“Transcendentalists and the Second Great Awakening: Parallel Expressions of Otherworldliness”

Matt McCook

The American Transcendentalist Movement, which brought together several notable individuals, is considered one of the greatest expressions of intellectual life in the early nineteenth century. The Second Great Awakening, on the other hand, which was evolving simultaneously, is noted more for its emotional excess and its organizational and political zeal. The two are rarely discussed together. Their segregation is logical in some ways. The awakening was an evangelical phenomenon rejected by liberal groups like the Unitarians while transcendentalism rejected Unitarianism for its conservatism. Yet, when one examines transcendentalists alongside the most exclusive sectarians similarities abound.

This paper will analyze transcendentalists’ political and social thought and compare it to that of leading contemporary sectarians. It will demonstrate that both groups generally opposed politics and social reform societies; though they often agreed with the goals of certain politicians or reformers, transcendentalists and sectarians rejected the means used to achieve these ends for similar reasons. By connecting transcendentalists and sectarians, this paper will also show that an otherworldly perspective was particularly strong in the antebellum period. Finally, this paper will suggest that the Transcendentalist Movement and the Second Great Awakening were, in some ways, parallel movements each transforming from an individualistic phases, where political participation and social reform activities were discouraged, to a more institutional phase, in which engagement with the world was more acceptable.