How did writers, visual artists, and transcendental thinkers shape American identity in the nineteenth century?

USA transformed from a rural agricultural society to an urban industrialized one.

In the most important works of art that come from the USA at the early stages of its history in the 18th century, there is call to become united with nature and follow its principles, which are higher than man made conventions and its limited forms of consciousness; to merge with nature and go out and explore it to form higher spheres of spirituality and found new towns and cities in unknown lands in order to exploit the land's resources more adequately. One can think of three notable examples: the transcendentalists like Thoreau, the Hudson River School of painting, and novels such as Melville's Moby D-i-c-k.