Emerson, Ralph Waldo

1803–1882

Philosopher and Author

Ralph Waldo Emerson was the founder of a distinct American intellectual tradition and a key figure in the antebellum (pre–Civil War) transcendentalist movement. He espoused an ideal of manliness rooted in scholarly activity, self-knowledge, intellectual dissent, and individual autonomy, a concept that grew out of early-nineteenth-century ideas about manhood. However, although Emerson's celebration of individual autonomy suited the surging individualism engendered by the antebellum market revolution and the egalitarian spirit of Jacksonian democracy, he initially eschewed the emerging entrepreneurial model of manhood promoted by proponents of capitalist development.

In making his career choice, Emerson shunned more traditional pursuits that would have been fitting outlets for his eloquence, such as the pulpit, the press, or politics. In 1832 he abandoned a secure position as Unitarian minister at Boston's Second Church and, intent on a holistic pursuit of truth, chose the vocation of a scholar. In his lectures and essays, Emerson advocated self-knowledge and self-reliance (trusting one's own mind and seeking spiritual self-sovereignty) as quintessential manly virtues.

Emerson and the transcendentalists regarded intuition and self-knowledge as higher sources of truth than the intellect. They believed that emotion, intuition, and spirituality could guide the mind beyond the limits of pure intellect toward a transcendent form of reason. Emerson's notion of transcendental consciousness offered a new public male identity that sought to counteract the allegedly emasculating effects of the antebellum market revolution.

Seeking to redefine manliness, Emerson initially charged that the marketplace debased male self-sufficiency, and he embraced agrarian values as an alternative. He developed this theme in his essay Nature (1836), emphasizing it more strongly after the financial panic of 1837 and throughout the 1840s. In his famous essay “Self-Reliance” (1841), Emerson continued to advocate dissent, nonconformity, introspection, and selfknowledge as elements of the path toward truth and self-realization. This model of manhood greatly influenced Henry David Thoreau's experimental retreat to Walden Pond in 1845.

Ultimately, however, Emerson's insistence on self-reliant struggle as the means to build manhood generated a definition of male identity grounded in liberal marketplace economics, largely unfettered by government regulation. In his book, The Conduct of Life (1860), Emerson developed his earlier notion of innate individual potential into a celebration of an unfettered individualism that would be advantageous in a liberal marketplace. After 1860, Emerson emerged as an apologist for the concept of the “self-made man.” This transition in Emerson's thinking about manhood anticipated new concepts of manhood that appeared after the Civil War—concepts that rejected reformist ideals of finding self-fulfillment through the moral and ethical betterment of society, and instead embraced self-discipline, professional pragmatism, and an active life.

Emerson's ideal of manhood was part of a liberal tradition in the United States that emerged in the aftermath of the American Revolution. This liberal tradition often obscured social and class conflict and used an inclusive rhetoric of manly republican virtue and independence that shrouded its elitist motives and intentions. Emerson's ideas about manhood reflected the ambivalence of middle-class men toward the spiritual and economic effects of capitalist development.