Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau was born on July 12, 1817 in Concord Massachusetts, to John Thoreau, a pencil maker, and Cynthia Dunbar. He finished his primary and secondary education in Concord before completing his undergraduate education at Harvard. Though he suffered from medical and financial hardships during his undergraduate years, he ultimately graduated with distinction in 1937. He briefly took a job as a teacher before starting work at his father’s pencil factory. Thoreau returned to the education field when he decided to start a school in Concord with his brother in 1839, before closing it permanently two years later, when his brother fell ill. By this point, Thoreau had already begun to show interest in different pursuits, primarily nature and writing. Shortly after the closure of the school, Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the foremost thinkers and philosophers of Thoreau’s time (who also happened to be his neighbor, mentor, and friend) invited Thoreau to live with him as a handy man. Though Thoreau had become an informal mentee of Emerson’s upon his graduation from Harvard, it wasn’t until he began living with Emerson over the next two years that he fully immersed himself in Emerson’s teachings. Thoreau began writing seriously under Emerson’s guidance and began to publish some poems and essays. At the same time, he learned all about the philosophy of Transcendentalism, a mode of living that stressed the importance of putting spiritual concerns over material ones. Later, with Emerson’s help, Thoreau built a small house on land that Emerson owned on the shores of Walden Pond. Thoreau moved into the house on July 4th, 1845. Over the next two years, surrounded by nature, he wrote his first two books and tried to live by Transcendentalist doctrines. After leaving the pond, he published his books and found modest success. For the rest of his writing career, he journaled extensively about nature and continued publishing and revising essays about issues  important to him, such as the abolition of slavery and the importance of practicing civil disobedience. Thoreau died of tuberculosis in May 1862.