The Transcendentalists were a generation of people who lived in the decades before the American Civil War. These people, mostly New Englanders, mostly from around Boston, created a uniquely American body of literature. They deliberately went about creating essays, novels, philosophy, poetry, and other writing that were different from anything produced prior. Emerson, Thoreau, the Alcotts, Dickinson, Douglas, Hawthorne, Holmes, and many others belong to this group.