Antebellum Reform Movements and Culture

Reform Movements

• Transportation and Communication revolutions accompanied by reform movements.

• Most reform movements

Colonial Religion

• ¾ of 23 million attend church in 1850

• The Age of Reason (1794) Thomas Paine– Churches are set up to

enslave mankind, and establish power

• Built on Deism– Reason, not revelation,

science not bible

Unitarianism • Deism helps inspire

Unitarianism in NE– God exists in one person, not

the wholly trinity

– Human nature is good not vile

– Free will

– Salvation is possible through good works

– Embraced most by intellectuals

– How does this compare to Calvinism?

2nd Great Awakening

• Starts on Southern frontier, spreads to northern cities

• Most momentous episode in American Religion

• Will be a huge cause in the reform movements

2nd Great Awakening

• Camp Meetings – thousands gather in the woods to listen to entertaining preachers

• 2nd GA helps Methodist and Baptists the most – Both stress personal

conversion, democratic control of church affairs, rousing emotionalism

2nd Great Awakening

• “Circuit Riders”- traveling frontier preachers

• Peter Cartwright – Methodists

• Charles Grandison Finny– Anxious bench- sinners

could sit in full view of congregation

– Women should pray out loud in public

– Against alcohol and slavery

2nd Great Awakening

• Feminization of religion in church membership and theocracy

• Middle class women make up most new members

• Trans. Comm. Revolutions = economy boom, 2nd GA allows women to bring God back to the family

Burned Over District

• Western NY• Too much hellfire and

damnation preaching• Spawns the Millerites

or Adventists • Christ will return to

earth in 1844…didn’t happen

2nd Great Awakening

• Widen lines between classes and religions• Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists,

Unitarians= wealthy and educated, N and E • Methodists, Baptists, less educated, less prosperous-

S, W • Slavery encourages more splits

Mormons

• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

• Founder = Joseph Smith• Opposition in OH,

Missouri, Ill• Why

– Cooperative sects– Vote as one– Train militias for defense

purposes – Polygamy

Mormons

• 1844- Smith is Murdered

• Brigham Young takes over- strict leader

• Moves them to Utah • Utah becomes

powerful theocracy and commonwealth

Free Schools

• Conservative Americans- worried that brats may grow up ignorant, and have right to vote

• Wealthy- taxation for education to provide a stable democracy

• Increased suffrage in west- huge supporters

• Education prior to the movement- One room school houses, all male teachers,

• “Book of larnin” taught 3 r’s, readin, ritin, ritmetic

Education Reformists

• Horace Mann- better school houses, longer school terms, expanded curriculum, better pay for teachers

• Schools still not that prevalent in US on even of civil war

• Blacks, not allowed in either north or South

• New TextBooks– Noah Webster-

“Schoolmaster of the Republic”

– Reading Lessons- promote patriotism

– Webster's Dictionary 1828

• William McGuffey- McGuffey’s Readers

Higher Education

• Usually made to establish local pride rather than promote education

• Women generally are not allowed, supposed to be in the home– Exception Oberlin

College OH (1837)

• Most adults attend lyceums- public lectures (RWE)

Reform Movements

• 2nd GA= inspired people to battle earthly evils

• Women (middle class) huge influence- chance to get out of house and enter public field

• Also formed in response to market economy

Prison Reform • Debt imprisonment is high• Capitol punishment starting

to decline (Europe)• Idea- prisons should also

reform guilty (house of corrections)

• Mentality ill chained liked beast among “normal” prisoners

• Dorthea Dix- reports prison conditions to Mass. Legislature- prisons get better, insanity is now starting to be considered an illness

Demon Rum- The “Old Deluder”

• Cons of alcohol– Drunks at important

religious events

– New industrial equipment is dangerous (sober or drunk)

– Undermine family unity

American Temperance Society

• Boston 1826• Known as cold water

army• Against evils of

alcohol• TS Arthur- Ten Nights

in a Baroom and What I Say

Temperance Movement • Moderates stress

temperance, no teetotalism (total elimination of intoxicants)

• Neal S Dow “Father of Prohibition”

• Supported Maine Law of 1851- no making or selling of liquor

• Other northern states follow suit

• Most prohibition laws are repealed because of difficulty enforcing

Women’s Movements

• Women very similar to slaves, can’t read, subordinate to master (husband), can’t vote, can legally be beaten

• Spinsters- single women, roughly 10% at time of ACW

Women’s Movement • Gender Roles • Market economy creates

larger division in gender roles

• Women seen as physically/emotionally weak, but keepers of society’s conscience

• Men are in danger of slipping into savage way of life, if not guided by gentle woman’s hand

Women’s Movement • Some women ( white and middle class) see home as a

prison• Most want women’s rights, but also temperance, and

abolition Why• Lucretia Mott- antislavery convention in London

1840• Elizabeth Cady Stanton- advocated woman’s suffrage• Susan B Anthony most popular- followers called

Suzy B’s • Elizabeth Blackwell- first female graduate of Medical

Profession• Grimke Sisters- abolitionists

Women’s Movement

• Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls 1848 (Stanton)

• “Declaration of Sentiments” all men and women are created equal

• Demanded for women’s right to vote

• Launches modern women’s right movement

Wilderness Utopias

• Cooperative, communitarian communities • Robert Owen – New Harmony 1825 (IN) –socialism• Brook Farm 1841 (Mass)- • Oneida Community- 1848- Free Love, birth control,

Eugenic Selection.– Survived largely due to strong steel traps and silver making

• Shakers- Brought from England, longest lasting- but celibacy kills membership, done by 1940

Dawn of Scientific Achievement

• Most innovations come from Europe

• Exceptions • Most influential scientist-

Benjamin Silliman• John Audubon- painted

wildlife, spawned Audubon Society

Medicine…still in the Dark Ages

• Bleeding• Small pox is dreaded• Life expectancy short (40 years)• Ignorant of germs and sanitation • Blacksmith = dentist • Home doctors• Cure all fads common• Anesthesia = hard whiskey

Art in Antebellum America

• Early- no contribution to world, we are just trying to survive

• Puritanism- art is idle use of time

• Hudson River School – art going from human landscapes, to local landscapes

Music in Antebellum America

• Minstrel Shows – white actors with blackened faces

Antebellum Literature

• Knickerbocker Group • Washington Irving

– Rip Van Winkle, Legend of Sleepy Hollow

• James Cooper- – Last of the Mohicans

• William Cullen Bryant– Editor of NY Evening

Post

Transcendentalism Movement

• Knowledge doesn’t just come from observation (senses)

• Every person has inner light that can illuminate the highest truth and put person in direct touch with god or oversoul

• Ralph Waldo Emerson- American Scholar- get rid of European traditions, start American traditions

Transcendentalism Movement

• Henry David Thoreau• Walden: Or life in the

Woods (1854)• On the Duty of Civil

Disobedience

• Walt Whitman • Collection of poems-

Leaves of Grass

Other American Authors

• Henry Wadsworth– Song of Hiawatha

• Louisa May Alcott– Little Women

• Emily Dickinson• Edgar Allen Poe

Literary Individualists and Dissenters

• Continue with Calvinist’s ideas of struggling with original sin

• Nathaniel Hawthorne- Scarlet Letter

• Herman Melville – Moby Dick

American Historians…kinda

• George Bancroft = “Father of American History”

• William H. Prescott • Francis Parkman• Most are from Boston• Celebratory view of

history