Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was an American essayist, lecturer and poet, the central figure of New England Transcendentalism. Born in Boston to a line of ministers, he was ordained a Unitarian pastor but resigned in 1832 after his young wife's death and doubts about the sacraments, traveled in Europe, met Coleridge, Wordsworth and Carlyle, and settled in Concord, Massachusetts. Nature, The American Scholar and the Divinity School Address announced his program; the two series of Essays, Representative Men, English Traits and The Conduct of Life carried it out. He supported his family by lecturing across the country for forty years, befriended and sheltered Thoreau and spoke out against slavery.