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105-405: The Shakespeare Theatre Association (STA), Formally known as The Shakespeare Theatre Association of America, was established to provide a forum for the artistic and managerial leadership of theatres whose central activity is the production of Shakespeare's plays; to discuss issues and share methods of work, resources, and information; and to act as an advocate for Shakespearean productions throughout

210-511: A Philadelphia firm that succeeded Cret's, to design a new wing by building over a rear parking lot. The additions also yielded a roof garden on top of the new wing. A second Folger building, the Haskell Center, opened in 2000 across Third Street from the original building. The nineteenth-century office building was adapted by architect Andrew K. Stevenson to house the library's education and public programs staffs. The Folger currently maintains

315-487: A community based on Utopian ideals inspired in part by Transcendentalism. The farm would run based on a communal effort, using no animals for labor; its participants would eat no meat and use no wool or leather. Emerson said he felt "sad at heart" for not engaging in the experiment himself. Even so, he did not feel Fruitlands would be a success. "Their whole doctrine is spiritual", he wrote, "but they always end with saying, Give us much land and money". Even Alcott admitted he

420-762: A different work from the 1836 essay of the same name. Emerson made a living as a popular lecturer in New England and much of the rest of the country. He had begun lecturing in 1833; by the 1850s he was giving as many as 80 lectures per year. He addressed the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge and the Gloucester Lyceum , among others. Emerson spoke on a wide variety of subjects, and many of his essays grew out of his lectures. He charged between $ 10 and $ 50 for each appearance, bringing him as much as $ 2,000 in

525-608: A freely available digital collection. EMMO holds conferences, paleography classes, "transcrib-athons", and other events at the Folger and elsewhere. Significant items in the Folger's collection include: Programs for advanced scholars, faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates are provided by the Folger Institute. Programs for K–12 teachers and students are provided by the Education department. The Folger Institute has served as

630-487: A further $ 11,674.49 in July 1837 (equivalent to $ 314,374 in 2023). In 1834, he considered that he had an income of $ 1,200 a year from the initial payment of the estate, equivalent to what he had earned as a pastor. On September 8, 1836, the day before the publication of Nature , Emerson met with Frederic Henry Hedge , George Putnam , and George Ripley to plan periodic gatherings of other like-minded intellectuals. This

735-442: A high school fellowship program during which students study Shakespeare at the Folger. The Emily Jordan Folger Children's Shakespeare Festival, founded in 1980, allows elementary students to perform every spring. The Secondary School Shakespeare Festival, founded the following year, brings students from grades 7–12 to perform half-hour collections of Shakespeare scenes in the Folger theater. The Teaching Shakespeare Institute (TSI)

840-407: A journal entry dated March 29, 1832, he wrote, "I visited Ellen's tomb & opened the coffin." Boston's Second Church invited Emerson to serve as its junior pastor, and he was ordained on January 11, 1829. His initial salary was $ 1,200 per year (equivalent to $ 34,335 in 2023 ), increasing to $ 1,400 in July, but with his church role he took on other responsibilities: he was the chaplain of

945-517: A journal of his day-to-day detailed description of adventures in the wilderness with his fellow members of the Saturday Club. This two-week camping excursion (1858 in the Adirondacks) brought him face to face with a true wilderness, something he spoke of in his essay " Nature ", published in 1836. He said, "in the wilderness I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages". Emerson

1050-529: A letter of recommendation to meet Thomas Carlyle . He went to Switzerland and had to be dragged by fellow passengers to visit Voltaire 's home in Ferney, "protesting all the way upon the unworthiness of his memory". He then went on to Paris, a "loud modern New York of a place", where he visited the Jardin des Plantes . He was greatly moved by the organization of plants according to Jussieu 's system of classification, and

1155-572: A letter to Lydia Jackson proposing marriage. Her acceptance reached him by mail on the 28th. In July 1835, he bought a house on the Cambridge and Concord Turnpike in Concord, Massachusetts, which he named Bush; it is now open to the public as the Ralph Waldo Emerson House . Emerson quickly became one of the leading citizens in the town. He gave a lecture to commemorate the 200th anniversary of

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1260-539: A lifelong inspiration for Thoreau. Emerson's own journal was published in 16 large volumes, in the definitive Harvard University Press edition issued between 1960 and 1982. Some scholars consider the journal to be Emerson's key literary work. In March 1837, Emerson gave a series of lectures on the philosophy of history at the Masonic Temple in Boston. This was the first time he managed a lecture series on his own, and it

1365-528: A list of books he had read and started a journal in a series of notebooks that would be called "Wide World". He took outside jobs to cover his school expenses, including as a waiter for the Junior Commons and as an occasional teacher working with his uncle Samuel and aunt Sarah Ripley in Waltham, Massachusetts . By his senior year, Emerson decided to go by his middle name, Waldo. Emerson served as Class Poet; as

