Emerson's+1855+Visit+to+Davenport+&+Rock+Island

Original author: Tina Dominicus. A&S 195 SP10 Revision author: Ashley Cooper, ENG400 FL10
 * Emerson's 1855 Visit to Davenport & Rock Island**

Born on May 25, 1803 in Boston, Massachusetts, Ralph Waldo Emerson is best known as being a leader in the Transcendentalist movement in America during the mid 1800’s. A noted essayist, poet, philosopher, and lecturer, Emerson spent time in his youth studying religion and at one point was a Unitarian minister. He soon abandoned his pursuits in organized religion as he found his own fundamental beliefs did not necessarily coincide with those of “the church”. In many ways, he still continued to both teach and preach, but without any concrete concept of God behind his teachings.

Emerson was educated in Boston and in Harvard, like his father before him, and graduated in 1821. For his religious studies, he attended the Harvard Divinity School. Following his completion of divinity school, he was a Unitarian minister at the Second Unitarian Church in Boston. During this time period he met and married his first wife, Ellen.

Following a trip to Europe in 1832, Emerson began lecturing throughout the United States on the subjects of natural history, biology, and history. It was during this time period that he met and married his second wife, Lydia, and made his home in Concord, Massachusetts, where he remained the rest of his life, passing away on April 19, 1882 due to complications of pneumonia.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is best known for his leadership in the Transcendentalist movement during the 1800’s. During the mid 1800’s Emerson spent much time traveling the United States to lecture to different towns stopping in such towns as Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and even Davenport. His traveling in the United States began in about 1832 until his death in 1882.

On December 29, 1855, Emerson arrived in Chicago for yet another trip to the fine city. He visited Chicago about thirteen times between 1850 and 1871. Many of these visits were to lecture, which was how he made most of his money. One visit was to get to know the city and take a glimpse of the west. Although Emerson has lectured in Springfield and Jacksonville prior to this trip, he was happy to be back. Both the Springfield and Jacksonville lectures were in 1853 and a year later a lecture in Chicago. Those trips were much shorter compared to the four week stay in the west he made from ending days of 1855 through January 1856. After his train ride into Chicago, he immediately checked into the Tremont House, which was his favorite hotel to stay. The Tremont House was built in 1850 and was Chicago’s tallest brick building at that time, containing only five stories. Emerson always found good company staying in the Tremont House and the interior design was breath taking. While in Chicago, Donald Tinsely a native of Marshall, Illinois and current professor of history said he met with Parke Godwin a veteran western lecturer for advice for his ventures. They also attended a dinner the following evening to celebrate Godwin’s new son. Emerson also spent some time with John C. Vaughan who had just begun a partnership with Joseph Medill and Charles Ray to publish the //Chicago Tribune//. Only two days later Emerson made his way to Davenport.

Before his event in Davenport was scheduled the take place, the //Davenport Daily Gazette// was adverting for the lecture under the “Special Notices” section. The notice said the seventh lecture of the course to be held on December 31st, Monday evening.

On December 31, 1855, Emerson lectured in Davenport, Iowa. This event was sponsored by the Young Men’s Library Association and was held at the Congressional Church. The YMLA was group of young men who developed an organization to help further their education, they would pay dues and maintain a library as well as sponsor speakers throughout the winter months. Chicago had only one library in town until 1871 and it was maintained by the local YMLA. The YMLA sponsored many famous speakers in an attempt to earn a contribution for books. This was later granted after the 1857 elections. The cost for tickets was about fifty cents and they were sold in book stores as well as the Le Claire house (Another of Emerson’s favorite places to stay). Emerson was not happy with the reviews he received in the //Davenport Daily Gazette// as he said they were “none too flattering”. The review stated that they were disappointed with him but some found him as they anticipated. They went on to say that the first half was not flattering to his reputation but in the second half he was able to redeem himself and reporting that the lecture was for “Those who think”. The review was located in a small section under “Local Matters” on January 3, 1856. The next day, January 1, 1856, he crossed the Mississippi into Rock Island where he would lecture again.

While there is no mention in the Davenport paper of what his lecture subject was, one could safely assume it was part of his “England” series as on January 1st, 1856, his lecture in Rock Island was entitled “England and the English.” This lecture is only part of his “England” series and can be found in “English Traits”, a brief portion of which is included below:

//The English race are reputed morose. I do not know that they have sadder brows than their neighbors of northern climates. They are sad by comparison with the singing and dancing nations: not sadder, but slow and staid, as finding their joys at home. They, too, believe that where there is no enjoyment of life, there can be no vigor and art in speech or thought: that your merry heart goes all the way, your sad one tires in a mile. This trait of gloom has been fixed on them by French travellers, who, from Froissart, Voltaire, Le Sage, Mirabeau, down to the lively journalists of the feuilletons, have spent their wit on the solemnity of their neighbors. The French say, gay conversation is unknown in their island. The Englishman finds no relief from reflection, except in reflection. When he wishes for amusement, he goes to work. His hilarity is like an attack of fever. Religion, the theatre, and the reading the books of his country, all feed and increase his natural melancholy. The police does not interfere with public diversions. It thinks itself bound in duty to respect the pleasures and rare gayety of this inconsolable nation; and their well-known courage is entirely attributable to their disgust of life.//

