THE AGE OF REFORM(1820-1860)

Directions: Use these slides to take notes on the following movements. Write the name of each and a description, including what the movement was seeking to reform in society, in your notebooks. 1. Second Great Awakening2. Utopian societies3. Temperance Movement4. Reforms for Prisons and the Mentally Ill 5. Educational reforms6. Anti-Slavery/Abolitionism7. Women’s rights8. Transcendentalism

Bellringer: a. What is a “reform” ?

b. What do you see people working towards reforming

in our society today? c. Do you agree with what

they’re trying to achieve?d. What areas in our society

today do you think need to be reformed? Why?

THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING▶ A new generation of ministers

challenged some traditional religious views in the early 1800s

▶ Preached “doctrine of free will,” which went against earlier ideas of predestination and was more in theme with the new political ideas about democracy and independence

▶ Charles Finney, an important preacher, held the first of many religious revivals in 1826

▶ Revivals could last several days or up to a week, where ministers preached constantly trying to convert sinners and urging reform in people’s lives

UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES▶ Some reformers were spurred by the desire to create a more perfect society

and founded utopian communities▶ New Harmony was a utopian society founded by Robert Owen in Indiana in

1825 and was based on the idea of common ownership of property (only lasted a couple of years; was not harmonious in action)

▶ Others included the Oneida Community, and the Shakers

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT

▶ An organized effort to end alcohol abuse, supported by many reformers

▶ Women especially supported to the temperance movement

▶ Most reformers favored temperance, or moderation in drinking, though others called for prohibition, a total ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol

PRISON AND MENTAL HOSPITAL REFORMPrison Reform Reforms for the Mentally Ill

▶ Prisons were harsh places, with inadequate food, poorly heated, and overcrowded

▶ Many people in prison were debtors, not criminals, and thus remained locked up for years because could not earn money while in prison

▶ Social reformers, such as Dorothea Dix, a Massachusetts schoolteacher, took up the cause of prison reform and worked to convince state legislatures to build new, more humane prisons. This included no longer sending debtors to jail.

▶ Dorothea Dix reported to the MA legislature on the horrifying conditions she found when investigation prison conditions of people with mental illnesses being housed there as well

▶ Her report helped persuade the MA legislature to fund new mental hospitals

▶ she then continued her efforts around the country to encourage city and state governments to create asylums for those with mental illnesses to provide treatment, rather than punishment

PUBLIC EDUCATIONNeed for Better Education

Education for African Americans

▶ By the 1800s, MA was still the only state to require public education

▶ In most states, only children of the wealthy could attend school, so most Americans could not read or write

▶ As the reforms from the Jacksonian Era increased the number of voters and people involved in the government, reformers argued that better education was needed to ensure the voters were informed

▶ Also, schools would help the children of immigrants assimilate better into American culture

▶ Improvements in public education did little for African Americans

▶ Reformers who tried to improve educational opportunities for African Americans often met resistance

▶ Some opportunities did open up:▶ In major northern cities, free African

American educators opened their own schools

▶ In 1855, MA became the first state to admit African American students to public schools

▶ Some African Americans attended private colleges such as Harvard and Oberlin

▶ In 1854, PA chartered Ashmun Institute (later Lincoln University), the nation’s first college for African American men

▶ Public financing of education was, he argued, essential for democracy to work

▶ After becoming head of the state board of education in 1837, Mann convinced MA to improve its public school system:▶ Created colleges to train teachers▶ Raised teacher salaries▶ Lengthened the school year

▶ By the 1850s, public schools had gained much acceptance in the Northeast▶ Southern and western states still lagged

behind

Horace Mann, of MA, took the lead in education reform

How would going to school be

different in the mid-1800s?

Abolitionism: THE FIGHT AGAINST SLAVERY… continued on next page

Slavery Ends in the North The Colonization Movement

▶ In 1780, PA was first state to pass a law that gradually eliminated slavery

▶ By 1804, every northern state had ended or pledged to end slavery

▶ Congress also outlawed slavery in the Northwest Territory

▶ Ohio became the first state to ban slavery in its constitution when it joined the Union in 1803

▶ The American Colonization Society, est. in 1817, was an early antislavery organization

▶ It proposed that slaves be freed gradually then transported to Liberia, a colony founded in 1822 on the west coast of Africa

▶ The colonization movement did not work: most enslaved people had grown up in the US and did not want to leave; by 1830, only 1400 African Americans had migrated to Liberia.

