Henry David Thoreau Research Paper

Henry David Thoreau was one of the greatest leaders of the Transcendentalist movement. He guided this movement through his writings, speeches, personal tragedy, and beliefs. This movement involves the ideas of being one with nature and the right to protest peacefully when laws went against beliefs. Henry David Thoreau was able to lead this movement because of his education and experiences. Thoreau will always be remembered for his philosophical and often candid writings. Thoreau was born on July 12th, 1817, in Concord, Massachusetts. As an infant, his family moved quite often. In 1818, the family moved to Chelmsford, Massachusetts, where John Thoreau could open a grocery store. Three years later, in 1821, the store closed, …show more content…
It provided him comfort while trying to cope with John’s death. A simple flower or plant was soothing to him as he learned to become one with nature because nature is calm and at peace and so should the soul (Miller 53). He also saw nature as art with places like Niagara Falls, the Hudson River Valley, the Catskill and White Mountains (Millar 46). Nature is to be respected and to disturb it was wrong in Thoreau’s eyes. Thoreau’s search for a simpler life kept him on Walden Pond. From time to time he worked at the pencil factory to earn some money and he also learned to be a land surveyor, but he spent as much time possible reading and writing, which helped lessen the pain of losing John. In 1846, while still at Walden Pond, Thoreau found himself in some legal trouble and had to spend the night in jail for failure to pay a poll tax. His experience of being in jail leads him to write one of his best known essays called, Civil Disobedience. The essay condemns the American government, slavery, and the Mexican-American War. The essay allows Thoreau to express his voice in protest against an unjust law without the violence. Through the years, many great leaders such as Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gaudi adopted Civil Disobedience as their way to protest (Buell 259). Even though it was Thoreau most powerful essay, at the time it received very little attention. After Thoreau had passed, Civil Disobedience was renamed and called Civil Government (Buell

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