Essential Question: Are the benefits of progress worth the cost?

Guiding Questions: In what ways did America change as a result of the reform movements in the 1800’s?

How did the United States reform its institutions to match its Democratic ideals during the Antebellum Era?

Social Changes & Social Changes & Reforms from 1820s Reforms from 1820s

to 1850sto 1850s

The Second GreatAwakening

“Spiritual Reform From Within”[Religious Revivalism]

Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal of Equality

Temperance

Asylum &Penal

Reform

Education

Women’s Rights

Abolitionism

In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America, I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country… Religion was the foremost of the political institutions of the United States. -- Alexis de Tocqueville, 1832

The Rise of Popular Religion

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By the early the 1800s, the end of “established churches” presented the opportunity to convert citizens In the early 19th century, church

membership was low & falling New evangelists in the early 1800s led

religious revivals using mass appeal techniques & preached that people were capable of self-improvement

The renewed religious revivalism became known as the Second Great Second Great AwakeningAwakening (1800-1830s): Highly emotional meetings began in the

West & spread to all sections of the country

Evangelists sought to awaken Americans to the need for “rebirth” & stressed salvation through repentance

“soul-shaking” conversionR1-2

Evangelist Charles G. Finney was the 1st to use dramatic revival meetings to convert

people from all classes

“The ranges of tents, the fires, the candles and lamps illuminating the camp; hundreds moving to and fro; the preaching, praying, singing, and shouting,… was enough to swallow up all the powers of contemplation.”

Stressed new revival techniques: extended meetings, public prayer

for women, emotionalism

The Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)

Joseph Smith (1805-1844)

▪1823 → Golden Tablets

▪1830 → Book of Mormon

▪1844 → Murdered in Carthage, IL

Violence Against Mormons

The Mormon “Trek”

The Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)

▪Deseret community.

▪Salt Lake City, Utah

Brigham Young(1801-1877)

Mother Ann Lee (1736-1784)

eIf you will take up your crosses against the works of generations, and follow Christ in the regeneration, God will cleanse you from allunrighteousness.

eRemember the cries of those who are in need and trouble, that when you are in trouble, God may hear your cries.

eIf you improve in one talent, God will give you more.

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The Shakers

Shaker Meeting

Shaker Simplicity & Utility

Impact of the 2nd Great Awakening New reform-minded churches were

formed in the North & helped grow the Baptists & Methodists in the South

The revivalists taught that each person had a duty to combat sin; this led to an era of social reform in the 1830s

Northern revivals, unlike in the South, inspired social reform among middle-class participants

Led to a “benevolent empire" of evangelical reform movements: Religious conversion Morality crusaders attacked prostitution,

gambling, & slavery Temperance advocates hoped to end

alcohol abuse

Temperance was the era’s most

successful reform

Evangelicalism brought changes to white, middle-class families: Child rearing seen as essential

preparation for a Christian life Wives became “companions” (not

servants) to their husbands Cult of Domesticity redefined

women’s duty to promote piety, ethics, & character in children

Fears of Fears of MenMen

Free public schools grew rapidly from 1820 to 1850 to provide educational & moral training: Middle-class Americans saw education

as a means for social advancement, teaching “3 R’s” & instilling a Protestant ethic

Horace Mann argued that schools “save” immigrants & poor kids from parents’ “bad” influence to create good citizens

“Father of American Education”

Horace Mann (1796-1859)

e children were clay in the hands of teachers and school officials

e children should be “molded” into a state of perfection

e discouraged corporal punishment

e established state teacher-training programs

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Women Educatorse Troy, NY Female Seminarye curriculum: math, physics, history, geography.e train female teachers

Emma Willard(1787-

1870)

Mary Lyons(1797-

1849)

e 1837 → she established Mt. Holyoke [So. Hadley, MA] as the first college for women.

The McGuffey Eclectic Readers

e Used religious parables to teach “American values.”

e Teach middle class morality and respect for order.

e Teach “3 Rs” + “Protestant ethic” (frugality, hard work, sobriety)

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McDuffy’s Eclectic Readers were the most common text used to educated children

Reformers believed that all problems were correctable & built state-supported prisons, asylums, poorhouses: The most famous asylum reformer was

Dorothea DixDorothea Dix who publicized inhumane treatment of mental institution patients

As a result, 15 states improved their penitentiaries & hospitals

Dorothea Dix Asylum - 1849

Radicals grew impatient in the 1830s & split from earlier moderate reform movements: Temperance Movement Peace Movement Antislavery Movement

Moderate anti-slavery supporters backed emigration to Liberia to avoid a race war when slaves were gradually emancipated

