Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Timeline Biography

05-25-1803 - 04-27-1882

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Transcendentalism was a variation of European Romanticism and a response to both Unitarianism and declining Calvinism. Initially, he was a young Unitarian minister for three years until he became disenchanted with the "cold" and "unenthusiastic" mindset of Unitarianism. Likewise, he found Calvinism too exclusivist and overly focused on abstract doctrines like original sin. Inspired by the powerful language of Romanticism, he espoused embracing the Spirit without the rigidity of law beginning with his sermon, "[Harvard] Divinity School Address" in 1836. Rejecting Christ’s miracles and the "myths" of Christianity, he believed that life was a miracle and that God dwelled in all things. This way of thinking made Emerson an important figure in Transcendentalist thought.

Emerson’s work influenced both churched and unchurched Americans, including poet Walt Whitman, clergyman Henry Ward Beecher, and prominent businessman John D. Rockefeller, who embraced Emerson’s call for self-reliance.

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