Antebellum Reform Movements

1
Antebellum Reform Movements

• A New Wave of Reform Before the Civil War

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CHANGE

• YOUR REALMS OF CHANGE
• RELIGIOUS CHANGE
• ABOLITION CHANGE
• SOCIAL CHANGE
• LITERARY CHANGE
• WOMENS RIGHTS CHANGE
• EDUCATIONAL CHANGE
• JACKSONIAN POLITICAL CHANGE
• EACH OF THESE CHANGES AFFECTED THE NEW COUNTRY.

3
Reasons for Reform

• Similar to reasons for Cult of True Womanhood /
  Domesticity
• Barbara Welter Women were supposed to be
• Pious
• Purity
• Submission
• Domesticity
• Fear of rapid change (urbanization,
  industrialization, immigration)
• Desire to return to a less materialistic (money
  and thing centered) lifestyle
• Religious fervor When things are wrong with
  society or there is progress, turn to GOD!

4
Second Great Awakening

• Renewed interest in religion
• Traveling (itinerant) preachers
• Religious revivals
• Focus on emotion
• Idea that anyone could be saved, anyone could
  preach
• Participation of many social groups
  (African-Americans, women, slaves, etc.)
• Influenced by Alex de Tocquevilles Democracy
  in America
• . there is no country in the world where the
  Christian religion retains a greater influence
  over the souls of men than in America and there
  can be no greater proof of its utility and of its
  conformity to human nature than that its
  influence is powerfully felt over the most
  enlightened and free nation of the earth.

5
Camp Meetings

• Multi-denominational gatherings that demonstrate
  fanatical fervor about God
• Fiery speakers taught that the return of Jesus
  was imminent
• Speakers were not college educated and opposed
  the orthodox customs why? Popularity?
• Methodism fastest growing denomination 1800
  70,000 1844 over 1 million
• Charles G. Finney Father of American Revivalism

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New York

• Burned over District
• Charles Finney, the father of American
  revivalism, who explained in the 1870's that the
  region had seen so many revivals in the previous
  decades that it no longer had any more fuel
  (the unconverted) to burn (convert).
• Western New York
• Welcomed women into active public life in the
  church
• Rejected Pre-destination human effort in
  salvation

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Religious Sects

• Unitarians

• Universalists

• God as ONE person contrast with Trinitarians
  (God as 3 persons)
• Jesus was a Prophet not necessarily the Son of
  God as a God
• Did not believe in the concept of original sin
  that man was inherently sinful from the dawn of
  time

• No belief in Hell
• Living truth is much more important than
  national, cultural, or religious boundaries
• All religions are true and are therefore worthy
  of dignity and respect
• Uphold principles, ethics, and actions that
  promote living right

8
Mormonism

• Joseph Smith grew up in the Burned Over
  District in NY and continued to question
  traditional religious customs and orthodoxy
• Angel led him to interpret a book of revelation
  and Book of Mormon
• Seen by his followers as a prophet
• Belief that Jesus and God are two separate beings
  differed from orthodox Christianity
  Trinitarianism
• Persecuted because of polygamy moved the church
  to Illinois Joseph Smith killed
• Brigham Young moves the church and followers to
  UTAH

9
Religious Utopian Societies

• Utopia- a community designed to create a perfect
  society -- idea formed by Sir Thomas More
• Often wanted to bring the kingdom of heaven into
  reality on earth
• Shakers- stressed simple, communal lifestyle
  (shared everything), equality, celibacy (What
  could be 1 problem with this?)
• Mormons- founded by Joseph Smith, practiced
  plural marriage, mob in Carthage, IL. killed
  Smith in 1844.
• Moved west under Brigham Young to Great Salt Lake
  Valley

10
Oneida in New York

• Founded by John Humphrey Noyes
• Believed in equality of men and women
• Practices
• Complex marriage and communal child-rearing
• Birth control through male continence ascending
  fellowship (older people with younger)
• Stirpiculture- selective breeding to produce
  better offspring
• How might this have been liberating for women?
  How might it have been oppressive? Downfall?

