“A Growing Nation” Notes pp. 240 – 254
1803 – Louisiana Purchase doubles the size of the country. 1812 – Second embarrassing defeat of Britain! 1849 – Gold Rush! 1869 – Transcontinental railroad connects east coast to west.
Historical Background
Rapid improvement in transportation leads to more exploration of the land. Western expansion forces Native Americans from their homelands. US goes to war with Mexico and officially gains Texas.
Important technologies: the telegraph, the steam engine, the steel plow and reaper
Social Concerns of the Day Mistreatment of Native Americans, women and African-Americans became topics for many authors.
Literature of the Period
Romanticism Literature that is fascinated by the imagination and intuition – Romantic authors reject reason and logic. Romantics prefer nature over civilization. These beliefs lead to the Transcendentalists – a branch of Romanticism.
Transcendentalism – not just a literary style but a religion and a philosophy! All understanding “a person gains intuitively because it lies beyond direct experience.” Transcendentalists were anti-materialists and mystical. They sought fundamental truths – truths outside the senses.
Walden: Disillusioned with civilization, Henry David Thoreau left society in an experiment and lived in a cabin he built himself for two years. His journal was more than just an observation of nature. His philosophy celebrated individuality, individualism, simplicity and passive resistance to injustice.
Evil? Some authors explored the darker side to nature and human nature. Melville’s Moby Dick portrays nature as destroyer, not nurturer. Emily Dickinson’s poetry brooded on death, immortality and the soul.
Walt Whitman – a native New Yorker, Whitman revolutionized American poetry by ignoring constraints of meter and rhyme. He liberated poetry and wrote in FREE VERSE.