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| A theory of social and economic organization based on the common ownership of goods. Utopian socialists of the early nineteenth century envisioned small planned communities; later socialists campaigned for state ownership of railroads and large industries. |
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Definition
| Term used by historians to describe the nineteenth-century view that men and women have different gender-defined characteristics and, consequently, that the sexes inhabit—and should inhabit—different social worlds. Men should dominate the public sphere of politics and economics, while women should manage the private spheres of home and family. In mid-nineteenth-century America, this cultural understanding was both sharply defined and hotly contested. |
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Definition
| A nineteenth-century intellectual movement that posited the importance of an ideal world of mystical knowledge and harmony beyond the world of the senses. As articulated by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, transcendentalism called for the critical examination of society and emphasized individuality, self-reliance, and nonconformity. |
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