Birth of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born on 25 May 1803 in Boston. An American essayist, lecturer and poet, Emerson was the leading figure of the transcendentalist movement. He left his post as a Unitarian minister in Boston to become a writer and lecturer, and set out his ideas in essays such as Nature, Self-Reliance and The American Scholar, which called on Americans to develop their own intellectual independence from Europe. He emphasized individualism, intuition and the divinity of nature. A friend and mentor of Henry David Thoreau and an early admirer of Walt Whitman, he influenced American thought and writing. He also supported the abolition of slavery.

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