//I suppose, their gravity of demeanor and their few words have obtained this reputation. As compared with the Americans, I think them cheerful and contented. Young people, in this country, are much more prone to melancholy. The English have a mild aspect, and a ringing cheerful voice. They are large-natured, and not so easily amused as the southerners, and are among them as grown people among children, requiring war, or trade, or engineering, or science, instead of frivolous games. They are proud and private, and, even if disposed to recreation, will avoid an open garden. They sported sadly; ils s'amusaient tristement, selon la coutume de leur pays, said Froissart; and, I suppose, never nation built their party-walls so thick, or their garden-fences so high. Meat and wine produce no effect on them: they are just as cold, quiet, and composed, at the end, as at the beginning of dinner.//

//The reputation of taciturnity they have enjoyed for six or seven hundred years; and a kind of pride in bad public speaking is noted in the House of Commons, as if they were willing to show that they did not live by their tongues, or thought they spoke well enough if they had the tone of gentlemen. In mixed company, they shut their mouths. A Yorkshire mill-owner told me, he had ridden more than once all the way from London to Leeds, in the first-class carriage, with the same persons, and no word exchanged. The club-houses were established to cultivate social habits, and it is rare that more than two eat together, and oftenest one eats alone. Was it then a stroke of humor in the serious Swedenborg, or was it only his pitiless logic, that made him shut up the English souls in a heaven by themselves?//

The Mississippi this year was said to be extremely frozen and people were able to even drive a team of horses across. Emerson even decided to walk on the Mississippi river before his lecture time. On January 1, 1856 Emerson spoke in Rock Island with a lecture titled “England and English Character”. The lecture was part of his English series from “English Traits”. He often repeated this lecture and was more than likely the same lecture from the night before in Davenport. The idea for this topic may have been his process of gathering ideas trying them on his audiences. He considered adding a chapter about “Anglo- American” but it was omitted. When he lectured in Rock Island, he was considered the most scholarly lecture Rock Island has ever heard. His speech was almost drowned out by noises in the streets in the downtown. The hall he spoke in was later renovated for better sound during shows. Though the //Davenport Daily Gazette// was not flattering, the //Rock Island Advertiser// was.

Following his New Year’s Eve lecture in Davenport, Emerson crossed the Mississippi and delivered a lecture in Rock Island before the Young Men’s Library Association at the Baptist Church, where he was touted as “the celebrated Metaphysician.”

The reporter who reviewed the Rock Island lecture described it “a specimen of intellectual dissertation... probably could not be surpassed in the subject” He believed that Emerson went straight to the point, enunciating one idea after another. He also reported the lecture to be “a noble one”, but said it was not “equal to his fullest capacity”. His only objection was that Emerson seemed to have stopped to suddenly. When Emerson recorded his impressions of the area he said that speaking the night in Rock Island he was called a “Metaphysician” but in Davenport “the Essayist and Poet”.

After his travels to Davenport and Rock Island he had a few more stops in Illinois to lecture at the YMLA sponsored events before heading back to Chicago where he did not lecture but put the finishing touches on his //English Traits// series. This was later published in 1856.

On January 2, 1856 Emerson arrived in Dixon where he met the founder, John Dixon. Emerson was impressed by Dixon and all he has accomplished for the town even though his children had all passed and he was not very poor. At this time Dixon was a small town, according to Tinsley. The reporter for the //Dixon Telegraph// was not impressed with Emerson. Emerson believed it may have been because their plans for a lyceum were too ambitious after noting the mood of his audience. Tinsely said the reporter said Emerson’s lecture “bore evidence of ripe scholarship, and contained many instances of history, but had little that was original.” After Chicago he was to lecture late in Galesburg beginning January 16th and then to Peoria on the 17th.

Until recently lectures were possible only because of railroad development. Travel was still rigorous and only some hotels, like the ones in Chicago, were comfortable for a traveler. According to Tinsely, Emerson was aware he was not impressing Illinoisans because of his lectures lofty ideas. Emerson continued to come west for another fifteen years.

//Davenport Daily Telegraph// 1 January 1856. Davis, Sanders. “Ralph Waldo Emerson.” //Davenport Daily Gazette// 3 Jan. 1856, Vol 2 No 374 ed.: Local Matters section. Newspaper Archives file. - - -. “Young Men’s Library Association.” //Davenport Daily Gazette// 29 Dec. 1855, Vol 2 No 371 ed.: Special Notices section. Newspaper Archives file. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Emerson Central." 3 September 2009. //Emerson Texts: A Search Site.// 1 May 2010 [|http://www.emersoncentral.com/character_english.htm] //Quad Cities: Joined by a River//. N.p.: Stephan M. Miller, 1982. Print. Liukkonen, Petri. Creative Commons. 2008. 7 May 2009 [] //Rock Island Weekly Advertiser// 4 January 1856. //The journals and miscellaneous notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson: 1854-1861//. Cambridge: President and Fellows of Harvard College, 1978. //The later lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871, Volume 1//. Ed. Ronald A. Bosco and Joel Myerson. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001. Tingley, Donald F. “Ralph Waldo Emerson On the Illinois Lecture Circuit.” //Ralph Waldo Emerson On the Illinois Lecture Circuit//. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Nov. 2010. [|http:/dig.lib.niu.edu/ISHS/ishs-1971summer/ishs-1971summer-192.pdf].
 * Works Cited**

Return to Transcendentalism Return to Home