1470-633: A mental collapse as well; he was taken to McLean Asylum in June 1828 at age 25. Although he recovered his mental equilibrium, he died in 1834, apparently from long-standing tuberculosis . Another of Emerson's bright and promising younger brothers, Charles, born in 1808, died in 1836, also of tuberculosis, making him the third young person in Emerson's innermost circle to die in a period of a few years. Emerson met his first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker, in Concord, New Hampshire, on Christmas Day, 1827, and married her when she

1575-592: A neighboring pine grove. He wrote that he was "landlord and water lord of 14 acres, more or less". Emerson was introduced to Indian philosophy through the works of the French philosopher Victor Cousin . In 1845, Emerson's journals show he was reading the Bhagavad Gita and Henry Thomas Colebrooke 's Essays on the Vedas . He was strongly influenced by Vedanta , and much of his writing has strong shades of nondualism . One of

1680-406: A new Juliet balcony, and a reimagined great hall with a cafe (Quill & Crumb). The Folger houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare-related material, from the 16th century to the present. The library is best known for its 82 copies of the 1623 First Folio (of which only 235 known copies survive) and over 200 quartos of Shakespeare's individual plays. Not restricted to Shakespeare,

1785-627: A number of speeches and lectures, and welcomed John Brown to his home during Brown's visits to Concord. He voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1860 , but was disappointed that Lincoln was more concerned about preserving the Union than eliminating slavery outright. Once the American Civil War broke out, Emerson made it clear that he believed in immediate emancipation of the slaves. Around this time, in 1860, Emerson published The Conduct of Life , his seventh collection of essays. It "grappled with some of

1890-467: A prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society and conformity . Friedrich Nietzsche thought he was "the most gifted of the Americans," and Walt Whitman called Emerson his "master". Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, " Nature ". Following this work, he gave

1995-539: A row of townhouses on Third Street to provide housing for scholars, readers, fellows, participants in Folger Institute programs, and other visitors. The Reading Room officially opened in January 1933 and today contains reference works for easy accessibility to readers. From 1977 to 1983, the Folger Shakespeare Library was renovated. Design was provided by Hartman-Cox Architects. During this renovation, it included

2100-506: A scholar of library science and the First Folio, began to catalog the book collection based on Alfred W. Pollard and Gilbert Richard Redgrave 's Short-Title Catalogue . Though Willoughby developed a unique classification system based on the Folger's needs, in the late 1940s the Folger adopted that of the Library of Congress . In 1996, Folger staff and readers were given access to Hamnet,

2205-413: A seventh-generation descendant of Mayflower voyagers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley through their daughter Hope. Emerson's father died from stomach cancer on May 12, 1811, less than two weeks before Emerson's eighth birthday. Emerson was raised by his mother, with the help of the other women in the family; his aunt Mary Moody Emerson in particular had a profound effect on him. She lived with

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2310-415: A speech entitled " The American Scholar ," in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be America's "intellectual Declaration of Independence". Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures, first, and then, revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, Essays: First Series (1841) and Essays: Second Series (1844), represent the core of his thinking. They include

2415-414: A typical winter lecture season. This was more than his earnings from other sources. In some years, he earned as much as $ 900 for a series of six lectures, and in another, for a winter series of talks in Boston, he netted $ 1,600. He eventually gave some 1,500 lectures in his lifetime. His earnings allowed him to expand his property, buying 11 acres (4.5 ha) of land by Walden Pond and a few more acres in

2520-538: Is an intensive four-week summer study program for middle- and high-school teachers hosted annually by the Folger Shakespeare Library's Education Department, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities . TSI participants work with experts to study a small number of Shakespearean plays in terms of scholarship, performance, and the classroom. 50 teachers participated in the inaugural program in 1984, but

2625-512: Is now called Schoolmaster Hill in Boston's Franklin Park . In 1826, faced with poor health, Emerson went to seek a warmer climate. He first went to Charleston, South Carolina , but found the weather was still too cold. He then went farther south to St. Augustine, Florida , where he took long walks on the beach and began writing poetry. While in St. Augustine he made the acquaintance of Prince Achille Murat ,

2730-502: Is now called the O.B. Hardison Poetry series, after former director of the Folger, O.B. Hardison Jr. Past poets involved in the series include Octavio Paz , Gwendolyn Brooks , Allen Ginsberg , W. S. Merwin , Adrienne Rich , Yusef Komunyakaa , James Merrill , Frank Bidart , Robert Pinsky , Derek Walcott , Hayden Carruth , Rita Dove , Seamus Heaney , Sterling Brown , Denise Levertov , June Jordan , Lawrence Ferlinghetti , Sonia Sanchez , and James Dickey . Between 1991 and 2009,

