On this episode of Our American Stories, in the decades after the American Revolution, the United States had won its political independence, but many wondered whether it would ever develop a culture of its own. Most Americans still looked to Europe for great literature, art, and ideas. Critics openly questioned whether America could produce writers to rival the great minds of the Old World.

Then came a remarkable generation of American thinkers and writers. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman helped forge a distinctly American voice, creating works that reflected the nation's landscapes, ideals, and people. In this installment of our ongoing Story of Us—Story of America series, Dr. Bill McClay, author of Land of Hope, shares the story of the nation's cultural coming of age.

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