Major leaders

Charles Grandson Finney

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Henry David Thoreau

Was known as the most famous preacher of the era, Finney inspired emotional religious faith using a speaking style that was much high drama as prayer or sermon. Finney rejected the 18th century Calvinistic belief that god determined whether a person goes to heaven or hell. Instead he emphasized individual responsibility for seeking salvation, and he insisted that people could improve themselves and society

Ralph Waldo Emerson, was a New England writer, nurtured his pride in his emerging culture. He led a group practicing transcendentalism which was a philosophical and literary movement that emphasized living a simple life and celebrated the truth found in nature and personal emotion and imagination.

Thoreau was Emerson's friend. Henry put the idea of self-reliance into practice. Abandoning community life, he built himself a cabin on the shore of walden pond near Concord Massachusetts, where he lived alone for two years. Because he believed in individual conscience, he urged people not to obey laws they considered unjust. Thoreau then came up with a form of protest civil disobedience