"Transcendentalism is a group of ideas in literature and philosophy that developed in the 1830s and 1840s as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School. Among the transcendentalists' core beliefs was the belief in an ideal spirituality that "transcends" the physical and empirical and is realized only through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions."

"The movement directly influenced the growing movement of "Mental Sciences" of the mid-19th century, which would later become known as the New Thought movement. New Thought draws directly from the transcendentalists, particularly Emerson. New Thought considers Emerson its intellectual father. Emma Curtis Hopkins "the teacher of teachers"; Ernest Holmes, founder of Religious Science; the Fillmores, founders of Unity; and Malinda Cramer and Nona L. Brooks, the founders of Divine Science; were all greatly influenced by Transcendentalism."

(extracted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Transcendentalism)

Key Figures

• Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), American philosopher
• William Ellery Channing (1818-1901), American poet
• William Henry Channing (1810-1884), American clergyman
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American essayist & philosopher
• Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American poet
• Walt Whitman (1819-1892), American poet

Organizations & Societies

• The Transcendental Club

Major Works

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American Scholar (1837)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Divinity School Address (1838)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance (1841)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Transcendenalist (1842)
• Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)