But radical abolitionists, led by William Lloyd Garrison, called for immediate slave emancipation via his American Anti-Slave Society & The Liberator newsletter

Garrison became the most popular abolitionist in the North

Former slaves, like Frederick Douglass & Sojourner Truth, became important abolitionists: They were able to relate the realities of

slavery through Freedom’s Journal & North Star

Blacks were the leaders in the Underground Railroad

Blacks formed vigilante groups to protect fugitive slaves in North

Frederick Douglass & Sojourner Truth

1845 --> The Narrative of the Life Of Frederick Douglass1847 --> “The North Star”

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The Underground

Railroad

Abolitionists most appealed to small town folk in the North

Not all Northerners supported abolition; Opposition came from: Urban areas & from people who lived

near the Mason-Dixon line Racism, fears of interracial marriage, &

fear of economic competition from freed blacks

Radical abolitionists were hurt by in-fighting & many people criticized Garrison for his views: He elected a woman to the executive

committee of his American Anti-Slave Society

Called for Northern succession & boycotts of political elections

Some abolitionists broke off & formed the Liberty Party in 1840

Involvement in abolitionism raised awareness of women’s inequality

Lucretia Mott & Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the 1st feminist national meeting, the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 To demand the right to vote Rejected the cult of domesticity

(separate roles for sexes) in favor of total gender equality

Seneca Falls Declaration

“Separate Spheres” Concept

“Cult of Domesticity”eA woman’s “sphere” was in the home (it was a

refuge from the cruel world outside).eHer role was to “civilize” her husband and

family.

e An 1830s MA minister:The power of woman is her dependence. A woman who gives up that dependence on man to become a reformer yields the power God has given her for her protection, and her character becomes unnatural!

Early 19c Women•Unable to vote.•Legal status of a minor.•Single → could own her own property.•Married → no control over her property or

her children.•Could not initiate divorce.•Couldn’t make wills, sign a contract, or bring suit in court without her husband’s permission.

What It Would Be Like If Ladies Had Their Own Way!

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Cult of Domesticity = SlaveryThe 2nd Great Awakening inspired women to improve society.

Angelina Grimké Sarah Grimké

e Southern Abolitionists

Lucy Stone

eAmerican Women’sSuffrage Assoc.eedited Woman’s Journal

Some reformers grew tired of trying to change society & created their own “ideal” communities: Robert Owen & Charles Fourier created

socialist communities Shakers—believed in sexual equality &

2nd coming of Christ Oneida Community —Christ’s 2nd

coming already occurred; no need for moral rules (“free love”)

Shaker Hymn

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'Tis the gift to be free,'Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,And when we find ourselves in the place just right,'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.When true simplicity is gainedTo bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed,To turn, turn will be our delight,'Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Communalism

Complex Marriage Male Continence

Mutual Criticism

“Ascending” Fellowship

TranscendentalismeLiberation from understanding and the cultivation of reasoning.”

e“Transcend” the limits of intellect and allow the emotions, the SOUL, to create an original relationship with the Universe.

Transcendentalist Thinking

▪Man must acknowledge a body of moral truths that were intuitive and must TRANSCEND more sensational proof:

•The infinite benevolence of God.

•The infinite benevolence of nature.

•The divinity of man.

▪They instinctively rejected all secular authority and the authority of organized churches and the Scriptures, of law, or of conventions

Transcendentalism

▪Therefore, if man was divine, it would be wicked that he should be held in slavery, or his soul corrupted by superstition, or his mind clouded by ignorance!!

▪Thus, the role of the reformer was to restore man to that divinity which God had endowed them.

Transcendentalist Intellectuals/Writers Concord, MA

Ralph WaldoEmerso

n

Henry David

Thoreau

Nature (1832) Walden(1854)

Resistance to Civil Disobedience(1849)

Self-Reliance (1841)

“The American Scholar” (1837)

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The Transcendentalist Agenda

▪Give freedom to the slave.

▪Give well-being to the poor and the miserable.

▪Give learning to the ignorant.

▪Give health to the sick.

▪Give peace and justice to society.

eTheir pursuit of the ideal led to a distorted view of humannature and possibilities: * The Blithedale Romance

A Transcendentalist Critic: Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

eOne should accept the world as an imperfect place: * Scarlet Letter * House of the Seven Gables

Americans in the 1830s & 1840s seemed ready to improve the nation, but in different ways: Political parties (Dems & Whigs) hoped

to improve politics Industrialists hoped to increase the

market revolution Religious reformers hoped to convert the

masses Reform crusaders hoped to remove all

moral & social evils