Concept of wilderness in 19th century American culture

Abstract

This Master's thesis focuses on the change in the human perception of nature from the Industrial Revolution until the end of 19th century. The thesis provides brief characteristics of particularly the concept of wilderness, Ecocriticism, and Transcendentalism. The main part of the thesis presents a description of the then context (policy, society, and economy), the primal idea of national parks, a brief history of the oldest national parks and a list of crucial people who participated in their establishing.