Born in Boston on May 25, 1803 to Ruth Haskins and the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister, Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of eight children. He went by his middle name, Waldo, and was affectionately called “Mr. Emerson” by his wife Lidian.

Emerson began keeping a journal while he was a student at Harvard University and was his Class Poet. After graduating, he worked as a schoolteacher for a few years before starting a career as a Unitarian minister. After the death of his first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker Emerson, in 1831, Emerson began to disagree with the tenets and practices of the church and left the ministry soon thereafter.

Upon returning from a European tour in 1833, Emerson embarked on a new vocation as a writer and lecturer. He married Lidian Jackson in 1835 and moved with her to the house in Concord, Massachusetts where they lived for the rest of their lives. They had four children: Waldo, Ellen, Edith, and Edward.

While in Concord, Emerson became the center of an American intellectual revolution, establishing himself as the renowned essayist, poet, and philosopher that is known today. He died at home on April 27, 1882 at the age of 78.