AMERICA’S SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

Section 1Chapter 13

FOCUS QUESTIONS How did religion affect Americans

during the Second Great Awakening? What were the transcendentalists’

views of American society? What were some ideas of the romantic

movement?

THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING Starting in the 1790’s the Christian renewal

known as the Second Great Awaking began Charles Grandison Finney was an important

leader of the second great awakening He was a lawyer that decided to leave his career

and preach around the country He preached that sin was avoidable and told his

converts to do good deeds He also held prayer meetings that would last for

days

THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING Minister Lyman Beecher

of Boston was angered at Finney’s message and vowed that if he attempted to come to Boston he would “fight every inch of him”

The challenges on faith drew more people to Christianity during this time (especially women and African-Americans)

TRANSCENDENTALISM AND UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES

Some New England writers and thinkers founded transcendentalism– the belief that people could transcend, or rise above, the material things in life, such as money

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau were all transcendentalists

Emerson wrote “Self-Reliance” in 1841– Americans depended too much on institutions and traditions

TRANSCENDENTALISM AND UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES

Thoreau did not trust institutions and lived alone in a small cabin in Massachusetts (wrote about the experiences living near Walden Pond)

In the 1840s some transcendentalists formed a community at Brook Farm, Massachusetts

TRANSCENDENTALISM AND UTOPIAN COMMUNITIES

It did not last long but it was an attempt at utopian communities-- tried to from a perfect society on earth

There were several utopian societies that formed around the country but they failed because they could not get their community to work well enough together

THE AMERICAN ROMANTICS Painters and writers were also shaped

by spirituality, the simple life, and nature

Romantic artists as they came to be called painted the American landscape

Thomas Cole was one such artist

THE AMERICAN ROMANTICS During the same time

the number of notable American authors grew

Ann Sophia Stephens wrote historical fiction

Nathanial Hawthorne wrote one such book entitled The Scarlet Letter which depicted Puritan life (also wrote Moby-Dick)

THE AMERICAN ROMANTICS Edgar Allan Poe

became famous for his short stories (“The Raven”)

Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman were two very famous American poet

THE AMERICAN ROMANTICS Dickinson only

published two poems anonymously during her life but after her death many poems were found in her home and published

Whitman praised both American individualism and democracy in his simple poems

FOCUS QUESTIONS How did religion affect Americans

during the Second Great Awakening? What were the transcendentalists’

views of American society? What were some ideas of the romantic

movement?