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CRITICAL WRITING When Thoreau decamped to the woods to write Walden in 1845, the United States (and indeed much of the world) was experiencing a period of immense social, cultural, and political upheaval. The economy was shifting from one of home-based subsistence and informal trade to paid labor in structured workplaces. Abolitionists were pushing for an end to slavery, and women’s rights activists were demanding equal protection under the law. The church was losing its influence and its place in local government. Social workers were seeking reforms in charitable, penal, and psychiatric institutions; others were calling for universal education and a new approach to schooling. Even Transcendentalism was a reform movement of sorts. Choose any one of these developments that interests you and do some research to learn more about it. Then, in an essay, explain how and why Thoreau incorporates critiques of that change into his argument in “What I Lived For.”