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New Harmony in Indiana

• Goal a planned environment will improve social
  behavior and misery will eventually banish
• Based on SOCIALISM / COLLECTIVISM and COMMUNISM
• Equal distribution of wealth
• Cooperation NOT Competition

12
Brook Farm in Massachusetts

• Founded near Boston by Transcendentalists
  commune with nature / protest technology
• Founded for people to personally connect with
  divinity (God) rather than participate in
  organized ritualistic religion
• Intellectuals such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and
  Nathaniel Hawthorne

13
Shakers

• Founded by Mother Ann Lee
• Sex was the main cause of EVIL in the world
• Named because of convulsive dances
• Isolationist communities based of separation of
  genders and equality
• Population growth due to converts and adoption of
  orphans

14
Transcendentalists

• Romantic movement, early 1800s
• Protest movement
• Emphasized importance of individual, natural
  simplicity, spiritual renewal
• Belief that people could transcend (rise above)
  material things in life
• Emerson- Self Reliance -- rely on oneself
  instead of new technology / commune with nature
• Henry David Thoreau- Walden (about his time
  living in the woods, getting away from
  technology, big cities), Civil Disobedience --
  PROTEST

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Poem of Emily Dickinson

• Some keep the Sabbath going to church
• I keep it staying at home,
• With a bobolink (bird) for a chorister (choir),
• And an orchard for a dome.
• How does this reflect the themes of
  transcendentalists?

16
Literary Reform

• Emily Dickinson emotional poetry
• James Fennimore Cooper The Last of the Mohicans
  American Historical Fiction
• Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter
• Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass
• Edgar Allan Poe The Raven
• American authors writing distinctly American
  stories and poems about American culture

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Hudson River School

• Philosophy or school of thought People
  sharing ideas about ART
• Artists painting or depicting distinctly American
  landscapes, figures, CULTURE!!!
• Thomas Cole / Asher Durand

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Other Reform Movements

• Temperance (persuade people to temper or limit
  alcohol consumption)
• Education- Horace Mann, common schools, uniform
  curriculum teacher training, bigger impact in
  the North.
• Mentally ill- Dorothea Dix advocated better
  treatment, separation of criminals, mentally ill
• Prisons- try to rehabilitate, penitentiary new
  institution
• Abolitionism attempt to rid the South of
  slavery
• Womens Rights attempt to gain the right to
  vote

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Temperance Movement

• By 1830, Americans were drinking 7 gallons of
  alcohol per person, per year on average
• Men spent too much , avoided their families,
  and beat their wives (domestic violence)
• Lyman Beecher and Protestant churches formed
  Temperance societies
• Economic PANIC of 1837 caused workers to question
  their drinking habits
• Womens Christian Temperance Union protest
  organization that pushes for legalizing morality
  (outlawing drinking)

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Temperance
21
The Bar of Destruction Thomas Nast Original
Date March 21, 1874
Source http//www.harpweek.com/09Cartoon/BrowseBy
DateCartoon.asp?MonthMarchDate21
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Reforms

• In each small group cooperatively investigate and
  discuss who were the leaders of these movements
  and how did their reforms change / shape American
  society. Lets look at each reform area and
  discuss one / two that is found on the next
  several slides. This will give each group an idea
  of what is expected after your chart is
  completely filled out think about todays reforms
  in your particular area.

23
Womens Rights / Seneca Falls Convention

• Womens Movement Seneca Falls Convention NY-
  call for suffrage- Lucretia Mott/ Elizabeth Cady
  Stanton / Sojourner Truth
• Declaration of Sentiments many men respected
  the drafting of this document but conventional
  thinking would not permit women the right to vote
• We hold these truths to be self-evident that
  all men and women are created equal
• 1900s Womens Rights Carrie Chapman Catt/
  Susan B. Anthony culminated in 19th Amendment
  (womens suffrage in 1920)

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Seneca Falls Convention- Lucretia Mott/ Elizabeth
Cady Stanton
25

• Caption "Get Thee Behind Me, (Mrs.) Satan!
• Wife (with heavy burden). "I'd rather travel the
  hardest path of matrimony than follow your
  footsteps."
• Satan Victoria Woodhull, an advocate of womens
  rights and free love, who ran for President in
  1872.

