CHAPTER 15THE FERMENT OF REFORM AND CULTURE

AP US HISTORY

EARLY AMERICA 1800’S

French man who came to America to judge American jails

Alexis de Tocqueville

Wrote Democracy in America

“No country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America”

In America, women were put on a pedestalIn France, if you raped a woman you were just slapped on the wrist, in America you were put to death

“America is great, because America is good; when she ceases to be good, she will cease to be great”AMERICA TODAY?

DEISM AND UNITARIANISMAmerica had seen in the early 1800s a weakening in its focus on religion

Brought about by deism and Unitarian beliefs

DEISMUNITARIANISM

•Belief that God did create Heaven and Earth, but…• Denied Christ divinity• Did not believe in

original sin, that you were born pure

• Believed in God as one person (opposed God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit)

•Believed in free will--not predestined

•Stressed goodness of man, love of God rather than man’s sinfulness and God’s strictness

•Ralph Waldo Emerson famous Unitarian

SECOND GREAT AWAKENINGBecame perhaps the most important era in history of American religion

Hundreds of thousands became “born again” Christians

Shattered and reorganized churches and new sects

CAMP MEETINGS

Revivals held outside--main method of preaching

Baptists and Methodists gained the most from the Second Great Awakening--became the two largest

Protestant denominations

LEADERS OF SECOND GREAT AWAKENING

PETER CARTWRIGHT CHARLES FINNEY

Famous “circuit rider” or traveling preacher

Greatest of the revival preachers

Brought two new ideas:1. Anxious bench--

people would set in front of you and tell you they sinned

2. First to say women should pray outside in public

NEW RELIGIOUS SECTSMost came out of area in New York known as

“Burned Over District”

MilleritesLed by William Miller who told the people that Christ would return back to earth on Oct 22, 1844

Mormons--see next slide!!!

Mormons

THE MORMONSFounder of Mormon’s in the 1830’sSaid he supposedly received 2 golden plates from angels and from that they made the Book of MormonMormon’s also called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day SaintsBelieved in polygamy--have more than one wife at a timeJoseph and his brother were killed, probably b/c of polygamy

Joseph Smith

Brigham Young

Took over Mormon’s after death of SmithTook Mormons out west to Utah and Salt Lake City where they established their colonyBrigham Young had 27 wives and 56 childrenPractice of polygamy caused Utah to be one of the last states to joint Union

ERA OF REFORMSMost reforms were driven by evangelical religion

Women were the most important in reform crusades

Major reform issues included•Abolition of slavery•Temperance•Women’s Rights•Education•Mental institutions•Prisons•Debtor’s Prisons•War (sought to end all wars)

How can I remember them

all???

“A Totally Wicked

Elephant Made People Devour

Worms”

EDUCATION

People started believing in paying taxes for public schooling

Education lagged behind in the South

Teachers were mostly men but Catherine Beecher encouraged women to become teachers

“A nation that was both ignorant and free, declared never was and never will be.”

--Thomas Jefferson

Horace Mann1st reformer of education

Believed in more schools, expanded curriculum, higher pay for teachers, longer school terms

Noah Webster

“Schoolmaster of the Republic”

Helped create reading textbooks that expressed patriotism

Created McGuffey Readers that expressed morality, patriotism, and idealism

HIGHER EDUCATIONState supported

universities began to develop

First state supported college was the University of North Carolina

Women were not to be educated past grade school--many thought would hurt the female mind, health

Started first female college for women

Emma Willard

Troy Female Seminary

Mary Lyon

Mt. Holyoke

LyceumsHow adults became educated

MENTAL REFORMSDOROTHEA DIX

Reformer most associated with helping mentally handicapped

PRISON AND DEBTOR REFORM

We quit putting people in jail for not having money

We quit whipping and branding people

Jails were becoming places for reform instead of just punishment

Temperance Reform

AMERICAN TEMPERANCE SOCIETY--first organized attempt to control alcohol consumption

COLD WATER ARMY--kids would ask relatives to drink cold water instead of alcohol

Ten Nights in a Barroom and What I Saw There

Written by TS Walker

Neal Dow

“Father of Prohibition”

Promoted ‘teetotalism’--totally against alcohol

Passed Maine Laws--prohibited the manufacturing and sale of alcohol--Maine became first dry state

WOMEN’S RIGHTSIn the early 1800s, women could not vote, and could be beaten by their husbands

FAMOUS WOMEN:Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell--1st female doctorMyra Bradwell--1st female lawyerMargaret Fuller--became editor of a news journal called The DialGrimke Sisters--Sarah and Angelina--from South and against slavery and for women’s rightsLucy Stone--retained her maiden name when marriedAmelia Bloomer--1st women to wear “turkish” pants (Bloomers)

SENECA FALLS CONVENTION

1848

First women’s rights convention

Held in New York at Seneca Falls

Issued Declaration of Sentiments saying “All men and women created equal”

Launched women’s rights movement

WOMEN’S RIGHTS REFORMERS

LUCRETTIA MOTT ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

Main leader in the WR Movement

Refused to use the word “obey” in marriage vows

Main leader in the WR Movement

Followers known as Susan B’s

Quaker who fought for women’s rights and against slavery

ATTEMPTS AT UTOPIARobert Owen

New Harmony

Brook Farm

Oneida

Shakers

Believed in free lovePractice eugenicsPracticed birth control through abstinence

Didn’t believe in marriage or sex

JOHN J. AUDUBON

Great painter of birds

Audubon Society--formed for the preservation of birds

Famous book: Birds of America

1800’S MEDICINEMedicine still very primitive; still bleeding people

Life expectancy low in early America

Medicines not so safe… “If we took all the medicines we had, and threw them in the sea, humans will be better off and fish will be worse off”--Oliver Wendell Holmes

Suffering from teeth aches

For surgeries, give a drink of whiskey and start sawing as fast as possible

About 1840, some doctors and dentists start using “laughing gas” and either

FAMOUS PAINTERS

Gilbert Stuart Charles Wilson Peale

John Trumbell

HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL OF ARTGroup of American artists that started painting American landscapes

KNICKERBOCKER WRITERSWashington Irving

Legend of Sleepy HollowRip Van Winkle

James Fenimore CooperLast of the MohicansDeer Slayer

Wm. Cullen BryantWriter of poems“Meditation on Death”

TRANSCENDENTALISMVery difficult to define--belief that truth and knowledge comes from within, every person possesses an inner light

This inner light comes through the senses

Believed in self-reliance, individualism, and self-discipline

THREE FAMOUS TRANSCENDENTALISTS

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Henry David Thoreau

Walt Whitman

Famous works included Self-Reliance and The American

Scholar

“We will walk with our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will walk on our own feet; we will speak

our own minds”

Famous work: Civil Disobedience and Walden”Life in the

Woods

Civil Disobedience--taught nonviolence--opposition to Mexican

War

Influenced several people include Ghandi

and MLK

Famous work:

Leaves of Grass

Whitman known as

“Poet Laureate of Democracy”

OTHER FAMOUS NAMESStephen Foster

White Northerner famous for black Southern songs like My Ol’ Kentucky Home

James Russell LowellWrote Biglow Papers; written in opposition to Mexican War

OTHER FAMOUS NAMESLouisa May Alcott

Writes Little Women

Emily DickinsonWriter of lots of poems; becomes famous after death

Literary dissentersEdgar Allan Poe Nathaniel

HawthorneHerman Melville

RavenFall of the House of

UsherScarlet Letter Moby Dick