - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle
Tom's Cabin, Ch. 45
UNCLE TOM’S CABIN
19. What woman wrote America’s most controversial and
influential novel in the 1800s?
What book did she write?
What was the book about?
Why was it so upsetting? Tell me how north and south
thought about it.
LAST CHECK