I’m having this really strange/cool experience lately. It started with Transcendentalism. I read a biography about Thomas Eakins, a well known American artist born in the late 19th century. At the end of Walt Whitman’s life he lived across the Delaware River from Thomas Eakins in New Jersey (Thomas Eakins lived in Philadelphia). Apparently they spent a lot of time together. Although Walt Whitman isn’t ‘technically’ a Transcendentalist, reading about him piqued my interest. I’d never looked into Transcendentalism before so I decided to get something from the library about it.
I found a book called Transcendentalists and Their World by Robert Gross. It was more than I was looking for - a 600 page history of Concord, Massachusetts - but I read it anyway. When I discovered that Louisa May Alcott’s father was part of the Transcendentalist movement I decided to read Little Women. At the same time, kind of randomly, I picked up a biography of Emily Dickinson. I didn’t know it at the time but Louisa May Alcott and Emily Dickinson were about the same age.
Emily Dickinson’s biography gives a brief history of her grandfather and father, both of whom lived in Amherst, Massachusetts during the late 18th and early 19th century. Her father, Edward, was the same age as Ralph Waldo Emerson. They lived 80 miles from each other. Emily Dickinson’s family were staunch Christians. Amherst was considered the 'last bastion of New England Puritanism’ at the time, so they probably didn’t socialize with the Transcendentalists. Her grandfather, Samual Fowler Dickinson, founded Amherst College as a school for Trinitarian clergy, which were more conservative than Unitarian clergy, which is what Emerson was before leaving the church.
Now I’m reading a biography of Winslow Homer, an American painter. I’d heard of Winslow Homer but knew nothing about him. I just wanted to read about another painter so I grabbed his biography from the library. It turns out Winslow Homer was born a few years after Louisa May Alcott and Emily Dickinson in Boston. They were all born in the 1830’s in Massachusetts. I guess I needed an American history lesson because I’ve been getting one. Nineteenth century New England sounds like it was a pretty cool place to live.
Nathaniel Hawthorn was another famous intellectual/artist living in Massachusetts during the time and was friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. I got a notice that The Scarlet Letter is available for pick-up from the library. I’ll read it next.
I’m not sure if I was interested in the 19th century or if it was interested in me. I’m absorbed in it either way (I recently finished The Last of the Mohicans, which was written in 1826). It’s hard to fathom that people were living lives so similar to ours two hundred years ago. I’m currently reading Walden and at times it sounds like it could be written today. I’ve never had much interest in history. In school we learned about the Revolution and Civil wars, things I really didn’t care about. But I’m interested in what women were doing, how they lived and their creative lives. Both Emily Dickinson and Louisa May Alcott were extraordinary people, but I have to say I would find their lives interesting even if they’d been ordinary. Life has changed so much and yet it is exactly the same as it was in the past.