5 Important Facts

1. Once the Erie canal was built it set off an explosion of building around the country. In the 1840's railroads and plank roads were being built everywhere.
2. Ralph Waldo Emerson is an extreme optimist. He never had unsteady emotions. He thought any problems would naturally work themselves out.
3. Emerson planted the thought of utopia's or perfect communities into the minds of many people. One of the most communities was called Brook Farm which was less than ten miles from Boston. This community held some writers in it and it greatly effected there work.
4. Although the Transcendentalist movement seems religious it was not. It had a religious connotation but it was not a religious group.
5. Transcendentalism revolved around nature. Emerson, the leader, titled his first book "nature." The main belief was that you should be one with nature.