Key Concepts from Romanticism

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What was the Industrial Revolution?

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A major economic change in the mid-1700s where manufacturing shifted from skilled workers using hand tools to unskilled laborers operating large machines, beginning in Britain and spreading to the United States.

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How did the Industrial Revolution affect American society?

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It resulted in tremendous economic growth, transformed society, and led to the construction of hundreds of new factories. It also divided the North and South economically and socially.

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What were the two new inventions that revolutionized transportation during the Industrial Revolution?

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The steamboat and the railroad.

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What was the Age of Reform?

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A period in the 1820s when idealistic Americans, inspired by the Second Great Awakening, engaged in reform movements to end slavery, secure women's rights, and improve care for the mentally ill and prisons.

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What is Romanticism?

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A movement in art and thought that valued imagination and feeling over intellect and reason, emphasizing individualism, nature, and the non-rational side of human nature.

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What are the central ideas of American Romanticism?

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Optimism and Individualism, Kinship with Nature, and The Power of Darkness.

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What did Ralph Waldo Emerson believe about individualism?

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He believed that by being true to their innermost selves, people could accomplish great things and that every person was infinite.

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What is Transcendentalism?

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A movement influenced by Romanticism, emphasizing intuition over sensory experience and the belief that reality exists in our ideas about objects.

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What did Henry David Thoreau believe about nature?

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He believed that contact with wild nature refreshed the human spirit and taught respect for its powerful forces.

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How did the Industrial Revolution contribute to the Civil War?

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It divided Americans into two nations: the industrial North and the agricultural South, which relied on slave labor, leading to tensions that contributed to the Civil War.