Important American Writers

1. Important American Writers • Transcendentalism • philosophical movement that developed in the 1830s and 1840s • protest general state of culture and society • core beliefs was the inherent goodness of both man and nature. • believed that society and its institutions - particularly organized religion and political parties - ultimately corrupted the purity of the individual. • They had faith that man is at his best when truly "self-reliant" and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community could be formed.

2. Washington Irving Best known for his short stories, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.” Sleepy Hollow is the story of the Headless Horseman. Rip Van Winkle is a story about a man who sleeps for twenty years and wakes up in a new world. The moral of the story is to live your life to the fullest and never waste a moments time.

3. Legend of Sleepy Hollow trailer, 1999

4. James Fenimore Cooper Wrote about frontier life in “The Pioneers” and “The Last of the Mohicans.” Credited with creating the first western hero. The Last of the Mohicans trailer

5. Ralph Waldo Emerson Important works were the essays “Nature” and “Self Reliance.” “Nature” is about living in nature. “Self Reliance” is about being responsible for yourself.

7. Henry David Thoreau Important works were the book Walden and the essay “Civil Disobedience.” Walden is about a year that Thoreau spent living alone in the forest. “Civil Disobedience” is about doing what is right regardless of the law.

9. Louisa May Alcott Best known for her books about growing up in a family of three sisters called Little Women.

11. Nathaniel Hawthorne Best known for The Scarlet Letter, a book, set in 1666 in New England about an adulterous woman, Hester Prynne who has to wear a red A on her clothing.

13. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Longfellow was a poet best remembered for “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Paul Revere warned the colonists that the “Red coats are coming!”

15. Herman Melville Melville is best known for his book on a giant man-eating whale called Moby Dick. Considered to be one of the Great American Novels.

16. Moby Dick Mini series trailer

17. Laura Ingalls Wilder Laura Ingalls Wilder is best known for her “Little House” stories. The Little House stories were about growing up on the prairie of the Midwest.

19. Harriet Beecher Stowe Harriet Beecher Stowe is best known for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a book about the evils of slavery.