Famous Dudes

and Dudettes

who changed

the country.

AMERICAN REFORMERS

Starting in the 1820s, American’s started emerging as

influential and great cultural people.

Only a few Americans were important to the world that

WEREN’T military leaders in the past (George Washington,

Andrew Jackson, William Fenemore Cooper)

As in, the world didn’t care about Americans before the 1820s.

As in, Americans didn’t make any global waves.

As in, no one cared about America because we weren’t important.

As in, Americans don’t matter.

As in, this was an actual conversation:

“Hey, did you hear about that American President?”

“What’s America?”

“You know, that chunk of land under Canada.”

CULTURAL CHANGE

The spirit of reform

Unification of God, man, and nature

Started with the 2nd

Great Awakening

Makes people start focusing on bettering the world and getting right with God.

As in, God likes a world that is honest and decent, so we should do the same.

TRANSCENDENTALISTS

Poet, Activist

Possibly America’s greatest poet.

Plus, just LOOK at that BEARD!!!

Served as a nurse in the American Civil War (1861-1865)

Leaves of Grass

Greatest work is a classic collection of his poems,

WALT WHITMAN

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns

before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add,

divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured

with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

LEAVES OF GRASS (1855)

Leader of the Transendentalistmovement.

Poet, essayist, lecturer, brilliant thinker.

Greatly against slavery, led an abolitionist movement.

Fan of bow-ties

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to

make you something else is the greatest

accomplishment.”

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty

seconds of happiness.”

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny

matters compared to what lies within us.”

“Always do what you are afraid to do.”

EMERSON QUOTES

What event started the transcendentalist movement

in America?

How did the rest of the world look at America before

the 1800s?

Who were the transcendentalists and what few

things they believe in?

Who is Walt Whitman?

Who was Ralph Waldo Emerson and what was he

talking about?

CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING

Super-Awesome female poet.

Completely crazy and suicidal, rarely left her house.

Wrote a bazillion poems, mostly about dark things like death and loneliness.

Possibly one of the world’s greatest and most influential writers.

EMILY DICKINSON

Because I could not stop for Death-- He kindly stopped for me-- The Carriage held but just Ourselves-- And Immortality. We slowly drove--He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civil ity—

We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess--in the Ring-- We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain-- We passed the Setting Sun--

We paused before a house that seemed

A swelling of the ground;

The roof was scarcely visible,

The cornice but a mound.

Since then ’t is centuries; but each

Feels shorter than the day

I first surmised the horses’ heads

Were toward eternity.

BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH

Pacifist, civil rights protestor, naturalist

Believed in living at one with nature

Civil Disobedience If a law is unjust, it does

not have to be followed.

Peaceful protesting against the government

Went to jail instead of serving in the Mexican War

Lived in a cabin in the woods alone for a long time to be at peace Walden

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave

with the song stil l in them.”

We all want to do great things, but we are afraid or just don’t know

how to. So most of us die without making a mark on the world.

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up

to live.”

Most writers don’t actually do anything. Thoreau has been to jail for

his beliefs and he is calling out the rest of the world to do the same.

Stand up for yourself and what you believe in!

“I was not designed to be forced. I will breathe after my own

fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.”

A government that is unjust does not deserve to exist. You can be

whipped, imprisoned, punished, but those are nothing compared to

being a sellout. Stand for what is right even if you stand alone.

WALDEN AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

America’s bizarre poet

Pioneered a new kind of poetry in short, crisp lines.

Poetry now something that everyone can read instead of just the super smart.

HENRY LONGFELLOW

The day is cold, and dark, and

dreary;

It rains, and the wind is never

weary;

The vine sti l l cl ings to the

mouldering wall,

But at every gust the dead

leaves fall ,

And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and

dreary;

It rains, and the wind is never

weary;

My thoughts sti l l cl ing to the

mouldering past,

But the hopes of youth fall thick

in the blast,

And the days are dark and

dreary.

Be stil l , sad heart, and cease

repining;

Behind the clouds is the sun sti l l

shining;

Thy fate is the common fate of

all ,

Into each life some rain must

fall ,

Some days must be dark and

dreary.

THE RAINY DAY

What female was one of America’s greatest poets? What

topics did she write about?

What kinds of things did Thoreau believe and write about?

Who said “Into each life some rain must fall”?

DID YOU NOTICE THAT ALL THESE DUDES HAVE CRAZY

BEARDS?!?

CHECK AGAIN

And finally… the one who

changed the world…

America’s

most

profound

writer in

the 1800s.

HARRIET

BEECHER

STOWE

Spent years in the south and learning about the

treatment of slaves on plantations.

Heard many first-hand accounts of the atrocities of

slavery.

Wrote America’s most influential book, Uncle Tom’s

Cabin, exposing the horrors of slavery to the rest of the

country.

No television, no music, no internet… Everyone is

reading books and going to book readings.

Becomes wildly popular and controversial.

Exposes northerners to the evils of slavery and

becomes the most important work for the abolitionist

cause, angers southerners because their way is at risk.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

"A day of grace is yet held out to us. Both North and

South have been guilty before God; and the Christian

church has a heavy account to answer. Not by

combining together, to protect injustice and cruelty,

and making a common capital of sin, is this Union to

be saved,--but by repentance, justice and mercy; for,

not surer is the eternal law by which the millstone

sinks in the ocean, than that stronger law, by which

injustice and cruelty shall bring on nations the wrath

of Almighty God!" - Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle

Tom's Cabin, Ch. 45

UNCLE TOM’S CABIN

What woman wrote America’s most controversial and

influential novel in the 1800s?

What book did she write?

What was the book about?

Why was it so upsetting? Tell me how north and south

thought about it.

LAST CHECK