Abolitionists faced opposition and obstacles, even violence, in the

North and the South

ABOLITIONISM ContinuedAbolitionists: reformers who wanted to abolish, or end, slavery

▶ By the mid-1800s, a small but growing number of people were in this category, and wanted to completely end slavery immediately

▶ Former President John Quincy Adams, now a member of Congress, read antislavery petitions from the floor of the House of Representatives

▶ The Second Great Awakening also inspired opposition to slavery▶ Charles Finney’s preaching influenced

others against slavery

▶ One of the most forceful voices for abolition was William Lloyd

Garrison, a Quaker, In 1831 he launched an abolitionist newspaper, the Liberator, which was the leading antislavery publication for 34 years,

only ending when slavery ended▶ In 1829, David Walker, a prominent

African American in the North, published his pamphlet Appeal: to the Coloured Citizens of the World, which urged enslaved people to rebel if necessary to gain their

freedom▶ Frederick Douglass was one of the

most powerful abolitionist speakers and published his own antislavery

newspaper, the North Star

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD▶ A network of people, both

black and white, northerners and southerners, who secretly helped slaves reach freedom

▶ Each year, hundreds of slaves moved to freedom in the North or Canada this way; perhaps 50,000 people gained their freedom this way

▶ “Conductors” led fugitive slaves from one “station” to the next

▶ stations were usually homes of abolitionists, churches, or caves

▶ supporters helped by donating clothing, food, and money

▶ Levi Coffin, an Indiana Quaker, assisted more than 3,000 fugitives

▶ Harriet Tubman, Nicknamed the Black Moses, led hundreds to freedom

“AIN’T I A WOMAN” Sojourner Truth

PRIMARY SOURCE READING READ the primary source or listen to the performance both posted on website and then answer these Questions:▶ Who is the speaker? What do we know about her?

How do we know?▶ List all the reasons Truth believes that women

should have equal rights.▶ What moments do you find most compelling in

advancing the speaker’s argument? Explain what makes them compelling.

▶ How do you think Truth felt after she gave her speech?

WOMEN’S RIGHTS Movement Why did they need it? How did it start?▶ In 1820, the rights of American

women were limited▶ Could not vote, serve on

juries, attend college, or enter professions such as medicine or law

▶ Married women could not own property or keep their own wages

▶ Most Americans believed a woman’s place was in the private sphere of the home

▶ Women who were active in abolition or other social reform movements believed they had important contributions to make to society and had begun to demand rights as equal citizens

▶ Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, where they were not allowed to participate due to being women▶ They decided to hold a women’s

convention: The Seneca Falls Convention (see next slide)

THE SENECA FALLS CONVENTIONActive in the Women’s Rights Movement▶ Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who

started the convention with Lucretia Mott in 1848, modeled the Declaration of Sentiments on the Declaration of Independence▶ “We hold these truths to be

self-evident that all men and women are created equal…”

▶ Listed the injustices of women▶ Demanded full equality –

including suffrage (some opposed this, even Mott feared it would harm their cause)

▶ Sojourner Truth▶ Lucretia Mott▶ Elizabeth Cady Stanton▶ Frederick Douglass▶ Susan B. Anthony▶ Other women:

▶ some had started schools and colleges for women

▶ Elizabeth Blackwell was first woman to graduate from medical school (1849)

▶ Maria Mitchell was first professor hired, at Vassar College

TRANSCENDENTALISM▶ By the early 1800s, a new artistic movement took shape in Europe

called Romanticism; unlike the Enlightenment focus on reason, Romantics placed value on nature, emotions, and imagination

▶ A small group of writers and thinkers in New England developed an American form of Romanticism called Transcendentalism (a movement that sought to explore the relationship between humans and nature through emotions rather than through reason).

▶ It’s name comes from the goal to transcend, or go beyond, human reason. They linked humans with nature and urged people to live simply and seek beauty, goodness, and truth within their own souls.

▶ Many transcendentalists were also active in social reform movements like the anti-slavery and women’s rights movements

▶ Ralph Waldo Emerson was the leading transcendentalist; he asked Americans to question the value of material goods, and stressed individualism (the unique importance of each individual)

▶ Henry David Thoreau took Emerson’s challenge: he spent two years living in the woods at Walden Pond, meditating on nature. MLK, Jr. practiced Thoreau’s philosophy on civil disobedience.

Reform Movements Reflection Questions:Complete on SCHOOLOGY

1. Pick one of the reform movements and: a. connect it to another reform movement. How

were these intertwined? b. explain its impact on society -- did it succeed in

reforming society?c. evaluate its influence: do you think it had a

positive or negative effect? Explain.