Emerson and Thorea

the Market Revolution changed the lives of the average person in America by making things more convenient. The invention of cotton mills and improved farming and manufacturing made life easier for the average American. It also created more jobs for people. The telegraph and the first railroad were also invented in this time which became the main transportation and way of communicating in America. Transcendentalism is a group of people who "insisted on the primacy of individual judgement over existing social traditions and institutions" (voices, 150). Individualism was the belief that each and every man should believe that the world belonged to him and he could do what he wanted. These two ideas were both for the fact that Americans should create their own customs and get out of England's shadow. Both Emerson and Walden expressed their opinions differently. Emerson explained that man should "walk on his own feet and work with his own hands". He also believed that "a nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes in himself" (154). This idea was brilliant. One always has confidence when one believes they can accomplish something, and Emerson's idea clearly proves that man wants to be in control of himself. Thoreau expressed his ideas by saying that we did not need all of these technological improvements that were being invented, such as the telegraph to communicate with each other. Simplicity was his motto. Thoreau also believed by building the railroads that we were "not riding on the railroads; it rides upon us". He explained that we were riding on yankees, irishmen, etc. that previously died on our soil.