Historical Methods
...s last name, changing it to Hawthorne. In 1838 a good friend of his, Jonathan Cilley, died in a duel in Washington D.C. Nathaniel married Sophia Peabody in July of 1842. He served as consul to Liverpool from 1853 to 1857, a job he received from President Franklin Pierce, most likely as a gift for having written his biography. Nathaniel his wife Sophia and their many children lived a happy adventure filled life. I find it really simple to see where Nathaniel Hawthorne gained his influences, whether it is his family history or the unique paths he chose to take in his extraordinary life. His family had a deep history in quaint Salem Village, where they were involved in the infamous Salem Witch Trials. His embarrassment of this history is the reasons many people speculate he changed the spelling of his name. During the early 1830’s Nathaniel spent time with the Shakers of Canterbury, New Hampshire. In 1840 he began a job in the Boston Custom House. He lived at Brook Farm, a utopian community in West Roxbury, for part of 1841. From 1853 to 1857, Nathaniel served as consul to Liverpool. I find it easy to say he did not live the average life, he always strove to learn as much as possible about anything he could. Luckily for him, but even more so for us, Nathaniel Hawthorne was given many opportunities to share his wealth of information with the world. In 1836 he was given the privilege of editing and mostly writing the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge. In 1837 Nathaniel edited Peter Parley’s Universal History. In 1845 he edited Journal of an African Cruiser, for Horatio Bridge. In 1847 Hawthorne reviewed Longfellow’s Evangeline. In September of 1852 he published The Life of Franklin Pierce, which was used as the campaign biography, when Pierce became the fourteenth president. These were some of his breaks that lead him deeper and more involved into this country’s literary history. The place where we can most enjoy Nathaniel Hawthorne’s work is in his books. After spending a portion of his life at Bowdoin, he anonymously published Fanshawe, his first attempt at sharing the personal views of his life with the public. Fanshawe was basically a description of the goings on in his college life. He later went on to remove as many copies of this book from the world as possible. We can only speculate as to why he did not want it in circulation, though we continue to print it today. Soon after marrying Sophia, he lived at the Old Manse in Concord, where he was introduced to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the owner of the Manse, Henry David Thorough, a good friend and frequent visitor of Emerson’s, Amos Bronson Alcott, a nearby neighbor, Margaret Fuller, and many other radicals of the Transcendentalism movement. Soon after moving out of the Old Manse, in 1846, Nathaniel published Mosses from an Old Manse. This book is very important, because it is written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and in it he has left a trace of how other great authors influenced him. In 1850 he published The Scarlet Letter, a story somewhat based on his ancestors’ participation in the shortcomings of the early Puritans. After he had been consul to Liverpool, Nathaniel along with his family traveled Europe, and took great notes of the experiences they had. After going back to Salem he used the compilation of notes as the basis of The Marble Faun, which he published in 1860. As you can see from the pattern which I am creating, Nathaniel Hawthorne took in his influences and put his interpretations down in his work. Not only did Nathaniel Hawthorne help to write our history, he helped to spread it in other fashions too. In 1848 he became a manager in a Lyceum, where he was able to use his influence to invite Emerson, Thoreau, Agassiz, Horace Mann, and countless others to lecture. Through his many relationships, such as his infamous friendship with Franklin Pierce, Hawthorne had the tools to get people informed. As anyone can plainly see, by helping to record history, Nathaniel Hawthorne has become an integral part of it. His influences span far beyond that of my own comprehension. He had an impact on people in his own time, just as he has had on people ever since. In 1849 Hawthorne met Herman Melville at a picnic. The kinship formed between these two a...