The transcendentalism movement impacted American culture, society, and literature because it encouraged Americans to transcend society's assumptions and create a personal, continuous relationship with spirituality and nature. The club started among a small group of intellectuals who were reacting against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau organized the transcendental club. Other important members of the club were F. H hedge, George Ripley, Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, and Theodore Parker. Much of their writing appeared in the Dial, a journal from 1840 to 1844, which was edited by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller. George Ripley founded Brook Farm, a cooperative