2835-572: Is true dying"), and the essay "Experience". In the same month, William James was born, and Emerson agreed to be his godfather . Bronson Alcott announced his plans in November 1842 to find "a farm of a hundred acres in excellent condition with good buildings, a good orchard and grounds". Charles Lane purchased a 90-acre (36 ha) farm in Harvard, Massachusetts, in May 1843 for what would become Fruitlands ,

2940-563: The Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York with nine others: Louis Agassiz , James Russell Lowell , John Holmes, Horatio Woodman , Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar , Jeffries Wyman , Estes Howe , Amos Binney , and William James Stillman . Invited, but unable to make the trip, were Oliver Wendell Holmes , Henry Wadsworth Longfellow , and Charles Eliot Norton , all members of the Saturday Club (Boston, Massachusetts) . This social club

3045-550: The Fugitive Slave Act : The act of Congress is a law which every one of you will break on the earliest occasion—a law which no man can obey, or abet the obeying, without loss of self-respect and forfeiture of the name of gentleman. That summer, he wrote in his diary: This filthy enactment was made in the nineteenth century by people who could read and write. I will not obey it. In February 1852 Emerson, James Freeman Clarke , and William Henry Channing edited an edition of

3150-531: The Massachusetts Legislature and a member of the Boston School Committee . His church activities kept him busy, though during this period, and facing the imminent death of his wife, he began to doubt his own beliefs. After his wife's death, he began to disagree with the church's methods, writing in his journal in June 1832, "I have sometimes thought that, in order to be a good minister, it

3255-481: The Protestant Reformation . The Folger holds some 60,000 manuscripts (from Elizabeth I and John Donne to Mark Twain and Walt Whitman ). These handwritten documents date from the 15th to the 21st century and cover a variety of subjects: documents related to performance history and literature, personal correspondences, wills, love letters, and other materials of daily life. Notable manuscripts include

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3360-704: The Utah Shakespearean Festival , invited the producers, artistic directors and managing directors of over thirty-seven Shakespeare festivals and companies from the United States and Canada to this meeting. Berger was elected the first President, and Cook the first Vice President. The annual conference is the most important activity of the STA. Folger Library The library offers advanced scholarly programs and national outreach to K–12 classroom teachers on Shakespeare education. Other performances and events at

3465-478: The earliest known staging diagram in England, a list of quotations George Eliot compiled while writing Middlemarch , the 18th-century Shakespeare forgeries of William Henry Ireland , and the papers of legendary 18th-century actor David Garrick . The Folger hosts Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO), an IMLS -grant funded project to digitize and transcribe English manuscripts from the 16th and 17th centuries in

3570-609: The Bible Society while a slave auction was taking place in the yard outside. He wrote, "One ear therefore heard the glad tidings of great joy, whilst the other was regaled with 'Going, gentlemen, going! ' " ‍ After Harvard, Emerson assisted his brother William in a school for young women established in their mother's house, after he had established his own school in Chelmsford, Massachusetts ; when his brother William went to Göttingen to study law in mid-1824, Ralph Waldo closed

3675-514: The Board of Trustees. Because of the stock market crash of 1929 , Folger's estate was smaller than he had planned, although still substantial. Emily Folger, who had worked with her husband on his collection, supplied the funds to complete the project. The library opened on April 23, 1932, the anniversary of what is believed to be Shakespeare's date of birth. Emily Folger remained involved in its administration until shortly before her death in 1936. In 2005,

3780-622: The British Isles. He also visited Paris between the French Revolution of 1848 and the bloody June Days . When he arrived, he saw the stumps of trees that had been cut down to form barricades in the February riots. On May 21, he stood on the Champ de Mars in the midst of mass celebrations for concord, peace and labor. He wrote in his journal, "At the end of the year we shall take account, & see if

3885-528: The Elizabethan Theatre became compliant with Washington, D.C. fire safety laws. Early productions included Dionysus Wants You! , which adapted The Bacchae into a rock musical, and Twelfth Night . At the east end of the building is an Elizabethan Garden featuring plants from Shakespeare's plays, opened in 1989 amid the four magnolias planted by Emily Jordan Folger in 1932. In 2003, several sculptures by Greg Wyatt based on Shakespeare's plays joined

3990-639: The Elizabethan Theatre was not intended for theatrical performance. The original model was the Fortune Playhouse , and then the Globe Theatre ; these models proved difficult to replicate exactly, and the Folgers ultimately decided to incorporate features from multiple theaters to give visitors a general picture of a theater during the Elizabethan era. Before Folger Theatre productions began, the Elizabethan Theatre

4095-599: The Elizabethan Theatre, at the Washington National Cathedral and at the Music Center at Strathmore . The Consort also holds seminars, discussions, and radio broadcasts. Since 2006, Folger Consort has won Best Classical Chamber Ensemble five times at the Washington Area Music Awards. Since 1970, the Folger has hosted contemporary poets for readings, moderated conversation, and Q&As in what

