In the spring of 1857, a group of like-minded men met at Boston’s Parker House Hotel brainstorming ideas for a new magazine. The co-founders of what would become The Atlantic Monthly included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and several others. The magazine—now known as The Atlantic—has been published continuously since its first issue in November 1857.

In the spring of 1871, Ralph Waldo Emerson joined John Murray Forbes—his daughter Edith’s father-in-law—and family on a train trip to California. After Emerson gave a series of lectures in San Francisco, the party moved on to Yosemite Valley, where a young John Muir arranged to meet the man he so admired.

Reflecting on the Emersons’ December gift-giving traditions and the unexpected gift that a 15-year-old Ellen Emerson received from Louisa May Alcott on this day in 1854. The Emersons and Alcotts were neighbors at various times and the families were close.

In October 1847, Emerson embarked on an eight-month European lecture tour. While in England, he reconnected with his friend Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish writer and philosopher whom he’d first met 14 years earlier. While the two men didn’t always agree, they maintained a lifelong friendship and correspondence.

A biographical profile of Lydia “Lidian” Jackson, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s second wife, whom he married on September 14, 1835. The newlyweds moved to their Concord home the following day, where they would remain together for the next 47 years.

On this day in 1847, Bronson Alcott and Henry David Thoreau began work on an elaborate summerhouse for their friend Ralph Waldo Emerson. The unusual design became a neighborhood curiosity.

On this day in 1854, Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden; or, Life in the Woods was published. Thoreau’s most famous work details his experiences living near Concord’s Walden Pond in a cabin built on a woodlot owned by his friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

This inaugural blog post shares a biographical profile of Ralph Waldo Emerson on the occasion of his 217th birthday.