The purpose of life is not to be happy.

It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well, Ralph Waldo Emerson. We chose our topic of Transcendentalism as a long lasting reform movement because we believe it is essential to understand the world in front of you and to show that history does not just start and end abruptly, but impacts later generations. Our topic was important in history because it created a new way of thinking and perceiving things. It is important today because Transcendentalist ideas have permeated almost every inch of our modern culture. The secondary source information began with the book, Hip: the History, by John Leland. This book proved fundamental to our project because it clearly says why Transcendentalists like Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman are considered the O.G.s of what is hip and trendy. From there, we trekked to our local library to gain more information on our topic. We found two supporting books: American Transcendentalism a History and Essential Transcendentalists. The primary sources we chose were works of Emerson and Thoreau. We used quotes from Emersons Self-Reliance and many ideas from Thoreaus Walden. Emersons essay provided a better basis for information about believing in ones self. Thoreaus novel uses less of self-preserving themes and more nature and the importance to simplify ones life. Annotation, we found, was the most effective way to analyze the sources. We would highlight and write notes in every source we used. Then we would pull important quotes from the selections that we could use on the website. Some of the pros and cons of the topic were that it was really easy to find examples in everyday life, but there were so many examples that it was hard to choose. Also, a pro is that the topic is highly relatable, which is one of the reasons we chose the topic. From our analysis, we came to the conclusion that Transcendentalism is a reform movement that really never ended and that many celebrities, artists, and musicians can be considered modern Transcendentalists. We also made the choice that the web site form of a project would be best because the whole project is about how the movement effected modern times and being modern, it is only right to use the technology available. Self-reliance, originality, simplicity, and political activism are all attributes that Transcendentalism has ingrained in our society. It relates to the theme of Revolution, Reaction, Reform because it is a reform lasting from the 1830s and 1840s that has dramatically influenced how we think about ourselves and others and how we perceive the world. Without

transcendentalism, we could have all become mindless, all-conforming members of society, living without the benefit of originality and the activism to change start reform or revolution.