4200-469: The Elizabethan plants in the garden. Sculptor Brenda Putnam was hired in May 1930 to design a sculpture of Puck for a garden on the west side of the building. Decades of exposure weakened the statue, and after Puck's right hand was found across the street at the Library of Congress in 2000, the original piece was moved. It now sits above the entrance to the Elizabethan Theatre, and an aluminum statue replaced

4305-639: The Folger Board of Governors undertook administration of the Folger under the auspices of the Amherst Board of Trustees, though the Amherst board continues to manage the Folger's budget. The Folger's first official reader was B. Roland Lewis, who later published The Shakespeare Documents: Facsimiles, Transliterations, Translations, and Commentary based on his research. The first fellowships were distributed in 1936. Early Folger exhibitions featured enticing items in

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4410-629: The Folger Institute include the Folger Institute Consortium, a group that shares research and other resources among over 40 universities, the Center for Shakespeare Studies, which seeks depth and diversity in Shakespeare scholarship, and the Center for the History of British Political Thought, which promotes continued scholarship of three hundred years of British politics . Educational outreach at

4515-442: The Folger Institute, which coordinates academic programs and research at the Library. Folger Consort, the Library's early music ensemble, began performances in 1977. The first Director of the Library, from 1940 to 1946, was Joseph Quincy Adams Jr. The main Folger building was designed by architect Paul Philippe Cret . The white marble exterior includes nine street-level bas-reliefs of scenes from Shakespeare's plays created by

4620-567: The Folger Theatre's Artistic Producer was Janet Alexander Griffin. In 2021, Karen Ann Daniels was named Director of Programming and Artistic Director. Performances occur in the theater at the east end of the building. Folger Consort is the library's resident early music ensemble, founded in 1977 by its artistic directors Robert Eisenstein and Christopher Kendall. The Consort performs medieval music , Renaissance music , and baroque music in its concert series. The Consort performs regularly at

4725-562: The Folger began in the early 1970s; today, the Folger Education department continues those early efforts with a variety of programs for K–12 students and teachers that emphasize an active learning approach to Shakespeare. Teachers gather at the Folger for day-long and month-long programs to work to incorporate Shakespeare and performance in the classroom. The department also publishes a variety of materials for classroom use. Student programs include workshops, local residency initiatives, and

4830-416: The Folger for public readings of fiction. The Folger also hosts the annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction readings, which celebrate the year's finalists and winners. The Folger offers several online tools to assist in research and scholarship, including the following: To date, seven directors and three acting directors have overseen Library affairs. Michael Witmore , a scholar with particular interest in

4935-628: The Folger holds some 7,000 later editions of Shakespeare from the 18th century to present, in more than 70 different languages. Beyond its Shakespearean texts, the library's collection includes over 18,000 early English books printed before 1640 and another 29,000 printed between 1641 and 1700. The library holds 35,000 early modern books printed on the European continent, about 450 of which are incunabula . The topics of these texts vary widely, ranging across literature, politics, religion, technology, military history and tactics, medicine, and over 2,000 volumes on

5040-560: The Folger include the award-winning Folger Theatre, which produces Shakespeare-inspired theater; Folger Consort, the early-music ensemble-in-residence; the O.B. Hardison Poetry Series; the PEN/Faulkner Reading Series; and numerous other exhibits, seminars, talks and lectures, and family programs. It also has several publications, including the Folger Library editions of Shakespeare's plays, the journal Shakespeare Quarterly ,

5145-561: The Folger owns the world's third largest collection of English books printed before 1641, as well as substantial holdings of continental and later English imprints. The collection includes a wealth of items related to performance history: 250,000 playbills, 2,000 promptbooks, costumes, recordings and props. It also holds upwards of 90,000 paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, sculptures and other works of art. The Folger's first catalog of its collection began in 1935, when Edwin Willoughby,

5250-552: The Library's reading room to feel at once like a private home and the Great Hall of an English college. It features stained-glass windows and a large stone fireplace which has never been used. The large stained-glass window overlooking what is now the Gail Kern Paster Reading Room was designed and created by Nicola D'Ascenzo , who depicted the familiar " Seven Ages of Man " soliloquy from As You Like It . Initially,

5355-530: The Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge"; it was renamed for a collection of essays (which included the first general publication of "Nature") in 1849. Friends urged him to publish the talk, and he did so at his own expense, in an edition of 500 copies, which sold out in a month. In the speech, Emerson declared literary independence in the United States and urged Americans to create a writing style all their own, free from Europe. James Russell Lowell , who

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5460-520: The Revolution was worth the trees." The trip left an important imprint on Emerson's later work. His 1856 book English Traits is based largely on observations recorded in his travel journals and notebooks. Emerson later came to see the American Civil War as a "revolution" that shared common ground with the European revolutions of 1848. In a speech in Concord, Massachusetts , on May 3, 1851, Emerson denounced

