<p>“A Growing Nation” Notes pp. 240 – 254</p><p>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. </p><p>Historical Background</p><p>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. </p><p>Important technologies: the telegraph, the steam engine, the steel plow and reaper</p><p>Social Concerns of the Day Mistreatment of Native Americans, women and African-Americans became topics for many authors. </p><p>Literature of the Period</p><p>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.</p><p>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. </p><p>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. </p><p>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.</p><p>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. </p>