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• Discuss what led many Americans to try to improve society in the 1800s.
• Identify the social problems that reformers tried to solve.
• Summarize the improvements in public education in the 1800s.
Objectives
Terms and People
• social reform – organized attempts to improve conditions of life
• predestination – the idea that God decided the fate of a person’s soul even before birth
• Charles Finney – a preacher of the Second Great Awakening who held many revivals
• revival – a huge outdoor religious meeting
• temperance movement – an organized effort to end alcohol abuse and the problems created by it
Terms and People (continued)
• prohibition – a total ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol
• Dorothea Dix – a teacher who worked for prison reform and the creation of separate institutions to treat those with mental illnesses
• public schools – free schools supported by taxes
• Horace Mann – a leader in education reform who believed that public financing of education was essential for democracy to work
How did key people bring about reform in education and society?
The democratic spirit of the Age of Jackson combined with religious ideas inspired people to improve American society.
Americans worked to convince others to worship God, to broaden legal rights, to reform public education and prisons, and to end alcohol abuse.
In the 1830s, many Americans became interested in social reform.
The expansion of democracy in the Age of Jackson encouraged reform.
Most states dropped property requirements for voting, so more white American men were able to vote.
In the spirit of Jacksonian democracy, some people worked to make the political system even fairer.
• Some reformers supported the idea that all men should be able to vote and hold office.
• Others supported greater legal rights for women.
• Others spoke out against slavery.
In the early 1800s, a movement called the Second Great Awakening began.
In colonial days, many American Protestants believed in predestination.
During the Second Great Awakening, ministers preached the “doctrine of free will.”
The most important of this new generation of preachers was Charles Finney, who held the first of many religious revivals in 1826.
Finney and other ministers of different faiths hoped that the emotion of revivals would touch everyone who attended.
They tried to convert sinners and urged people to reform their lives.
The doctrine of free will is reflected in this symbolic painting, The Way of Good and Evil, which shows two paths a person can take—one leading to heaven and one to hell.
The doctrine of free will encouraged reform in America.
. . . they could improve society as well.
People came to believe that if they could improve themselves . . . society
individuals
The desire to create a more perfect society spurred some reformers to found utopian communities.
In 1825, Robert Owen founded a utopian community called New Harmony in Indiana.
Like other utopian communities, it did not last long.
Many reformers, especially women, supported the temperance movement.
During this time, alcohol was widely used in the United States, and alcohol abuse reached epidemic proportions.
They pointed out that many women and children suffered at the hands of husbands and fathers who drank too much.
AlcoholOthers called for prohibition, a total ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol.
Most reformers favored temperance, or moderation in drinking.
During the 1850s, nine states passed laws banning the sale of alcohol, but the movement was interrupted by the Civil War.
Many people in U.S. prisons were debtors, not criminals, and they had to stay imprisoned until they could pay off their debts.
Other reformers sought to improve the nation’s harsh, abusive prison system.
Social reformers, including Dorothea Dix, began investigating conditions in jails.
Dix worked to:
• convince state legislatures to build new, clean, more humane prisons.
• change the law so debtors were no longer sent to prison.
• convince state legislatures to open new institutions to treat people with mental illnesses instead of sending them to prison.
The educational system also attracted reformers during this period.
Many Americans could not
read or write.
Newly eligible voters needed to
be informed.
Poor children could not afford private tutors.
Immigrants needed to assimilate.
Reasons for Educational
Reform
• Southern states prohibited teaching African Americans to read.
African Americans faced additional challenges in pursuing an education.
• Northern states seldom admitted African American children to white schools.
Mann, who headed the state board of education in 1837, convinced the state to:
Horace Mann of Massachusetts argued for public financing of education.
• create colleges to train teachers.
• raise the salary of teachers.
• lengthen the school year.
It wasn’t until 1918 that every state in the Union passed compulsory education laws.
By the 1850s, public schools
had gained much acceptance in the Northeast.
Southern and western states
lagged behind.
• In major northern cities, African Americans opened their own schools.
Some opportunities for African American students also arose.
• Some African Americans attended private colleges such as Harvard and Oberlin.
• In 1854, Pennsylvania opened a college for African American men.