5565-447: The act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul. The central message Emerson drew from his Asian studies was that "the purpose of life was spiritual transformation and direct experience of divine power, here and now on earth." In 1847–48, he toured

5670-570: The addition of new book stacks, renovation of office spaces, and an expansion to the Reading Room. A second, more modern reading room dedicated as the Theodora Sedgwick Bond- William Ross Bond Memorial Reading Room was completed in 1982. Upon Gail Kern Paster 's retirement as director of the Folger in 2011, the original reading room was renamed the Gail Kern Paster Reading Room. Henry Folger wanted

5775-476: The annual number is now capped at 25. By 2015, over 775 teachers had gone through the program. The Folger Shakespeare Library's cultural and arts programs include Folger Theatre, Folger Consort, the O.B. Hardison Poetry Series and the PEN/Faulkner Foundation , as well as additional talks, screenings, lectures and exhibitions. Folger Theatre performs a season of Shakespeare-inspired theater, featuring

5880-433: The clearest examples of this can be found in his essay " The Over-soul ": We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but

5985-474: The collection's online catalog; the site became available to the public in 2000. Hamnet was retired in June 2022. In all, the library collection includes more than 250,000 books, from the mid 15th century—when the printing press was invented—to the present day. In addition to its 82 First Folios , 229 early modern quartos of Shakespeare's plays and poems and 119 copies of the Second , Third, and Fourth Folios,

6090-537: The collection, including Ralph Waldo Emerson 's copy of Shakespeare's works, an Elizabethan lute , and Edwin Booth 's Richard III costume. Current practices for Folger exhibitions did not begin until 1964, when the first exhibition curated on site opened. During the Second World War , 30,000 items from the Folger collection were transported under guard to Amherst College's Converse Library, where they were stored for

6195-675: The decent black of the pastor, he was free to choose the gown of the lecturer and teacher, of the thinker not confined within the limits of an institution or a tradition." Emerson toured Europe in 1833 and later wrote of his travels in English Traits (1856). He left aboard the brig Jasper on Christmas Day, 1832, sailing first to Malta . During his European trip, he spent several months in Italy, visiting Rome, Florence and Venice, among other cities. When in Rome, he met with John Stuart Mill , who gave him

6300-518: The digital analysis of Shakespeare's texts, became the Folger's seventh director on July 1, 2011. Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist , and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and critical thinking, as well as

6405-503: The duration of the war in case of an enemy attack on Washington, D.C. Many of the Folger's current public events and programs began in the 1970s under the leadership of director O.B. Hardison. Under his direction, the Folger's theater was brought up to Washington, D.C. fire code, permitting performances by the Folger Theatre Group, the library's first professional company. The Folger Poetry Series also began in 1970. Hardison formed

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6510-549: The early 1980s) are reserved for use by scholars who have obtained advance permission. Public spaces include the large exhibition gallery, a gift shop, and an Elizabethan theatre . Henry Folger's search for an architect began with an acquaintance, Alexander B. Trowbridge, who had redesigned a home in Glen Cove , Long Island, in the old English style the Folgers were eager to feature in their Library. Folger contracted Trowbridge in 1928, but Trowbridge preferred to consult, rather than be

6615-466: The establishment and the general Protestant community. He was denounced as an atheist and a poisoner of young men's minds. Despite the roar of critics, he made no reply, leaving others to put forward a defense. He was not invited back to speak at Harvard for another thirty years. The Transcendental group began to publish its flagship journal, The Dial , in July 1840. They planned the journal as early as October 1839, but did not begin work on it until

6720-425: The exterior of the building, Cret and Trowbridge proposed to decorate the facade with scenes from Shakespeare's works. Currently, the relief sculptures includes scenes from Henry IV , Hamlet , Macbeth , King Lear , Julius Caesar , The Merchant of Venice , A Midsummer Night's Dream , Richard III , and Romeo and Juliet . In 1959, the Folger contracted Harbeson, Hough, Livingston, and Larson ,

6825-504: The family off and on and maintained a constant correspondence with Emerson until her death in 1863. Emerson's formal schooling began at the Boston Latin School in 1812, when he was nine. In October 1817, at age 14, Emerson went to Harvard College and was appointed freshman messenger for the president, requiring Emerson to fetch delinquent students and send messages to faculty. Midway through his junior year, Emerson began keeping

6930-487: The famous essay "Self-Reliance". His aunt called it a "strange medley of atheism and false independence", but it gained favorable reviews in London and Paris. This book, and its popular reception, more than any of Emerson's contributions to date laid the groundwork for his international fame. In January 1842 Emerson's first son, Waldo, died of scarlet fever . Emerson wrote of his grief in the poem " Threnody " ("For this losing

