Reform Movement
Anthony Ross
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism urged people to transcend, or overcome, the limits of their minds and let their souls reach out to embrace the beauty of the universe.
Utopian Movement
Cooperative living and the absence of private property characterized these communities.
Brook Farm was a cooperative community in Massachusetts founded by Unitarian Minister George Ripley. Members of the community farmed the land together and held the fruits of their labor in common. The idea was that this would give settlers more time to pursue their own literary and scientific interests.
Brook Farm
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville was a French sociologist and political theorist who is most famous for writing Democracy in America. With its trenchant obsevrations on equality and individualism, Tocqueville's work was one of the most influential books in the 19th century. His work remains a valuable explanation of America to Europeans and of Americans to themselves.