Answer:
b. a move toward egalitarianism and reform
Explanation:
The American Renaissance was a period in American literature that started around 1830 and finished around the Civil War. American Renaissance was associated with American romanticism and transcendentalism.
In 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson, (1803-1882), published a book entitled Nature, in which Emerson claimed that it was possible to raise the spiritual state of the individual studying and giving answers to the world around us. His work not only influenced the writers around him, with whom he formed the movement known as Transcendentalism, but also many of those who listened to his lectures.
Emerson's most outstanding companion was Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), a convinced hipster. After living alone for two years in a cabin beside a lagoon, Thoreau wrote Walden, extensive memories that advocate resistance against what society dictates. His radical writings express a deeply-rooted tendency toward the individualism of the American citizen.