Ralph Waldo Emerson Early life family and education

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Early life, family, and education Ruth Haskins Emerson Rev. William Emerson Born on November. 9, 1768 Died on December. 3, 1853 Aged of 85 yrs. Old Born on May 6, 1770 Died on May 12, 1811 From Stomach Cancer Aged of 41

Rev. William Emerson • Pastor of the First Church in Boston Unitarian Universalist Church • Originally Congregational Church • founded in 1630 by John Winthrop • John Wilson was the first pastor • A Schism developed at the turn of the 19 th century.

Unitarian – A follower or a member of an organisation that follow any of several Theology. Unitarianism - is a Christian Theological Movement named for the affirmation that God is one person - all Unitarians perceive Christ as human rather than divine. - Unitarianism is also known for the rejection of several other conventional Christian doctrines - including the Soteriological doctrines of Original sin and Predestination.

• William Emerson attended Harvard College, graduating in 1789. • On December 21, 1791, the Congregational Church and town of Harvard, Massachusetts extended the call to William Emerson to become their fifth minister. • William Emerson married Ruth Haskins on October 25 1796 in Boston. • The Emersons had eight children: 1. 2. 3. Phebe Ripley Emerson John Clark Emerson William Emerson 4. Ralph Waldo Emerson 5. 6. 7. 8. Edward Blis Emerson Robert Bulkeley Emerson Charles Chauncy Emerson Mary Caroline Emerson

• In 1799, the Reverend William Emerson was dismissed by the Harvard church to become the minister of Boston's First Church • In 1804, Emerson founded the Anthology Club a Boston literary society, and wrote articles for the club's The Monthly Anthology. This publication was the forerunner of the North American Review, America's leading literary journal, • In 1806, Emerson was the Chaplain for the Massachusetts General Court. • William Emerson died from stomach cancer on May 12, 1811, less than two weeks before Ralph Waldo Emerson's eighth birthday

Ruth Haskins Emerson • Ruth Haskins Emerson support and raised their children on her own. • Financial insecurity quickly became a fact of life. • Mary Moody Emerson unmarried sister of William Emerson stayed at their house for several months to help Ruth. • On December. 3, 1853 Ruth Haskins Emerson died.

Ralph Waldo Emerson • Born on May 25, 1803 On Boston, Massachusetts U. S • Died on April 27, 1882 (aged 78) Concord, Massachusetts U. S. • Nationality : American • Essayist, poet, lecturer, philosopher, Unitarian minister, and central figure among the American Transcendentalists • Fourth son of Rev. William and Ruth Emerson

• Emerson's education began in Boston, at dame school (a school for small children, in which the basics were taught by a woman in her own home).

• Emerson's formal schooling began at the Boston Latin School in 1812 when he was nine. • Established on. April 23, 1635 ; 379 years ago • Type : Public school • Grades : 7– 12 • Location : Boston, Massachusetts

• In October 1817, at 14, Emerson went to Harvard College and was appointed freshman messenger for the president, requiring Emerson to fetch delinquent students and send messages to faculty. • Established in 1636 • Type : Private • Location : Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

• Midway through his junior year, Emerson began keeping a list of books he had read and started a journal in a series of notebooks that would be called "Wide World" • In his journals, Emerson focused on a wide range of topics, from moral truth to domestic gossip, from Concord to European travels, from solitude to democracy, slavery, and the US economy. His frame of reference oscillates between nature and human character (of both historical figures and his contemporaries)

• He took outside jobs to cover his school expenses, including as a waiter for the Junior Commons and as an occasional teacher working with his uncle Samuel in Waltham, Massachusetts. • By his senior year, Emerson decided to go by his middle name, Waldo. • Emerson served as Class Poet; as was custom, he presented an original poem on Harvard's Class Day. • Ralph Waldo Emerson graduated from Harvard College on August 29, 1821, When he was 18.

• After graduating he took a job teaching at a girls' school run by his brother William Emerson in their mother's house. “ The old Manse” Concord, Massachusetts • Built : 1769

• Shortly before his twenty-first birthday, Emerson decided that he would devote himself to the ministry. His decision was not an unexamined one. He had already expressed doubts about formal religion and his personal fitness to preach it. • In Nov 1822 Emerson publishes his first piece of writing, an article entitled "Thoughts on the Religion of the Middle Ages" in Christian Disciple and Theological Review magazine.

• In Feb 1825 Emerson studies at Harvard Divinity School • Established in 1816 • Location Cambridge, Massachusetts. U. S.

• Emerson met his first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker, in Concord, New Hampshire on Christmas Day, 1827 and got engaged in 1828. • It seemed clear that the young Emerson, who preferred to go by Waldo, was also destined for the pulpit. • In Jan 29, 1829 Emerson joins Second Church, Boston as a colleague pastor. He is ordained and soon promoted to pastor of the church. • In Sep 30, 1829 Emerson marries Ellen Tucker.

