Transcendentalism Reform During the 19th Century

          In class we learned about the social reforms of the United States during the 19th century. One of the reforms was a new look at Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is a belief based off of American Christianity and spirituality, and it emphasized internal and spiritual beliefs. Also it emphasized not having physical confrontation to solve disputes. Throughout history there have been Transcendentalism activists; one very notable activist was Mahatma Gandhi. If you look at some of his letters that he wrote you can see his Transcendentalist ideas. The one that I chose was a letter he wrote to Hitler in 1939. In it Gandhi writes about how he has been urged to write this letter by friends, but he believed that Hitler would just read it with rudeness. Also in the letter he talks about how Hitler is only man who can start world war two and that he should recognize that Gandhi was able to use peaceful protests to have great success in what he was trying to achieve. He's trying to tell Hitler that war is not the best option for his country if they are trying to accomplish something. Another thing that is repeated twice is humanity. During the year of 1939 in the summer Hitler and his forces were just starting to take control of other countries like Czechoslovakia and Poland. The harassment of Jews has already begun and Britain was on the brink of declaring war. A couple months after this letter was written Britain and France declared war on Germany and world war two began.  It is possible to see how this letter can relate to Transcendentalism. The obvious one is the praise Gandhi gives peaceful protesting instead of violence. The other one is the emphasis of humanity. In all of the countries that were under control of Hitler there was no freedom about what you could be. Hitler got rid of the rights given to humanity; one of the rights he took away was individuality. Gandhi said that his friends wanted him to write to Hitler for the sake of humanity and all the rights given to humans. This was not the only letter written by Gandhi that shows Transcendentalism.

Gandhi, Mahatma. Letter to Adolf Hitler. Wardha, C. P., India. July 23, 1939.
http://www.mkgandhi.org/letters/hitler_ltr.htm