Ferment of Reform and Culture

Chapter 15

Reviving Religion

• Religion was still popular, but not as strict as colonial churches– Rationalist ideas soften religious zeal; question orthodoxy

• The Age of Reason – Thomas Paine– Argued churches enslave mankind and are run for profit (Marx?)

• Deism– Emphasized reason and science to understand universe and Supreme

Being’s relationship with it– Knowable universe and human capacity for morality

• Unitarianism– Spun off from Deism– Denied divinity of God; believe in free will; salvation through good works;

God is loving creator – not vengeful, stern God

Second Great Awakening• Americans saw themselves as an example for the world to

follow– Wanted to create ideal society

• Conservative response to liberal reforms• Relied on emotional evangelical spirit. • Camp “revival” meetings

– Mass meetings where people found Jesus. Inspired missionary and reform movements

– Fire and brimstone speeches• Peter Cartwright led Methodist revival• Charles Finney

– Had huge crowds and brought back traditional views of religion

– Denounced alcohol and slavery – encouraged women to pray and participate in church

– Women formed backbone of reform movements• Millerites – predicted end of world inspiring reform• Second Great Awakening increased class and social divisions

Charles Finney

Mormons Church of Latter Day Saints

HILL CUMORAH AND MANCHESTER

Founder:

Joseph Smith• Joseph Smith claimed to find secret writings of Bible in upstate

New York (Book of Mormon)– Challenged traditional beliefs with polygamy, economic

cooperation, shared property• Mormons were persecuted for beliefs forced to move to Illinois

– Voted as a bloc and formed militia to defend selves• Smith was killed by a mob in 1844• Brigham Young

– Led Mormons to Salt Lake City Utah to avoid persecution– Developed successful theocracy– Encouraged to marry young and have lots of kids

• Utah becomes state in 1896

Education• Wealthy conservative Americans opposed free public education because it might

increase poor influence over political system

• Eventually taxes were used to fund education to help insure stability of democracy– Thomas Jefferson – a civilized nation that was both ignorant and free “never was

and never will be”

• Early education was weak and focused on obedience and discipline

• Universities– Land grant state universities created in early 1800s (UNC, UVA)– Coeducational universities were rare – belief men and women thought

differently– Attracted people to towns– Technical schools also developed

• Libraries, magazines and lectures also spread education

Education

• Believed literacy was key to democracy• Public Education

– Horace Mann• Leader of education reform movement• Argued for free public education

• Horace Mann– Educational reformer campaigned for

effective education, paying teachers and better curriculum

• Noah Webster– Wrote a definitive reading textbook and the

first American dictionary• William McGuffey

– Published elementary school reader that emphasized morality, patriotism and idealism

Education of Women• Many were only taught household skills

– Some feared too much learning could hurt women or make them not feminine

• By 1840 most women could read and write

• 1821 Troy Female Seminary created by Emma Willard

• 1836 Wesleyan College in Georgia first women’s college

• 1837 Oberlin College in Ohio first coeducational college

• 1837 Mount Holyoke College

1925

Oberlin College

Reformer Movements

• Inspired by Second Great Awakening and rise of middle class.– Women played major role in reforms

• Many reforms sought to protect traditional values• Prison reform

– First national leader was Louis Dwight, also Francis Lieber, Samuel Gridley Howe and Dorothea Dix were also influential

– Push for prisons to reform, not just punish– Debtors prisons gradually disappeared as laborers won right

to vote• Mentally Ill

– Many prisoned and chained; treated like animals or as possessed

– Dorothea Dix• Argued for people to treat mentally ill medically and

humanely– Dr. John Galt 1841

• Eastern Lunatic Asylum – first psychiatric hospital• Anti War Movements

– American Peace Society (1828) by William Ladd

Temperance

• American Temperance Society 1826 created to stop people from drinking– Used pictures, postcards,

lectures to spread message• Ten Nights in a Barroom and What

I Saw There (1854)– novel that described problems

with alcohol abuse• Maine Law of 1851 – Neal Dow

– First law to prohibit manufacture or sale of liquor

– Other states followed

Women’s Rights• Women denied legal rights, were treated as minors, could be

beaten, but treated better than in Europe– Women seen as artistic, refined, moral, keepers of society,

responsible for instilling republican virtue– Home was focal point of woman’s world (cult of domesticity)

• Industrial Revolution allowed women to work and interact outside of home– Women became active leaders in education and reform

movements

• Seneca Falls Convention 1848– Led by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton– Demanded equal rights and right to vote (suffrage)– Declared all men and women are equal

• Sojourner Truth (former slave) and Susan B Anthony were leaders of women’s movement as well

• Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was first female doctor• Sara and Angelina Grimke led abolition movement

Susan B Anthony

Sojourner Truth

Utopians• Communities where work and property was shared

(communitarian, communist, cooperative)– Eliminate divisions of wealth, therefore eliminate

cause of conflict

• Robert Owens, factory owner– Created Harmony Indiana in 1825– Tried to prove can make a profit while treating

workers well

• Brook Farm Massachusetts 1841– Focused on transcendentalism

• Oneida Community New York in 1848– Founded by John Humphrey Noyes– Focus on suppression of selfishness to lead to

happiness– Practiced free love, birth control and eugenics

(superior breeding)• Most societies eventually fail

Science and Art• Early American scientific

advancements were improvements on European ideas

• Famous scientists:– Benjamin Sillman – Chemistry– Louis Agassiz – Biology– Asa Gray – Botany– John Audubon Birds of America.

Audubon Society created for protection of birds

• Medical knowledge was primitive; home remedies and fads popular

• Greek revival architecture became popular in 1820s

• Painting was limited by lack of supporters and Puritan ideals– Gilbert Stuart became famous

for portraits– Charles Willson Peale painted

portraits of Washington– John Trumbull painted

Revolutionary war themes

• Literature– Most early writing was practical or political ideology– Literature spawns from nationalism of War of 1812– Washington Irving

• Knickerbockers History of New York (1809)• “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

– James Fenimore Cooper• Last of the Mohicans• Leatherstocking Tales with Natty Bummpo

Transcendentalists• Believed people needed to understand themselves

– Truths “transcend” human understanding and senses– Cannot be discovered through observation alone– Strong emphasis on individualism and self reliance

• Ralph Waldo Emerson– Unitarian minister, poet and philosopher – “American Scholar” Emerson argued for unique American

advancements in literature and philosophy• Henry David Thoreau

– Lived on Walden Pond– Wrote Walden: Or Life in the Woods (1854) and Essay on the

Duty of Civil Disobedience• Inspired Gandhi, MLK and others

– Believed in importance of meditation and self reflection– Argued against slavery

• Walt Whitman– Leaves of Grass (1855)– Became known as “Poet Laureate for Democracy” for his

unconventional styles and subjects

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Literature• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

– Popular American poet– “Evangeline”, “The Song of

Hiawatha”

• John Greenleaf Whittier– Used poetry to argue against

slavery– Poet of human freedom and

morality

• James Russell Lowell– Poet, essayist, critic, editor– Wrote Biglow Papers – political

satire about Mexican War

• Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes– Medical professor and poet

• Louisa may Alcott– Wrote Little Women

• Emily Dickinson– Poet focused on spare language

on themes of nature, death, love and immortality

• Edgar Allen Poe– Father of detective and horror

novels– “The Raven”, “The Fall of the

House of Usher”

• Nathaniel Hawthorne– Scarlet Letter– Examines psychological effects of

sin

• Herman Melville– Moby Dick – allegory of good and

evil