What is an explanation of the historical influences on the transcendentalist movement via Emerson's work?

Whereas
Europe, the Old World, had a breadth and depth of cultural sophistication, based on ancient
precedent, the all-too-recently founded United States (mid-1800s), in terms of arts and letters,
featured a more materialist, mercantile sensibility.

Although Benjamin
Franklin, for example, an honored pioneer of the domestic civic infrastructure, was celebrated
for his "emphasis on the humanistic values," as would befit a prominent American
representative of the Enlightenment, an emerging class of writers and intellectuals condemned
him for being...