Transcendentalism was a movement in philosophy, literature, and religion that emerged and was popular in the nineteenth century New England because of a need to redefine man and his place in the world in response to a new and changing society. The industrial revolution, universities, westward expansion, urbanization and immigration all made the life in a city like Boston full of novelty and turbulence. Transcendentalism was a reaction to an impoverishment of religion and mechanization …
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showed last 75 words of 3279 total
…rsal suffrage. Most of his supporters were members of the renamed Democratic party, founded originally by Thomas Jefferson. Jacksonian democracy stressed both equality and individualism. Transcendentalism served as a metaphysical basis to explain and justify newfound democracy. The need for reconciliation of expansive and contracting impulses of transcendentalism is similar to democracy, where a person needs to realize without sacrificing both his need for liberty (egoistic tendency) and his goal of equality.