7035-481: The first edition of Leaves of Grass stir up significant interest and convinced Whitman to issue a second edition shortly thereafter. This edition quoted a phrase from Emerson's letter, printed in gold leaf on the cover: "I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career". Emerson took offense that this letter was made public and later was more critical of the work. In summer 1858, Emerson camped at Follensbee Pond in

7140-430: The first week of 1840. Unitarian minister George Ripley was the managing editor. Margaret Fuller was the first editor, having been approached by Emerson after several others had declined the role. Fuller stayed on for about two years, when Emerson took over, using the journal to promote talented young writers including Ellery Channing and Thoreau. In 1841 Emerson published Essays , his second book, which included

7245-406: The focus of scholarly research at the Folger since 1970. The Folger offers long- and short-term fellowships for advanced researchers across all disciplines, and hosts the two-week Amherst-Folger Undergraduate Fellowship program every January. The Institute holds a variety of colloquia, courses, workshops, and conferences for faculty, graduate students, and secondary educators. Scholarly programs run by

7350-454: The ideas he would later develop in his first published essay, "Nature": Nature is a language and every new fact one learns is a new word; but it is not a language taken to pieces and dead in the dictionary, but the language put together into a most significant and universal sense. I wish to learn this language, not that I may know a new grammar, but that I may read the great book that is written in that tongue. On January 24, 1835, Emerson wrote

7455-456: The members of the Saturday Club, raising their interest in this unknown region. James Russell Lowell and William Stillman led the effort to organize a trip to the Adirondacks. They began their journey on August 2, 1858, traveling by train, steamboat, stagecoach , and canoe guide boats. News that these cultured men were living like "Sacs and Sioux" in the wilderness appeared in newspapers across

7560-412: The nation. This became known as the " Philosophers Camp ". This event was a landmark in the nineteenth-century intellectual movement, linking nature with art and literature. Although much has been written over many years by scholars and biographers of Emerson's life, little has been written of what has become known as the "Philosophers Camp" at Follensbee Pond. Yet, his epic poem "Adirondac" reads like

7665-410: The nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte . Murat was two years his senior; they became good friends and enjoyed each other's company. The two engaged in enlightening discussions of religion, society, philosophy, and government. Emerson considered Murat an important figure in his intellectual education. While in St. Augustine, Emerson had his first encounter with slavery . At one point, he attended a meeting of

7770-452: The original in the garden. The west garden's lawn shrank during the 1959 additions to the library, when part of its space was paved for a new staff parking area. The Folger Library and Theatre have undergone major renovations over the past six years, with the building being closed to daytime visitors since January 2020. The building reopened on June 21, 2024. The renovations added a new learning lab, new exhibits, outdoor gardens featuring

7875-505: The primary architect, and so recommended French émigré Paul Phillippe Cret. Trowbridge and Cret shared a similar vision for the design of the Library—a neoclassical building that stripped the facade of any decorative elements . Though the Folgers had initially desired an entirely Elizabethan building, they ultimately agreed that a neoclassical building would blend with other existing buildings on Capitol Hill. To retain an Elizabethan quality on

7980-550: The relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's "nature" was more philosophical than naturalistic : "Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul." Emerson is one of several figures who "took a more pantheist or pandeist approach, by rejecting views of God as separate from the world". He remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement, and his work has greatly influenced

8085-491: The school but continued to teach in Cambridge, Massachusetts , until early 1825. Emerson was accepted into the Harvard Divinity School in late 1824, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 1828. Emerson's brother Edward, two years younger than he, entered the office of the lawyer Daniel Webster , after graduating from Harvard first in his class. Edward's physical health began to deteriorate, and he soon suffered

8190-516: The sculptor John Gregory , an aluminum replica of a statue of Puck by Brenda Putnam , as well as many inscriptions personally selected by Henry Folger. The large Art Deco window and door grilles are aluminum. Inside, the building is designed in a Tudor style with oak paneling and plaster ceilings. The Elizabethan Theatre lobby contains the original marble Puck statue (restored and moved indoors in 2001), and architectural painting by muralist Austin M. Purves Jr. The two reading rooms (one added in

8295-528: The separate lots. The site was designated for expansion by the Library of Congress, but in 1928, Congress passed a resolution allowing its use for Folger's project. The cornerstone of the library was laid in May 1930, but Folger died soon afterward. The bulk of Folger's fortune was left in trust , with Amherst College as administrator, for the library. Early members of the board included Amherst graduate and former president Calvin Coolidge , second chairman of

8400-421: The series also awarded the O. B. Hardison Jr. Poetry Prize , which was awarded by the library to a U.S. poet who has published at least one book within the last five years, has made important contributions as a teacher, and is committed to furthering the understanding of poetry. In conjunction with the PEN/Faulkner Foundation , the Folger hosts the PEN/Faulkner Reading Series, which brings contemporary authors to

