Shaping the Landscape of Democracy

The history of the ideas formulated by some of America's visionaries and experimenters who lived in Freedom's Way is what defines this theme. The Freedom's Way area has a long history of social and intellectual innovation including: the emergence of a democratic vision which led to the American Revolution; a tradition of religious freedom and experimentation; nationally influential movements for conservation, social justice, abolitionism, and the American Renaissance of the nineteenth century. The intellectual history of the area as a whole is important, since it is the context in which famous thinkers, such as Emerson and Thoreau, and others lived and worked.