Reform%20and%20Culture%201790-1860

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Reform and Culture1790-1860

• Social Reforms and Redefining the Idea of Equality

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The Second Great Awakening

• The virtues and behavior of the expanding middle
  classa strong work ethic, frugality and
  temperancewere endorsed and legitimized.
• Its emphasis on the ability of individuals to
  amend their lives by participating in reform
  movements aimed at redressing injustice and
  alleviating suffering.

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• Created movements in Social Activism
• -abolition
• -temperance
• -suffrage
• Other movements in
• -Prison reform
• -Care for handicapped
• -Care for mentally ill

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Charles G. Finney(1792 1895)The Father of
Modern Revivalism
Salvation depends on a desire to repent -Grace
through faith alone -Leave sin behind of
perish -If not, suffer Gods wrath -Saved from
His wrath through conversion
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New York Hotbed of revival
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The Awakening of a Nation!
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The Mormons(The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints)

• Joseph Smith
• 1805 1844
• Self proclaimed prophet of God!
• He and his followers were forced to leave New
  York because of their radical beliefs
• Moved to Nauvoo, IL
• Was killed trying to escape jail

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• Brigham Young (1801 1877)
• replaces Joseph Smith
• Leads the Mormons to the
• promised land Salt Lake City, Utah
• Established the Mormon Trail

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Educational Reforms

• Religious Training ? Secular Education

MA ? always on the forefront of public
educational reform 1st state to
establish tax support for local public
schools.
By 1860 every state offered free public
education to whites. US had one of the
highest literacy rates.
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Horace Mann (1796 1859)
Father of American Education
- children were clay in the hands of
teachers and school officials -mold into a state
of perfection
- established state teacher- training
programs -women are called to be teachers
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The McGuffey Eclectic Readers

• Use religious parables to teach American values
• Teach morality and respect for others
• Teach 3 Rs Protestant ethic
• (frugality, hard work, sobriety)

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Penitentiary Reform

• Dorothea Dix
• (1802 1887)
• -advocated for treatment of mental diseases
• Late 1840s - Fought to establish a treatment
  facility for the blind, dumb and mentally insane

Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center, Maine
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1826 - American Temperance SocietyDemon Rum!

• Pledged not to drink
• Looked at the problems alcoholism was causing in
  society
• -family disruptions
• -abuse
• -family abandonment
• Called for mandatory prohibition of alcohol on a
  national level

Lyman Beecher Founder of ATS also Father
of
Harriet Beecher Stowe!
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Neal S. Dow The Maine Law 1851

• prohibited the sale of all alcoholic beverages
  except for "medicinal, mechanical or
  manufacturing purposes"
• by 1855 twelve states had joined Maine in total
  prohibition.
• "dry" states v. "wet states
• (after a huge riot by workers and immigrants it
  was repealed in 1856,
• but temperance was here to stay!)

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The Cult of Domesticity-The Role of Women!

• -A womans sphere was in the home
• (it was a refuge from the cruel world outside).
• -Her role was to civilize her husband and
  family.

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A womans place.

• 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.
• Couldnt make wills, sign a contract,
• or bring suit in court without
• her husbands permission.

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A whole new World!!!

• The GA gives women a new purpose -
• womens activism
• (improving society)
• Two key areas
• abolition and suffrage

Elizabeth Cody Stanton and Lucretia Mott
Leads to the Declaration of Sentiments and birth
of the Womens Suffrage Movement in Seneca
Falls, NY (1848)
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A Brave New World orThe Utopian Society

• The Oneida Community
• (NY 1848)

Millenarianism --gt the 2nd coming of Christ had
already occurred.
Humans were no longerobliged to follow the
moralrules of the past.
A free love regulated community (Birth of the
Hippies?? ?)
John Humphrey Noyes(1811-1886)
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Ahfinding the perfect place to live!
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George Ripley The Brook Farm

• 1841
• Equal share of the profits for equal share of
  the work
• Free society to pursue personal interests,
  education and community
• Offered adult education
• Failed after a fire in 1847

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Transcendentalism
(European Romanticism)

• Liberation from understanding and the
  cultivation of reasoning.
• Transcend the limits of intellect and allow
  the emotions, the SOUL, to create an original
  relationship with the Universe.

• 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.

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• 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.

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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.

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Ralph Waldo EmersonThe Prophet of the American
Religion"

• 1832 Nature
• All things connected to God All things are
  divine!
• God is experienced through nature
• -Later became an abolitionist
• "I think we must get rid of slavery,
• or we must get rid of freedom"

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Henry David Thoreau

• Walden Simple living in natures surroundings
• Civil Disobedience individual resistance to
  civil government in moral opposition to an unjust
  state
• An abolitionist stood against Fugitive Slave Law

That government is best which governs not at
all and when men are prepared for it, that will
be the kind of government which they will have.
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Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)Transcendentalist
Critic

• Pursuit of the ideal led
• to a distorted view of
• human nature
• and possibilities
• Suggest that guilt, sin, and evil
• are the most inherent natural
• qualities of humanity

Scarlet Letter House of the Seven Gables
"Nathaniel Hawthorne's reputation as a writer is
a very pleasing fact, because his writing is not
good for anything, and this is a tribute to the
man Emerson