8505-549: The teacher resource books Shakespeare Set Free , and catalogs of exhibitions . The Folger is also a leader in methods of preserving rare materials. The library is privately endowed and administered by the Trustees of Amherst College . The library building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places . Standard Oil of New York executive Henry Clay Folger , a graduate of Amherst College and Columbia University ,

8610-497: The thinkers, writers, and poets that followed him. "In all my lectures," he wrote, "I have taught one doctrine, namely, the infinitude of the private man." Emerson is also well-known as a mentor and friend of Henry David Thoreau , a fellow Transcendentalist. Emerson was born in Boston , Massachusetts , on May 25, 1803, to Ruth Haskins and the Rev. William Emerson , a Unitarian minister. He

8715-435: The town of Concord on September 12, 1835. Two days later, he married Jackson in her hometown of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and moved to the new home in Concord together with Emerson's mother on September 15. Emerson quickly changed his wife's name to Lidian, and would call her Queenie, and sometimes Asia, and she called him Mr. Emerson. Their children were Waldo, Ellen, Edith, and Edward Waldo Emerson . Edward Waldo Emerson

8820-459: The way all such objects were related and connected. As Robert D. Richardson says, "Emerson's moment of insight into the interconnectedness of things in the Jardin des Plantes was a moment of almost visionary intensity that pointed him away from theology and toward science." Moving north to England, Emerson met William Wordsworth , Samuel Taylor Coleridge , and Thomas Carlyle . Carlyle in particular

8925-447: The well-known essays " Self-Reliance ", " The Over-Soul ," " Circles ," " The Poet ," and " Experience ". Together, with "Nature", these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson's most fertile period. Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets , but rather, by developing certain ideas, such as individuality , freedom , the ability for mankind to realize almost anything, and

9030-572: The works and letters of Margaret Fuller , who had died in 1850. Within a week of her death, her New York editor, Horace Greeley , suggested to Emerson that a biography of Fuller, to be called Margaret and Her Friends , be prepared quickly "before the interest excited by her sad decease has passed away". Published under the title The Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli , Fuller's words were heavily censored or rewritten. The three editors were not concerned about accuracy; they believed public interest in Fuller

9135-481: The works of Shakespeare as well as contemporary plays inspired by his works. Since its inception in 1992, Folger Theatre has staged over half of the plays in Shakespeare's First Folio . Productions have received 135 nominations for a Helen Hayes Award and won 23, including Outstanding Resident Play for its renditions of Measure for Measure (2007), Hamlet (2011) and The Taming of the Shrew (2013). From 1982-2021,

9240-757: The world. The name was changed in January 2011 to reflect the increasingly international reach of Shakespeare and the Shakespeare Theatre Association. The Shakespeare Theatre Association of America was organized at a meeting held January 12 and 13, 1991 at the Folger Library and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Sidney Berger, Producing Director of the Houston Shakespeare Festival , and Douglas Cook, Producing Artistic Director of

9345-453: Was 18 two years later. The couple moved to Boston, with Emerson's mother, Ruth, moving with them to help take care of Ellen, who was already ill with tuberculosis. Less than two years after that, on February 8, 1831, Ellen died, at age 20, after uttering her last words, "I have not forgotten the peace and joy." Emerson was strongly affected by her death and visited her grave in Roxbury daily. In

9450-599: Was a strong influence on him; Emerson would later serve as an unofficial literary agent in the United States for Carlyle, and in March 1835, he tried to persuade Carlyle to come to America to lecture. The two maintained a correspondence until Carlyle's death in 1881. Emerson returned to the United States on October 9, 1833, and lived with his mother in Newton, Massachusetts . In October 1834, he moved to Concord, Massachusetts , to live with his step-grandfather, Dr. Ezra Ripley , at what

9555-421: Was a student at Harvard at the time, called it "an event without former parallel on our literary annals". Another member of the audience, Reverend John Pierce, called it "an apparently incoherent and unintelligible address". In 1837, Emerson befriended Henry David Thoreau . Though they had likely met as early as 1835, in the fall of 1837, Emerson asked Thoreau, "Do you keep a journal?" The question went on to be

9660-473: Was an avid collector of Shakespeareana , beginning in 1889 with the purchase of a 1685 Fourth Folio . Toward the end of World War I , he and his wife Emily Jordan Folger began searching for a location for a Shakespeare library based on their collection. They chose a location adjacent to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The land was then occupied by townhouses, and Folger spent several years buying

9765-608: Was custom, he presented an original poem on Harvard's Class Day, a month before his official graduation on August 29, 1821, when he was 18. He did not stand out as a student and graduated in the exact middle of his class of 59 people. In the early 1820s, Emerson was a teacher at the School for Young Ladies (which was run by his brother William). He next spent two years living in a cabin in the Canterbury section of Roxbury, Massachusetts , where he wrote and studied nature. In his honor, this area

