# data[].attributes.body
Transcendentalism was an American literary, political, and philosophical movement in the early 19th century, where people believed in the essential unity of everything and the innate goodness of humanity.

# data[].attributes.body
This is a collection by Walt Whitman of wild, exuberant poems about how Whitman wanted to transcend various boundaries such as solitude and community and the living and the dead.

# data[].attributes.body
Henry David Thoreau urged readers to avoid unthinkable conformity and peacefully resists unjust laws. Thoreau advocated for self-realization for men while a similar author during his time, Margaret Fuller, advocated for freedom for women.

# data[].attributes.body
Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasized the liberation of the individual. As the leading voice of transcendentalism, he claimed that people were trapped by inherited customs and institutions. He believed that individuals could be remade only by discovering their "original relation with Nature" and entering into a mystical union with the "currents of Universal Being."

# data[].attributes.body
transcendentalists created an American “state of mind” in which imagination, creativity, and action were better than reason, theory, and contemplation respectively

higher sense of individualism where people were less attached to each other

lyceum movement- lecture tours by many poets, preachers, scientists, and reformers that became an important cultural movement

movement away from European influence, such as landscapes in painting

# data[].attributes.body
there was a wave of reformers in the 1830s and 1840s who uprooted customs

reformers pushed for individualism, common ownership of property, emancipation of slaves, and sexual equality

people became afraid of these reformers and thought they were chaotic

# data[].attributes.body
The changes in art and literature in the 1800s emphasized the idea of individualism within the middle class, allowing these ordinary Americans to take part in literature and philosophy. It allowed for a new environment that indulged in the spirit of reform.

# data[].attributes.body
The changes in art and literature were not just a literary movement but a philosophical movement that changed the way people thought.