Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was born in Boston and died in Concord, Massachusetts. He was an American Transcendentalist poet, philosopher, and essayist. Emerson attended the Boston Latin School, followed by Harvard University (from which he graduated in 1821) and the Harvard School of Divinity. He was licensed as a minister in 1826 and ordained to the Unitarian church in 1829. Nicknamed the "Sage of Concord," some of Emerson's best known essays include "Nature" (1836) and "Self-Reliance" (1841). His philosophy emphasized self-reliance and individual responsibility, and he believed that all things are connected to God and therefore are divine. In 1877, his second wife, Lidian Jackson Emerson, expressed to Amos Bronson Alcott that she wished to meet with Mary Baker Eddy. There is no record of either Ralph or Lidian studying with Eddy, but several months before Emerson's death, Eddy visited him and mentioned the visit in two letters that were written in 1888 (L08486 and L04171).

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