Brinkley, Chapter 12 Notes

1

Brinkley, Chapter 12

Antebellum Culture and Reform

UtopiaGeorge Ripley established Brook Farm in 1841 outside of Boston.

Individuals could gather there to create a new society that would permit every member to have full opportunity for self-realization.

Everyone shared equally in labor for the community so that all could share equally in leisure.

Tension between the ideal of individual freedom and the demands of a communal society led many to leave.

One of the original inhabitants of Brook Farm was Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter) - the price individuals pay by cutting themselves off from society.

Redefining Gender RolesMany utopian communities were concerned with the relationship between men and women.

Oneida community - rejected traditional notions of family and marriage. All residents were "married" to other residents. No permanent conjugal ties. Took pride in what they considered their liberation of women from the demands of male "lust" and from traditional bonds of family.

Shakers - name derived from a unique religious ritual in which members would "shake" themselves free of sin. Committed to complete celibacy. No one could be born into the faith. Women had more influence than men.

Remaking SocietyReform impulse also helped create new movements to remake mainstream society - movements in which, to a striking degree, women formed both the ran and file and the leadership.

Philosophy of reform arose in part from the optimistic vision of those who preached the divinity of the individual and from the Second Great Awakening.

New Light Evangelicals - embraced optimistic belief that every individual was capable of salvation through his or her own efforts.

Evangelical Protestantism greatly strengthened the crusade against drunkenness. Alcohol was the greatest vice destroying society - responsible for crime, poverty, and abuse. Temperance organizations formed to fight alcoholism. Women led the Temperance Movement.

Produced a crusade against personal immorality.

Medical ScienceCredibility of the profession was nonexistent.

Biggest problem was basic knowledge about disease and resistance to advancements from traditional physicians.1843 - Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. concluded that disease could be transmitted from one person to another.

Led to Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis, who required his medical students to wash their hands and disinfect their instruments. Infections dropped considerably.

Education

Effort made to establish universal public education

Horace Mann - education was the only way to preserve democracy. Reorganized Massachusetts school system. Lengthened school year. Increased teacher salaries. Broadened curriculum. Trained teachers. Uneven access to education throughout the country. South and West had less access to education than the North. Even so, the literacy rate was 58%

Horace Mann School

Rehabilitation

Institutions to help the disabled

Perkins School for the Blind - Boston

Inmates and patients living in almost inhumane conditions. (Solitary Confinement)

Dorothea Dix began reform movement of jails and asylums

Brinkley, Chapter 12 Notes

2

Rise of Feminism

Many women who participated in reform movements began to resent social and legal restrictions against them.

Sarah and Angelina Grimke - abolitionists

Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton - Suffrage; the plight of women was the plight of slaves

1848 Seneca Falls Convention - discussion of women's rights and published the "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions" - all men and women are created equal.

Many women involved in reform movement were Quakers

Crusade Against SlaveryBeginning of the 19th century, those who opposed slavery were calm and passive. Anti-slavery movement at the time was most noted for the American Colonization Society (ACS) to transport several groups of blacks from the US to Liberia.

Garrison and AbolitionismWilliam Lloyd Garrison published the leading anti-slavery newspaper of the time, the Liberator.

Opponents of slavery should not talk about the evil influence of slavery on white society but rather the damage the system did to blacks.

Abolitionists should reject "gradualism" and demand the immediate abolition

of slavery.

Black AbolitionistsAbolitionism had a particular appeal to free blacks in the North. Supported Garrison and black leaders.

Most black abolitionists were less violent in their rhetoric

but uncompromising.Frederick Douglass - born a slave in MD and escaped to MA. Years later he purchased his freedom from his former master. Became outspoken leader of the anti-slavery movement.

Published own antislavery newspaper

the North Star. Demanded not only freedom but full social

and economic equality.

Anti-Abolitionism

Abolitionism provoked opposition. Almost all white southerners were bitterly hostile to the movement.

White Northerners feared abolitionism would lead to Civil War. Others feared an influx of free blacks into the North.

Sometimes abolitionism led to violence in both the North and the South.

Abolitionism DividedAbolitionists were divided between moderates and radicals.

Garrison was a radical. Attacked the federal government and the Constitution. Insisted that women be permitted to participate in the American Antislavery Society with full equality

Moderates argued that abolition could be accomplished only as a result of a long, patient, peaceful struggle. Helped runaway slaves find refuge in the North and Canada through the Underground Railroad.

US v. Amistad

Abolitionists helped fund the legal battle over the Spanish slave ship the Amistad.

Slaves destined for Cuba seized the ship and tried to return to Africa only to be stopped by the US Navy and held the Africans as pirates. The case reached the Supreme Court who declared the slaves free.

Abolitionists, with their victory, petitioned Congress to abolish slavery in places where the Federal government had

jurisdiction such as DC and to prohibit interstate slave trade.

Uncle Tom's CabinFrustrated abolitionists expressed their contempt through propaganda.

Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) sold more than 300,000 copies within a year of publication.

Novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as the enslavement of other fellow human beings.