Section Review
Know It, Show It QuizQuickTake Quiz
• Describe efforts in the North to end slavery.
• Discuss the contributions of William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and other abolitionists.
• Describe the purpose and risks of the Underground Railroad.
• Explain why many people in the North and South defended slavery.
Objectives
Terms and People
• abolitionists – reformers who wanted to abolish, or end, slavery
• William Lloyd Garrison – a Quaker who launched an abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, and cofounded the New England Anti-Slavery Society
• Frederick Douglass – a former slave who spoke out against slavery and published an antislavery newspaper, North Star
• Harriet Tubman – a former slave who helped many slaves escape via the Underground Railroad
How did abolitionists try to end slavery?
Since colonial times, some Americans had opposed slavery on religious and moral grounds.
Abolitionists tried to end slavery through the political system, the press, and non-governmental antislavery organizations.
In 1790, Pennsylvania became the first state to pass a law that gradually eliminated slavery.
A number of prominent leaders of the early republic, such as Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin, opposed slavery.
By 1804, every northern state had ended or pledged to end slavery, and Congress had banned slavery in the Northwest Territory.
The American Colonization Society, an early antislavery organization, wanted to free slaves gradually and transport them to Liberia, a colony founded in 1822 on the west coast of Africa.
By 1830, only about 1,400 African Americans had migrated to Liberia.
The colonization movement did not work because most enslaved people had grown up in the U.S. and did not want to leave.
By the mid-1800s, a small but growing number of people were abolitionists who called for an immediate end to slavery.
The Second Great Awakening inspired further opposition to slavery.
David Walker, a northern African American, published a pamphlet called Appeal: to the Coloured Citizens of the World.
He urged enslaved people to rebel, if
necessary, to gain their freedom.
In 1831, Garrison launched an abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, which folded only after slavery had ended.
William Lloyd Garrison opposed the use of violence to end slavery because he was a Quaker.
Yet, he was more radical than most, because he thought all African Americans should have full political rights.
Garrison cofounded the New England Anti-Slavery Society—which later became the American Anti-Slavery Society—whose members included:
• Minister Theodore Weld, a pupil of Charles Finney
• Sarah and Angelina Grimke, daughters of a South Carolina slaveholder
• In 1839, he proposed a constitutional amendment that would ban slavery in any new state joining the Union, but the amendment was not passed.
• In 1841, Adams defended captive Africans who had seized the slave ship Amistad and helped them regain their freedom.
Former president John Quincy Adams, now a congressman, also supported the abolitionists.
One of the most powerful speakers for abolitionism was Frederick Douglass.
A former slave, Douglass escaped to the North and risked recapture by speaking at antislavery rallies.
Douglass also published his own antislavery newspaper, the North Star.
Some abolitionists helped people escape from slavery via the Underground Railroad.
The Underground Railroad was a network of people who secretly helped slaves reach freedom.
Working for the Underground Railroad was illegal and dangerous, and people risked their lives to help runaway slaves.
As many as 50,000 African Americans escaped from slavery to freedom in the North or in Canada via the Underground Railroad.
The fugitive slaves were led by “conductors.”
They stopped at “stations,” which were often abolitionists’ houses, or churches or caves.
Supporters donated clothing, food, and money.
Harriet Tubman was the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad.
She personally helped more than 300 slaves escape to freedom.
Slave owners tried to stop her, offering a $40,000 reward for her capture, but she was never caught.
Abolitionists faced powerful obstacles in the North as well as in the South.
Many northerners relied on cotton produced in the south by slave
labor.
Northerners also feared that freed slaves would take
their jobs.
• The state of Georgia offered a $5,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of William Lloyd Garrison for libel.
Southerners in Congress won passage of a “gag rule” that blocked discussion of antislavery petitions.
• Northern supporters of slavery sometimes attacked people at antislavery meetings.
Defenders of slavery began to act with greater force.
Section Review
Know It, Show It QuizQuickTake Quiz
• Explain how the women’s suffrage movement began.
• Describe the goals of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848.
• Identify the new opportunities that women gained in the mid-1800s.
