Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 - April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was a champion of individualism who disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. He wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's essays remain among the linchpins of American thinking and his work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers and poets that have followed him. He died of pneumonia in 1882 at the age of 78.