Emerson and Thoreau jointly seeded preservationist and interpretive practice

Evidence

It is clear, as we read the extensive journals kept by these Concord thinkers, that each served as a whetstone for the other. They agreed far more than they disagreed as to ultimate truths. Intellectually, Emerson was as much nonconformist as Thoreau. The important point is that both of them sowed the seeds of an appraisal of nature that, though it took years to arrive, are today fruiting in the efforts of preservationists and interpreters everywhere. — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 812

Categorization

• SEED: Tilden explicitly places the interpreter/preservationist genealogy in transcendentalism — an essay angle on how interpretation’s founding lineage runs through Emerson and Thoreau, not the Park Service alone.
• XREF: connects to: Emerson ranked intellect and human moral figures above nature itself — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 810; Thoreau and Emerson split over whether concrete detail or ideal beauty deserved attention — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 800; Organic cosmology directly seeded the modern conservation and preservation movements — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 439

Broader Connections

• Organic cosmology directly seeded the modern conservation and preservation movements #expands (0.78) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 439