n.
Movement of 19th-century New England philosophers and writers.
The Transcendentalists were loosely bound together by adherence to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of humankind, and the supremacy of vision over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths. Part of the Romantic movement (see Romanticism ), it developed around Concord, Mass., attracting individualistic figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson , Henry David Thoreau , Margaret Fuller , and Bronson Alcott . Transcendentalist writers and their contemporaries signaled the emergence of a new national culture based on native materials, and they were a major part of the American Renaissance in literature. They advocated reforms in church, state, and society, contributing to the rise of free religion and the abolition movement and to the formation of various utopian communities, such as Brook Farm . Some of the best writings by minor Transcendentalists appeared in The Dial (184044), a literary magazine.