Objectives
Terms and People
• Sojourner Truth – a former slave who spoke out for the rights of African Americans and women
• Lucretia Mott – a Quaker and an abolitionist with considerable organizing and public speaking skills
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton – an abolitionist who was a co-organizer of the Seneca Falls Convention for women’s rights; author of the Declaration of Sentiments; co-founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association
Terms and People (continued)
• women’s suffrage – the right of women to vote
• women’s rights movement – an organized effort to improve the political, legal, and economic status of women in American society
• Susan B. Anthony – a close ally of Stanton’s; co-founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association
How did the women’s suffrage movement begin?
Women participated in abolitionism and other reform efforts.
Some women activists also began to focus on equal rights for themselves.
Status of Women in the Early 1800s
• Women could not vote, hold public office, or serve on juries
• Few woman received any level of higher education.
• Women could not work in most trades of professions.
• Women were paid less than men doing the same jobs.
• Married women lost legal control of any money or property they owned before marriage to their husbands.
Most Americans believed that a woman’s place was in the home.
Women who were active in social reform movements believed that they could make valuable contributions to American society.
Sojourner Truth was one of these women.
She inspired the large crowds who came to hear her speak in favor of political rights for women and enslaved African Americans.
Lucretia Mott was a Quaker and an abolitionist who had considerable organizing and public speaking skills.
In 1840, Mott traveled to London to attend an international antislavery convention.
There, she met another abolitionist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Mott and Stanton were told that women could not take an active role in the London convention.
Furious, they decided to hold a convention to advance women’s rights.
The Seneca Falls Convention
Time • Summer of 1848
Place • Seneca Falls, New York
Participants • More than 300 women and men attended.
Declaration of Sentiments
• Stanton wrote a Declaration of Sentiments which demanded full equality for women in every area of life.
• Stanton’s argument was the beginning of the long battle for women’s suffrage.
Not everyone wanted to include women’s suffrage in the Declaration of Sentiments, but in the end the convention voted to include it.
In 1869, Stanton and Susan B. Anthony founded the National Woman Suffrage Association.
Women did not win the vote
nationally until 1920.
• In 1860, New York passed a law protecting women’s property rights, and many other states followed.
However, the women’s rights movement did win some victories in the nineteenth century:
• Some states gave married women the right to keep their wages.
The women’s rights movement focused much attention on education for girls and women.
In the early 1800s, women were seldom given the opportunity to study advanced subjects like math and science.
Even before the Seneca Falls Convention, reformers worked to give girls opportunities for better education.
Education for Girls and Women
The Troy Female Seminary
• In 1821, Emma Willard opened an academy in Troy, New York.
• It soon became the model for girls’ schools everywhere.
• Many female reformers of this era attended Willard’s school.
Mount Holyoke Female Seminary
• In 1837, Mary Lyon opened the first college for women in the United States.
• Mount Holyoke showed that women could learn advanced subjects such as Latin, geometry, and chemistry.
More schools began hiring women teachers who had been trained at one of the new schools for women.
American society came to accept that girls could be educated and that women could be teachers.
Career Trailblazers
Margaret Fuller
• Fuller was a journalist, scholar, and literary critic.
• In 1845, Fuller published an influential book, Women in the Nineteenth Century.
Elizabeth Blackwell
• In 1849, Blackwell graduated first in her class at Geneva Medical College in New York, becoming the first woman to graduate from an American medical school.
Maria Mitchell
• Mitchell, an astronomer, was the first professor hired at Vassar College and the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1848.
EffectsCauses of the
Women’s Rights Movement
• Women lacked many of the rights had by men.
• Many abolitionists believed that women also deserved equal rights.
• The Seneca Falls Convention launched the women’s rights movement.
• Suffragists demanded that women have the right to vote.
• States passed laws to protect women’s property rights.
• Private schools for women were opened; some colleges accepted women.
• Women entered careers once closed to them.
Section Review
Know It, Show It QuizQuickTake Quiz
• Identify the common themes in American literature and art in the mid-1800s.
• Describe the flowering of American literature in the mid-1800s.
• Discuss the development of unique American styles in art and music.
