Victor Nuovo: A little-known transcendentalist

27th essay in a seriesI suspect that almost everyone who reads this essay will be unfamiliar with Margaret Fuller (1810–50). Her name does not ring a bell in our minds as do the names of Ralph Waldo Emerson or Henry David Thoreau, her contemporaries, or Frederick Douglass, Oliver Wendell Holmes or Henry and William James, her successors in the intellectual life of America. And yet, there should be no doubt that she belongs among this august group, and her writings, as do theirs, deserve to be included in ev … (read more)

23rd in a series During the middle of the third decade of the 19th century, there occurred in New England a third great awakening. It did not pertain only to religious sentiment; rather it involved a renewal of the human mind, a renaissance, even a revolu … (read more)

Editor’s note: This is the 30th in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. “Transcendentalism” signifies the flowering of culture in New England during the first half of the 19th Century when it threw off the bur … (read more)