Unit 8: Reform Era

• Societal issues that occurred first in urban North

  • Poverty
  • Alcoholism
  • Illiteracy
  • Overcrowded housing
  • Poor healthcare
  • Hardships of women
  • Declining moral values
• Second Great Awakening


  Protestant revivalism in New York frontier, religion for the common man, encouraged moralistic reform
• "Burned-Over" District of New York


  Region of New York that experienced intense religious revivalism
• Protestant Revivalists


  Believed God was all-powerful but allowed people to make their own destinies, rejected Puritan predetermination, stressed good of human nature
• Charles Grandison Finney


  Traveling revivalist preacher who sparked revivals in upstate New York, emphasized individuals' power to reform themselves
• Lyman Beecher


  Taught good people would make a good country, warned against diversity of local interests, power of selfishness, and fury of sectional jealousy and hate
• Beecher children


  Henry Ward Beecher (antislavery), Harriet Beecher Stowe (antislavery), Catharine Beecher (women's education)
• Protestant Revivalists


  Anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant
• African-American Religion


  Church was center of community, call-and-response, Exodus story, some female preachers
• Mormonism/Church of Latter-Day Saints

  Founded by Joseph Smith in 1830 in "Burned-Over District" of New York, vision & golden plates, Book of Mormon, close cooperation and hard work made the Mormon community the most successful communitarian movement
• Brigham Young


  Successor to Joseph Smith, leader of Mormon exodus in 1846 due to harassment over practice of polygamy, first governor of Utah
• Transcendentalism


  Taught that the process of spiritual discovery and insight would lead a person to truth more profound than reason, humans naturally good, self-reliance, courage to act on own beliefs, moral life involved helping reform society
• Ralph Waldo Emerson


  Poet, reformer, influenced others, wrote essays
• Henry David Thoreau


  Spent two years at Walden Pond thinking, reading, writing, and observing nature, wrote Walden which contains 18 essays describing his experiment in living simply, opponent of Mexican War, refused to pay taxes, jailed for act of conscience, devoted to antislavery movement
• The Temperance Movement


  Organized campaign to eliminate alcohol consumption, Americans consumed more alcoholic beverages per person than any other time in early 1800s, reformers valued self-control and self-discipline, opposed alcohol since it tended to make people lose control, women saw drinking as threat to family life
• The Reform Effort


  American Temperance Society urged members to take pledges not to drink alcohol, societies established alcohol free hotels and passenger boats, promoted moral, social, health and economic benefits
• Impact of the Temperance Movement

  Maine: 1851, 1st state to ban manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages
• Temperance and Immigration


  Nativist issue, crime associated with alcohol, alcohol associated with immigrants
• Carrie A. Nation: '"Men are nicotine-soaked, beer-besmirched, whisky-greased, red-eyed devils."'
• Educational Reform


  Enlightenment philosophy, tabula rasa (blank slate), political philosophy of civic virtue and informed citizenry, socio-economic factors of industrialization and child labor
• Public Education


  Support had declined, old school buildings, textbooks and materials scarce, quality of teaching inadequate, women involvement through churches
• Horace Mann


  Demanded tax-supported schools to have literate, informed voters and morally upright citizens, 1st secretary of MA Board of Education, supported raising taxes to provide free public education, schools divided into grade levels, encouraged reformers in other states, established consistent curricula and teacher training, MA 1st public high school, opponent of slavery
• Rising literacy rate
• Moral Education


  Mann promoted self-discipline and good citizenship, McGuffey's Readers promoted Protestant values
• The limits of reform in public education
• Reforming Prisons


  Hope was prisoners would lead regular disciplined lives, reflect on sins, become law-abiding citizens
• Dorothea Dix: 'Boston schoolteacher who found prisoners in shocking conditions, convinced MA to improve prison conditions and create separate conditions for mentally ill, led 15 other states to build hospitals for mentally ill'
• Utopian Communities


  Small societies dedicated to perfection in social and political conditions, disturbed by ill effects of urban and industrial growth, New Harmony, Indiana founded by Robert Owen fell victim to laziness, selfishness, and quarrelling, Brook Farm, MA, Shakers, John Humphrey Noyes' "complex marriage" and "free love", Oneida Company
• Frederick Douglass


  Runaway slave, wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, published The North Star, gave Independence Day speech
• David Walker's Appeal


  1829 critique of American hypocrisy, called for action based on ideals of Declaration of Independence
• William Lloyd Garrison


  Published The Liberator in 1831, "I do not wish to think or speak or write with moderation", supported "personal liberty" laws to counteract fugitive slave acts
• Cultural and Legal Limits on Women

  Cult of Domesticity or Cult of True Womanhood, most shocked to see women engaging in public activities, Dorothea Dix relied on men to present research, no voting rights, married women could not own property or make a will
• Catharine Beecher


  Advised American women on how to reform society from roles in the home, founded Hartford Female Seminary with sister Mary, wrote A Treatise on Domestic Economy
• Women's Reform Efforts


  Religious revivals and reform movements heightened women's sense of potential and power, participated in temperance, abolition, economic boycotts, gave public lectures
• Women and Abolition


  Saw parallels between plight of African Americans and status of women, Sarah and Angelina Grimke rejected slavery out of religious conviction, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Ann Jacobs wrote Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman
• Men's Opposition to Women's Involvement

  Some men found it distasteful for women to participate in public meetings
• Women's Rights Movement


  1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London excluded female delegates, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, passed 12 resolutions protesting lack of rights for women, 9th resolution for suffrage urged by Stanton
• Slow Progress for Women's Rights

  Many Americans shared Catharine Beecher's view that women should influence public affairs indirectly, more educated in college by end of 19th century, entered medical field, wrote books on women's issues
• Role of African American Women


  Sojourner Truth reminded White women that Black women had place in movement
• Harriet Beecher Stowe


  • Uncle Tom's Cabin