9870-519: Was invited to Divinity Hall, Harvard Divinity School , to deliver the school's graduation address, which came to be known as the " Divinity School Address ". Emerson discounted biblical miracles and proclaimed that, while Jesus was a great man, he was not God: historical Christianity, he said, had turned Jesus into a "demigod, as the Orientals or the Greeks would describe Osiris or Apollo". His comments outraged

9975-461: Was later named The Old Manse . Given the budding Lyceum movement , which provided lectures on all sorts of topics, Emerson saw a possible career as a lecturer. On November 5, 1833, he made the first of what would eventually be some 1,500 lectures, "The Uses of Natural History", in Boston. This was an expanded account of his experience in Paris. In this lecture, he set out some of his important beliefs and

10080-671: Was mostly a literary membership that met the last Saturday of the month at the Boston Parker House Hotel ( Omni Parker House ). William James Stillman was a painter and founding editor of an art journal called the Crayon. Stillman was born and grew up in Schenectady which was just south of the Adirondack mountains. He later traveled there to paint the wilderness landscape and to fish and hunt. He shared his experiences in this wilderness to

10185-433: Was named after his mother's brother Ralph and his father's great-grandmother Rebecca Waldo. Ralph Waldo was the second of five sons who survived into adulthood; the others were William, Edward, Robert Bulkeley, and Charles. Three other children—Phoebe, John Clarke, and Mary Caroline—died in childhood. Emerson was of English ancestry, and his family had been in New England since the early colonial period, with Emerson being

10290-526: Was necessary to leave the ministry. The profession is antiquated. In an altered age, we worship in the dead forms of our forefathers." His disagreements with church officials over the administration of the Communion service and misgivings about public prayer eventually led to his resignation in 1832. As he wrote, "This mode of commemorating Christ is not suitable to me. That is reason enough why I should abandon it." As one Emerson scholar has pointed out, "Doffing

10395-683: Was not prepared for the difficulty in operating Fruitlands. "None of us were prepared to actualize practically the ideal life of which we dreamed. So we fell apart", he wrote. After its failure, Emerson helped buy a farm for Alcott's family in Concord which Alcott named " Hillside ". The Dial ceased publication in April 1844; Horace Greeley reported it as an end to the "most original and thoughtful periodical ever published in this country". In 1844, Emerson published his second collection of essays, Essays: Second Series . This collection included "The Poet", "Experience", "Gifts", and an essay entitled "Nature",

10500-467: Was staunchly opposed to slavery, but he did not appreciate being in the public limelight and was hesitant about lecturing on the subject. In the years leading up to the Civil War, he did give a number of lectures, however, beginning as early as November 1837. A number of his friends and family members were more active abolitionists than he, at first, but from 1844 on he more actively opposed slavery. He gave

10605-441: Was temporary and that she would not survive as a historical figure. Even so, it was the best-selling biography of the decade and went through thirteen editions before the end of the century. Walt Whitman published the innovative poetry collection Leaves of Grass in 1855 and sent a copy to Emerson for his opinion. Emerson responded positively, sending Whitman a flattering five-page letter in response. Emerson's approval helped

10710-416: Was the beginning of his career as a lecturer. The profits from this series of lectures were much larger than when he was paid by an organization to talk, and he continued to manage his own lectures often throughout his lifetime. He eventually gave as many as 80 lectures a year, traveling across the northern United States as far as St. Louis, Des Moines, Minneapolis, and California. On July 15, 1838, Emerson

10815-952: Was the beginning of the Transcendental Club , which served as a center for the movement. Its first official meeting was held on September 19, 1836. On September 1, 1837, women attended a meeting of the Transcendental Club for the first time. Emerson invited Margaret Fuller , Elizabeth Hoar, and Sarah Ripley for dinner at his home before the meeting to ensure that they would be present for the evening get-together. Fuller would prove to be an important figure in Transcendentalism. Emerson anonymously sent his first essay, "Nature", to James Munroe and Company to be published on September 9, 1836. A year later, on August 31, 1837, he delivered his now-famous Phi Beta Kappa address, " The American Scholar ", then entitled "An Oration, Delivered before

10920-525: Was the father of Raymond Emerson . Ellen was named for his first wife, at Lidian's suggestion. He hired Sophia Foord to educate his children. Emerson was poor when he was at Harvard, but was later able to support his family for much of his life. He inherited a fair amount of money after his first wife's death, though he had to file a lawsuit against the Tucker family in 1836 to get it. He received $ 11,600 in May 1834 (equivalent to $ 354,032 in 2023), and

11025-477: Was used for concert performances and academic lectures. The theater, which seats around 260, has no pit. Painted on the ceiling is a well-known quote from As You Like It : "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." The first theatrical performance in the Elizabethan Theatre was a 1949 production of Julius Caesar by the Amherst Masquers. The Folger Theatre Group formed in 1970 when

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