Henry David ThoreauAna Berthel and Liz Guilmette

Life and Works• Born July 12, 1817

• Lived most of life in Concord, Massachusetts

• Graduated from Harvard University in 1837

• Lived alone in wilderness for two years as an experiment

• Most famous works: Walden and "Civil Disobedience"

• Also kept extensive journal

• Died May 6, 1862 from tuberculosis

Transcendentalist Movement• American Literary/Philosophical

movement that stressed self-reliance and returning to nature

• Thoreau one of the main Transcendental writers

• Tested his philosophy by living in the wild for two yearso Walden

• Believed society and people's lives needed to be simplified

Thoreau's Contributions• Philosophy about society not

appreciated well in its time

• Greater influence in 20th centuryo "Civil Disobedience" inspired people such as

Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Mohandas Gandhi

Civil Disobedience and Abolitionism• Essay stressed the people's ability to

overthrow laws/government that did not benefit themo People have a right to break laws they find

unfair in order to change them

• Believed slavery was unjust and oppressive

• Nonviolent Protest

Thoreau's Contributions• Part of the Underground Railroad

• Spoke out against and protested the Fugitive Slave Acts

• Advocated civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance

• Defended John Brown's extreme abolitionist actions

Quotes from Walden & "Civil Disobedience"

• "Our life is frittered away by detail."

• "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation"

• "Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails."

• "Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded or shall we transgress them at once?"

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Thoreau, Henry David. Walden, Or, Life in the Woods. New York: Dover Publications, 1995. Print.

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