Objectives
Terms and People
• transcendentalism – a movement that sought to explore the relationship between humans and nature through emotions rather than through reason
• Ralph Waldo Emerson – the leading transcendentalist who wrote popular speeches and essays
• individualism – the unique importance of each individual
Terms and People (continued)
• Henry David Thoreau – a transcendentalist who wrote Walden
• civil disobedience – the idea that people should peacefully disobey unjust laws if their conscience demands it
• Herman Melville – author of Moby-Dick
• Nathaniel Hawthorne – author of The Scarlet Letter
• Louisa May Alcott – author of Little Women
How did American literature and art have an impact on American life?Americans were divided by sectionalism and slavery, but they were united by nationalism and an optimistic belief in the possibility of improving themselves and society.
These ideas were expressed in and reinforced by American art and literature.
Before 1800, American writers and artists modeled their work on European styles.
However, by the mid-1800s, American writers and artists had begun to develop styles that reflected American optimism and energy.
Their work explored subjects that were uniquely American.
They used formal language and referred to Greek and Roman myths.
Washington Irving
Stories • “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
• “Rip Van Winkle”
Famous character
• Rip Van Winkle was a lazy farmer who slept through the American Revolution.
Inspiration • Dutch history of New York
James Fenimore Cooper
Novels • The Deerslayer
• The Last of the Mohicans
Famous character
• Natty Bumppo was a frontiersman who kept moving westward and criticized the destruction of nature.
Impact • Cooper’s novels helped American literature gain popularity in Europe.
By the early 1800s, a new artistic movement called Romanticism took shape in Europe.
A small but influential group of writers and thinkers in New England developed an American form of Romanticism.
Romantics emphasized the importance of nature, emotions, and imagination.
Humans
This movement was called transcendentalism, and its goal was to transcend human reason.
Transcendentalists argued that humans should pursue a close link with nature and live simply.
Nature
Humans seeking beauty, goodness, and
truth within their own souls.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the leading transcendentalist, wrote speeches and essays in which he urged Americans to:
• question the value of material wealth, and pursue higher values instead.
• rely on principles of individualism to guide their lives and improve society.
The transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau:
• spent two years living in the woods at Walden Pond, meditating on nature.
• published Walden, a book in which he urged Americans to live simply.
Like Emerson, Thoreau believed people must judge right and wrong for themselves.
He encouraged civil disobedience and once spent a night in jail for refusing to pay taxes that he felt supported slavery.
Thoreau’s ideas about civil disobedience and nonviolent protest influenced later leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr.
Two later novelists, who were both fascinated by psychology and extreme emotions, began to change the tone of American literature.
Herman Melville’s 1851 novel, Moby-Dick, told the story of a sea captain who destroys himself during an obsessive search for a white whale.
Today, Moby-Dick is
considered one of the greatest American
novels.
Nathaniel Hawthorne often used historical themes to explore the dark side of the mind.
• In his 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter, a young Puritan minister is destroyed by secret guilt.
• Hawthorne—who was descended from the Massachusetts Puritans—paints a grim picture of Puritan life.
Louisa May Alcott presented a gentler view of New England life in her 1868 novel Little Women, a story about four sisters growing up together.
• The novel’s main character, Jo March, was one of the first young American heroines portrayed as a real person rather than as a shining ideal.
Poets of Democracy
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Longfellow based poems, such as “Paul Revere’s Ride,” on American history.
• “The Song of Hiawatha” was one of the first works to honor Native Americans.
Walt Whitman • In books of poetry such as his 1855 Leaves of Grass, Whitman is seen as the poet who best expresses the democratic American spirit.
Frances Watkins Harper and John Greenleaf Whittier
• Harper and Whittier wrote poems that described and condemned the evils of slavery.
After 1820, American artists turned away from European themes and focused on American landscapes.
Kindred Spirits, Asher B. Durand
The Hudson River School was a group of artists who painted scenes of the Hudson River valley.
Thomas Cole and other painters of this school sought to stir emotions with the beauty of nature.
Other American painters were inspired by the daily lives of common Americans.
• George Caleb Bingham painted scenes of life on the great rivers.
• George Catlin captured the ways and dignity of Native Americans.
Just as art and literature shifted away from European themes, American songs also drifted away from English, Irish, or Scottish tunes.
Over time, there emerged a wide variety of new American songs such as work songs and spirituals.
The most popular American songwriter of the 1800s was Stephen Foster, composer of “Camptown Races.”
Section Review
Know It, Show It QuizQuickTake Quiz