Ellen Louisa Tucker • The couple moved to Boston, with Emerson's mother Ruth moving with them to help take care of Ellen, who was already sick with tuberculosis. • Less than two years later, Ellen died at the age of 20 on February 8, 1831, after uttering her last words: "I have not forgotten the peace and joy. ” • The widowed Emerson was heartbroken. The untimely loss of his young wife also threw into question his faith, and thus his choice of career.

• In his journal, Emerson asked himself whether the ministry was still an effective way of communicating with the divine. He began to doubt central tenets of the church, such as whether Jesus really was the son of God. • In Dec 1832 Emerson resigns from his pastor position at Second Church and sails for Europe. During his ten-month trip, he meets William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle. Emerson begins sketching out his philosophies on nature and self-reliance. • Emerson returned to Boston. On November 15, 1833, he gave his first public lecture, a talk entitled "The Uses of Natural History. " • In Jan 29, 1835 Emerson starts his first lecture series, "Biography, " in Boston.

• On 14 September 1835 Emerson married his second wife, Lydia Jackson. The couple had four children. They named one of their daughters Ellen after Emerson's first wife, at Lydia Jackson Emerson's suggestion. • In September 1836 Emerson published his long essay Nature. • The book outlined his ideas about the manifestation of the universal spirit in nature. • Emerson argued that man needed no church to connect to the divine - he had only to go out into nature, God's true canvas, to hear the truthful voice within.

"In the woods, we return to reason and faith, " Emerson wrote. "There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes, ) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. "

• On 31 August 1837, Emerson delivered a talk entitled "The American Scholar" to a crowded house at Harvard. • One of his audiences named Henry David Thoreau was so mesmerized by his speech and he introduced himself to Emerson and then became his friend also his mentor. And later live with Emerson family. "Brave; for fear is a thing, which a scholar by his very function puts behind him. Fear always springs from ignorance. “ -Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The American Scholar"

• On Mar 20, 1841 Emerson's first essay anthology is published. It contains works like Self-Reliance and The Over-Soul, which will come to define his philosophies. “Greatness is a property for which no man can receive credit too soon; it must be possessed long before it is acknowledged. ” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, -- that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost. “ ― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance

• In July 1842 Emerson took over from Margaret Fuller the editorship of the Transcendentalist journal The Dial. • The job helped him cope with a recent tragedy: the sudden death of his five-year-old firstborn child Waldo from scarlet fever. • Dec 12, 1846 Emerson's collection Poems is published in the U. S. and in England. • In 1847 Emerson sails to England for one of several European lecture tours.

• On May 6, 1862 Emerson's friend and colleague Henry David Thoreau dies at the age of 44. Emerson gives the eulogy at his funeral. In his honor, Emerson publishes the memorial essay "Thoreau" in The Atlantic. “It seemed as if the breezes brought him, It seemed as if the sparrows taught him, As if by secret sign he knew Where in far fields the orchids grew. ” • In Jan 1863 Emerson writes the "Boston Hymn" poem in praise of President Abraham Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Boston Hymn By Ralph Waldo Emerson "God said, I am tired of kings, I suffer them no more; Up to my ear the morning brings The outrage of the poor. . Come, East, and West, and North, By races, as snow-flakes, And carry my purpose forth, Which neither halts nor shakes. "

• In 1866 Harvard honors Emerson with an honorary doctorate. The following year, he is elected to Harvard's Board of Overseers. • In 1875 Emerson's book Letters and Social Aims is published. With his memory failing and his intellectual abilities slowing down, Emerson drops his habit of daily journal-writing. “Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea. ” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims “A great man quotes bravely, and will not draw on his invention when his memory serves him with a word just as good. ” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims

• On Feb 4, 1880 in one of his final public speeches, he delivered his 100 th lecture before the Concord Lyceum. • On April 21, 1882, Emerson was found to be suffering from pneumonia, Ralph Waldo Emerson dies at home in Concord, Massachusetts, a month before his 79 th birthday. He is buried in Concord's Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

QUIZ Instruction : Write TRUE if the Statement is Correct, then FALSE if the statement is Wrong. 1. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the fourth son of Rev. William and Ruth Emerson. 2. Ellen Louisa Tucker was the 1 st wife of Ralph Waldo Emerson. 3. Ralph Waldo Emerson died from suffering Pneumonia. 4. Ralph Waldo Emerson was born on May. 25, 1803. 5. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Lydia Jackson had 5 children.

Answer. 1. True 2. True 3. True 4. True 5. False