Transcendentalism

One of the other classes I'm taking besides history is American Literature. In my literature class, we just finished learning about the transcendental movement and read Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walden by Henry David Thoreau. These two classes usually follow along with each other, but after reading chapter 9 in the history book, it didnt feel like they did.

Transcendentalism developed in the 1830's and 1840's and was based on ideas of being self-reliant, self-improvement, love of nature and simplicity, but the book doesnt really go into transcendentalism too much in chapter 9, but mentions Emerson in chapter 8 and his role in the American Renaissance.

After reading Emerson and Thoreau in literature, which their books were published in the 1850's and 1860's, I thought that there would be more movements towards being self-reliant and more of Jefferson's ideas of yeomen farmers. Instead there was the Industrial Revolution, and I was kind of surprised at how quickly American society changed during that time. It seemed to get more corrupt because more people began to value wealth more than anything else and people in the upper class were looking down more on poorer people who werent able to make a better life of themselves because the upper class exploited them so much. But I dont think the Industrial Revolution was bad because America wouldnt be the same without it.