The Age of Reform

Changing American Life in the 19th Century

Revival – frontier camp meeting to reawaken religious faith

People came to hear preachers

People came to pray, sing, weep, & shout

Men & women became eager to reform their lives & the world…led to new reform movements

Many workers were spending Many workers were spending most of their wages on alcoholmost of their wages on alcohol

Reformers blamed alcohol for Reformers blamed alcohol for society’s problemssociety’s problems Poverty, breakup of families, crime,

& insanity

Reformers called for Reformers called for temperancetemperance Drinking little or no alcoholDrinking little or no alcohol

Temperance crusaders used many methods Lectures, pamphlets, & revival-style

rallies

Many states passed Many states passed temperance lawstemperance laws banning manufacturing & sale of alcoholic beverages

Industries & LaborIndustries & LaborFactory work was noisy, boring, & unsafe

Workers organized for better conditions

Example: Lowell girls went on strike in 1836 demanding lowered rent and better conditions

Other workers called for shorter hours and higher wages

In 1835 & 1836, 140 strikes took place in the eastern U.S.

Seal for the Knights of Labor, first organized union in America

"Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree."

- Thomas Jefferson, 1805

Only New England provided free elementary school

Others had to pay or send to schools for the poor – some refused out of pride

Some communities had NO SCHOOLS AT ALL

Illegal in the south to teach slaves to read

Southerners feared a rebellion by educated slaves

Area where Pilgrims & Puritans settled (placed a premium on education)

Leader of education reform Horace Mann Massachusetts Board of Education

He offered many ideas to promote higher learning Lengthened school year to 6 months Improved the curriculum Doubled teacher’s salaries Developed better teacher training methods

Three basic principles of public education (by the 1850’s) Should be free & supported by taxes Teachers should be trained Children should be required to attend school

Dorothea Dix – discovered mentally ill often received no treatment Often times they were

chained or beaten Treated like criminals

Dorothea travelled around the country on behalf of the mentally ill

Others tried to help people with other disabilities Deaf/Blind

Others tried to improve prisons

Abolitionist Reformers worked to

abolish, or end, slavery

American Colonization Society 1st large-scale antislavery

effort Resettling black Americans in

Africa Raised money & settled a

colony in 1822 called LiberiaLatin for “place of freedom”

Many enslaved did not want to go back to Africa Simply wanted to be free in

American society

William Lloyd Garrison White abolitionist who called

for the “immediate & complete emancipation”

The LiberatorCountry’s leading

antislavery newspaper

Frederick Douglass Most widely known black

abolitionist/former slave Edited an antislavery newspaper

called the North Star Counseled Abraham Lincoln

during the Civil War

Sojourner Truth Used personal narratives and

worked for abolitionism & women’s rights/former slave

Southerners fought abolition continuously

Underground Railroad Network of escape routes from the South to the North Traveled through the night on foot

Harriet Tubman Most famous conductor of the Railroad

Many wanted to improve the lives of women

Lucretia MottQuaker women who

lectured in Philadelphia

Spoke for temperance, peace, worker’s rights, & abolition

Elizabeth Cady StantonWorked with Lucretia

Mott

Susan B. Anthony Daughter of a Quaker

abolitionist Called for equal pay &

coeducation Special contribution –

give married women rights to their own property and wages

Seneca Falls Convention Declaration of Sentiments Mott, Stanton, & others

called for women’s equal rights

Every right was unanimous except women’s suffrage