Interactive Time Line
Milestone: Rise of American Romanticism
Milestone: The Louisiana Purchase
Milestone: Education and Reform
Milestone: Transcendental Influence
Milestone: The Gold Rush
Milestone: The Slavery Issue
What Have You Learned?
Feature Menu
American Romanticism1800–1860
1803The Louisiana Purchase
Choose a link on the time line to go to a milestone.
18201800 1840 1860
1800Rise of American Romanticism
1830s–1850sTranscendental Influence
1849The Gold Rush
1850–1859The Slavery Issue
1826Lyceum Movement
American Romanticism1800–1860
• Characteristic Romantic journey to the countryside, away from city
Reaction Against Rationalism
• Value placed on nature and exotic settings
• Cities filled with poor living conditions and disease
Rise of American Romanticism
• Poetry highest expression of imagination
Romantic Escapism
• Found beauty in exotic locales and supernatural
• Valued feelings and intuition over reason
Rise of American Romanticism
Fireside Poets
• Wrote about American settings and subject matter using traditional styles and forms
Rise of American Romanticism
• Very popular—families read their poems at family firesides for entertainment
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
John Greenleaf Whittier
Oliver Wendell Holmes
James Russell Lowell
• James Fenimore Cooper’s Natty Bumppo is the first American heroic figure
Romantic Heroes
• Typical Romantic hero youthful, innocent intuitive, close to nature
• Frontier life idealized in novels
Rise of American Romanticism
• immediately doubled in size
Westward Expansion
• paid about four cents an acre for the land
The United States
The Louisiana Purchase
• gained all land between Mississippi River and Rocky Mountains
Louisiana Purchase
“Oh Susanna! Polka”
• More people moved into frontier areas.
Westward Expansion
• President Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to explore western territory.
• Louisiana purchase launched 100 years of westward expansion.
The Louisiana Purchase
• American movement founded in Massachusetts
The Lyceum Movement
• Sought to teach adults, train teachers, and institute social reforms
• Original Lyceum founded in Greece in 335 B.C.
Education and Reform
• Lyceums led to new ways of thinking and the establishment of museums and libraries.
The Lyceum Movement
• Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the most popular speakers.
• People went to lyceums for lectures.
Emerson lecturing in Concord, Massachusetts
Education and Reform
• Abolitionists worked to end slavery.
Other Reform Movements
• Horace Mann worked to improve public education.
• Dorothea Dix worked to help mentally ill people.
• Feminists campaigned for women’s rights
Education and Reform
Dorothea Dix Horace Mann
• Intuition allows people to behold God’s spirit revealed in nature or in their own souls.
True Reality Is Spiritual
• Physical facts of natural world are a doorway to spiritual world.
• Everything, including humans, is a reflection of Divine Soul.
• Spontaneous feelings are superior to intellectualism and rationality.
Transcendental Influence
• Optimism appealed to people living in period of economic downturn, strife, and conflict
Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Had an extremely optimistic view of the world and nature
• Combined beliefs from Europe and Asia with Puritan, revival, and Romantic traditions
• Published important essays such as “Self-Reliance” and “The Over-Soul”
Transcendental Influence
Dark Romantics
• Explored conflict between good and evil and the effects of guilt and sin
• Shared many beliefs with the Transcendentalists
Transcendental Influence
Edgar Allan PoeNathaniel Hawthorne Herman Melville
• New towns and cities were founded along routes to California and near mining sites.
The Rush West
• Tens of thousands traveled west, hoping for wealth.
• Gold was discovered in Sutter’s Mill, California.
The Gold Rush
• Led to building of the transcontinental railroad
New Frontiers
• Led to new settlements along the land route and west coast
• Journey to California long and dangerous
The Gold Rush
• opened territories to slavery
A Nation Divided
• Compromise was overturned by Kansas-Nebraska Act, which
• Missouri Compromise barred slavery west of Missouri.
The Slavery Issue
• led to violence in Kansas and to the founding of the antislavery Republican Party
• Dred Scott decision denied Congress right to prohibit slavery in territories.
A Nation Divided
• John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry led to more violence.
The Slavery Issue
Dred Scott
John BrownBurning of
Harper’s Ferry
______ Novelists popularize the American Romantic hero.
______ Western New York represents frontier of the country.
______ The first transcontinental railroad is built.
______ Education reform begins in Massachusetts.
Indicate whether the following statements refer to the time before, during, or after the Gold Rush.
after
before
during
before
What Have You Learned?
Top Related