| Ralph Waldo Emerson | The first transcendentalist; "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." |
| Henry David Thoreau | wrote Walden; describe the philosophy of civil disobedience |
| Walt Whitman | wrote Leaves of Grass; his poetry celebrated democracy as a sacred character |
| Herman Melville | wrote Moby Dick; believed individualism without discipline could lead to disaster |
| Nathaniel Hawthorne | wrote The Scarlet Letter; believed individualism against the rules of society could lead to degradation |
| Margaret Fuller | wrote Woman in the Ninteenth Century; believed women deserved psychological and social independence |
| Alexis deToqueville | wrote Democracy in America; coined the term "individualism" |
| Ann Lee Stanley | leader of the Shakers; her visions led her to believe the end was near |
| Charles Fourier | British commune organizer; his followers set up over 100 society in the US |
| John Humphrey Noyes | leader of the Oneida commune; believed in "complex marriage"; freaky |
| Joseph Smith | founder of the Mormon Church; killed by a mob in IL |
| Brigham Young | took over the lead of the Mormon Church; moved his people to Utah |
| William Lloyd Garrison | published the newspaper The Liberator; vowed to keep writing until every slave was free |
| Sarah and Angelina Grimke | used passionate speeches and biblical rhetoric to promote feminism and abolitionism |
| Dorothea Dix | nurse; crusaded for the mentally ill in the 1940's |
| Catherine Beecher | believed women should use their moral power to influence change; women should become teachers |
| Harriet Beecher Stowe | wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin |
| Elizabeth Cady Stanton | wrote the Declaration of Sentiments; "all men and women are created equal" |
| Lucretia Mott | organized the Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, NY |
| Susan B. Anthony | founder of the National American Women's Sufferage Association |
| Sojourner Truth | former slave; gave speeches on behalf of the feminist and abolitionist causes |