About Me
Emerson was born in Boston on May 25, 1803, son of the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister[1] in a famous line of ministers. Emerson's father, who called his son "a rather dull scholar", died in 1811, less than two weeks short of Emerson's 8th birthday. The young Emerson was subsequently sent to the Boston Latin School in 1812 at the age of nine. In October 1817, at fourteen, Emerson went to Harvard College and was appointed the Freshman's President, a position which gave him a room free of charge. He waited tables at Commons, a dining hall at Harvard, reducing the cost of his board to one quarter of the full fee, and he received a scholarship. To complement his meager salary, he tutored and taught during the winter vacation at his Uncle Ripley's school in Waltham, Massachusetts.After Emerson graduated from Harvard in 1821 at the age of eighteen, he assisted his brother in a school for young ladies established in their mother's house, after he had established his own school in Chelmsford; when his brother went to Göttingen to study divinity, Emerson took charge of the school. Over the next several years, Emerson made his living as a schoolmaster, then went to Harvard Divinity School, and emerged as a Unitarian minister in 1829. A dispute with church officials over the administration of the Communion service, and misgivings about public prayer led to his resignation in 1832.Emerson met his first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker, in Concord, New Hampshire and married her when she was 18.[2] She died of tuberculosis at the age of 20 on February 8, 1831. Emerson was heavily affected by her death, visiting her grave daily and once even opening her coffin to see for himself that she was dead.[3] Despite his marriage, there is evidence pointing to Emerson being bisexual.[4] During early years at Harvard, he found himself 'strangely attracted' to a young freshman named Martin Gay about whom he wrote sexually charged poetry.[5][6] Gay would be only the first of his infatuations and interests, with Nathaniel Hawthorne numbered among them.[7]Emerson toured Europe in 1832 and later wrote of his travels in English Traits (1856). During this trip, he met William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Carlyle. Emerson maintained contact with Carlyle until the latter's death in 1881. He also served as Carlyle's agent in the U.S. His travels abroad brought him to England, France (in 1848), Italy, and the Middle East.In 1835, Emerson bought a house on the Cambridge and Concord Turnpike in Concord, Massachusetts, now open to the public as the Ralph Waldo Emerson House, and quickly became one of the leading citizens in the town. He married his second wife Lydia Jackson in Concord in 1835. He called her Lydian and she called him Mr. Emerson. Their children were Waldo, Ellen, Edith, and Edward Waldo Emerson. Ellen was named for his first wife, at Lydia's suggestion.Emerson lived a financially conservative lifestyle.[8] He had inherited some wealth after his wife's death, though he brought a lawsuit against the Tucker family in 1836 to get it.[9] He did, however, pay the rent of his neighbor Bronson Alcott.[10]Emerson is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts.