Date February 17, 1872
Source http//www.harpweek.com/09Cartoon/BrowseB
yDateCartoon.asp?MonthFebruaryDate17
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Abolitionist Movement

• Abolition Freedom from slavery
• American Colonization Society wanted free
  slaves then move ALL blacks to Liberia (in
  Africa) / didnt work slaves are from America
• American Anti-Slavery Society (1833-1870)
  founded by Wm. Lloyd Garrison believed in
  IMMEDIATE abolition of the slave / slave owners
  are sinful / criticized the A.C.S. (above)
• Lucy Stone / womens rights / maiden name /
  divorce rights etc.

27
Fredrick Douglass

• American abolitionist, author, womens suffragist
• Wrote and published The North Star
• Purchased his freedom and became an ardent
  abolitionist
• In thinking of America, I sometimes find myself
  admiring her bright blue sky-her grand old
  woods-her fertile fields-her beautiful rivers-her
  mighty lakes and star-crowned mountains. But my
  rapture is soon checked when I remember that all
  is cursed with the infernal spirit of
  slave-holding and wrong When I remember that
  with the waters of her noblest rivers, the tears
  of my brethren are borne to the ocean,
  disregarded and forgotten That her most fertile
  fields drink daily of the warm blood of my
  outraged sisters, I am filled with unutterable
  loathing.

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Believed in IMMEDIATE ABOLITION NOT GRADUALISM
William Lloyd Garrison The Liberator
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Sarah and Angelina Grimke-

• Abolitionists who moved from South Carolina
  (daughters of slave owner) to the North to
  promote the abolitionist movement
• AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY- END SLAVERY
  HEADED BY WILLIAM LLYOD GARRISON

30
Education Reform

• Horace Mann- (Massachusetts) pressed for more
  public education and helped create a state board
  of education in 1837.
• He was secretary of the new board he doubled
  teacher salaries, opened 50 new high schools, and
  establish training schools for teachers.
• 1st State School Superintendent
• Pushed COMPULSORY EDUCATION

31
Dorothea Dix

• Led Sunday school classes for prisoners.
• Saw the mentally ill in the prisons and saw how
  neglected they were as they lay on the floor.
• Started the crusade to improve the conditions for
  the mentally ill- hospital.

32
Elizabeth Blackwell

• First woman to earn a medical degree.

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Nativism Feelings of anger and hatred toward
immigrants

• Know Nothing Party political party aimed at
  promoting native American views and ideals.
  Fear of Irish Catholics helped fuel this party.
• Most of their program goals and aims were NOT
  achieved.
• Wanted increased naturalization requirements.

34
Election of 1840

• William Henry Harrison (Whig) vs. Martin Van
  Buren (Democrat) LOG CABIN ELECTION
• Whigs (Party formed chiefly out of dislike for
  Jackson viewed him as a king)
• Tippecanoe and Tyler Too Harrison and Tyler
  promoted the idea of the common man just as
  Jackson had before them (WON)
• E.C. Booze distilled hard apple cider and
  poured them in log cabin bottles to pass out at
  political functions BOOZE

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Tippecanoe and Tyler Too
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Spirit of Reform

• You are to participate and find changes/ reforms
  in American history from 1828- 1845 in the areas
  listed on the prior slide. Each cooperative group
  have a specific area to show the reforms. Follow
  the flow charts in each area. Then relate these
  changes to the changes of today (EX. Changes
  today in the area of education. )

37
Spirit of Reform

• Looking Forward The United States in 1850
  Manifest Destiny brought western lands into the
  country which helped bring about sectionalism
  which was apart of the reforms Americans had to
  dealt with in society. (abolition)

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Manifest Destiny- John OSullivan- caused
sectionalism- how would the nation deal with the
issue of slavery as it spreads westward. Painting
by John Gast- The American Progress.
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Spirit of Reforms

• VOCABULARY Standard Course of Study reform,
  transcendentalism, utopia, romanticism,
  nativists, Second Great Awakening, abolition,
  emancipation.
• Group activity help one another complete the
  assignment vocabulary on Jacksonian Democracy
  and Reforms. Work with one another in your groups
  to complete each term and discuss the terms while
  you define themthis will be graded.