- Born in Boston in 1803 to a cultured, poor family.
- When he was eight years old his father died of tuberculosis.
- His father was a Unitarian minister
- His mother then left with six children to care for and opened a
boarding house.
- Mary Moody Emerson took the place of the father in the children's lives.
- Mary Moody Emerson was a strict Calvinist that emphasized self-
sacrifice.
- Her enormous energy drove the Emerson children to achivement.
- Ralph Emerson's whole life was laid out for him from the time he was little.
- He was to go to Harvard and become a minister like his father, as well as seven generations before him.
- He obeyed and followed the rules.
- His whole life he tried to establish his own identity.
- He went to Harvard at age fourteen.
- He read widely about philosophy and theology.
- After graduation he took a job @ a school run by his uncle.
- He prepared himself for Unitarian ministry.
- In 1829, age 25, Emeson accepted a post @ Boston's Second Church.
- In 1829 he married Ellen Tucker, a seventeen year old in the early stages of tuberculosis.
- Seventeen months later, Ellan died.
- Died of Pnemonia in 1882