Chapter 11: Society, Culture, and Reform 1820-1860
1. Religion: The Second Great Awakening
a. New York
i. 1823- Presbyterian Charles G. Finney started revivals
1. Appealed to emotions, fear of damnation, free to be saved through hard work, middle-class
2. “burned over district” “hell and brimstone” revivals
b. Baptists and Methodists
i. South, western frontier
ii. Circuit preachers- Peter Cartwright, nomad preachers
iii. 1850- became largest protestant denominations in country
c. Millennialism
i. Based on idea world was going to end w/ 2nd coming of Christ
ii. Preacher William Miller gained followers, said was going to happen on Oct. 21, 1844.
iii. Would continue as Seventh-Day Adventists
d. Mormons
i. Aka Church of Latter Day Saints, Founded by Joseph Smith in 1830.
1. Based on book of Scripture
a. Connection b/w Nat. Ams and Lost tribes of Isreal
2. NY, OH, MS, IL, murdered by mob
ii. New Zion
1. Brigham Young
a. W. frontier, Salt Lake UT
e. Only in Northern States from MA westward to OH it had a sig. role in social reform.
2. Culture: Ideas, The Arts, and Literature
a. The Transcendentalists
i. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
1. Individualistic mood
2. 1837 address @ Harvard emoked nat’l spirit, don’t copy Euros, American culture instead
3. Northener, leading critic of slavery
ii. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
1. Concord, MA (Emerson too)
2. Two year experiment- lived by himself outside down in woods
a. Discover essential truths about life and universe
i. Walden, 1854
b. “On Civil Disobedience”
i. Nonviolent protest
ii. Refused to pay tax that might go to war w/ Mexico (1846-1848)
iii. Inspired Ghandi and MLK
iii. Brook Farm
1. 1841, Minister George Ripley launched communal experiment in Brook Farm MA
a. Achieve “a more natural union b/w intellectual and manual labor.”
i. Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Theodore parker, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
b. 1849- Fire ended experiment
i. Remembered for artistic creativity and innovative school
b. Communal Experiments
i. Shakers
1. One of the earliest.
2. 6000 members by the 1840s
3. Kept men and women strictly separate
4. Died out by the 1900s
ii. New Harmony
1. Secular in Indiana
2. Welsh industrialist/reformer Robert Owen
3. Solve inequity and alienation caused by Ind. Rev.
4. Failed, financially, disagreements
iii. Oneida community
1. John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 in NY
2. Social and economic equality
3. Shared property and even marriage partners, attacked for it
a. As sinful as “free love”
b. Still prospered, made silverware
iv. Fourier Phalanxes
1. 1840s- Many interested inc. Horace Greeley in theories of French socialist Charles fourier
2. Advocated people share work and living arrangements in communities
c. Arts and Literature
i. Painting
1. Genre painting
2. George Caleb Bingham
3. Thomas Cole, Frederick Church
a. American landscapes
ii. Architecture
1. Classical Greek to glorify democracy
iii. Literature
1. More nationalistic
2. Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper
3. The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick
3. Reforming Society
a. Temperance
i. Alcohol targeted as the reason for social ills
ii. 18th Amendment- 1919
b. Movement for Public Asylums
i. 1820s, 1830s.
1. Hoped to be cured, better treatment
c. Mental Hospitals
i. Dorothea Dix, schoolteacher from MA
1. Mentally ill shouldn’t be w/ criminals
2. Devoted for better conditions
a. Patients began receive pro treatment at state expense
d. Public Education
i. Free common schools
1. Horace Mann (1796-1859)
a. Worked for public education, mandatory attendance by all students
2. 1840’s, support spread
ii. Moral Education
1. Mann wanted to teach children morality
2. William Holmes McGuffey
a. Textbooks
iii. Higher Educations
1. 1830’s small denominational colleges
2. Oberlin College in OH began to admit women
e. The Changing American Family and Women’s Rights Movement
i. Cult of domesticity
1. New definitions of gender roles in society
ii. Origins of the women’s rights movement
1. Esp. antislavery, hated the way men relegated them to secondary roles.
2. Sarah and Agenlina Grimke, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
iii. Seneca Falls Convention (1848)
1. First women’s rights convention in history
f. Antislavery Movement
i. American Colonization Society
1. 1822, ACS est. African American settlements
a. Not practical
b. Population grew from 1.5 to 4 million
ii. American Antislavery Society
1. 1831
a. William Lloy Garrison- The Liberator
2. 1833- founded American Antislavery Society
iii. Liberty Party
1. Political action > moral crusade
iv. Black abolitionists
1. Most outspoken critics of slavery
2. Frederick Douglas
a. 1847- The North Star
3. Harriet Tubman, David Ruggles, Sojourner Truth, William Still
v. Violent abolitionism
1. David Walker, Henry Highland Garnet
a. Northern blacks, advocated revolt against “masters”
2. 1831, VI slave Nat Turner led a revolt, 55 whites killed.
a. Whites killed 100s in retaliation
g. Other Reforms
i. American Peace Society- Abolish War
1. Mexican War
ii. Laws to prevent seamen from being flogged
iii. Dietary reforms
iv. Dress reform
v. Pseudoscience- phrenology
h. Southern Reaction to Reform
i. Were not really affected
ii. Antislavery- conspiracy