The 18th Century

The American Enlightenment

• The character of the older, more established British colonies changed almost as rapidly as that of the backcountry.

• The rapid growth of an urban cosmopolitan culture impressed 18th century commentators, and even though most American still lived on scattered farms, they had begun to participate aggressively in an exciting consumer marketplace that expanded their imaginative horizons.

• European historians often refer to the 18th century as an AGE OF REASON.

• During this period, a body of new, often radical, ideas swept through the salons and universities, altering the way that educated Europeans thought about God, nature, and society.

• This intellectual movement was called THE ENLIGHTENMENT.

• The work of Europe’s greatest minds.

• On the whole, the American Enlightenment was rather tame compared to Europe. For a while the colonists welcomed experimental science, they defended the tenants of traditional Christianity.

• The Great Awakening:

• How did the Great Awakening transform the religious culture of colonial America?

• The Great Awakening brought a new form of evangelical religion to ordinary colonial Americans.

• It emphasized personal salvation through a “New Birth” and membership in a large community of believers.

• Itinerant preachers, such as George Whitefield, drew huge crowds throughout the colonies.

• Other ministers followed Whitefield, inviting ordinary Americans to question traditional religious authorities

The Great Awakening

• A sudden spontaneous series of Protestant revivals in the mid-17th century, known as the Great Awakening, had a profound impact on the lives of ordinary people.

• This new, highly personal appeal to a “new Birth” in Christ caused men and women of all backgrounds to rethink basic assumptions about the church and state, institutions and society.

• Whatever the origins, the seeds of the Great Awakening were generally sown on fertile ground.

• In the early decades of the 18th century, many Americans- but especially New Englanders- complained the organized religion had lost vitality.

• The looked back at Winthrop’s generation w/ nostalgia.

Jonathan Edwards

• The Great Awakening arrived unexpectedly in Northampton, a small farm county in MA…sparked by Jonathan Edwards, the local Congregational minister.

• He accepted the traditional teachings of John Calvin – an omnipotent God – damnation – “SINNERS IN THE HANDS OF AN ANGRY GOD”

• Edwards did not have the dynamic personality of George Whitefield.

• George Whitefield – a young, inspiring preacher from England – who toured the colonies from MA to GA.

• A very effective public speaker

• A very good friend to Benjamin Franklin

• Both Franklin and Whitefield came to symbolize the powerful cultural forces that were transforming the New World.

Itinerant Preachers

• Traveling revivalist ministers of the Great Awakening movement. These preachers spread revivalism throughout America.

• Enlightenment thinkers shared three basic assumptions: Philosophers of the Enlightenment replaced the concept of original sin with a much more optimistic view of human nature.

• A benevolent God, having set the universe in motion (DEISM), gave human beings the power of reason to enable them to comprehend the orderly workings of his creations. Everything, even human society, operated according to these mechanical rules.

• The responsibility of right-thinking men and women, therefore, was to make certain that institution such as the church and state conformed to self-evident natural laws.

• It was possible to achieve perfection in this world. In fact, human suffering had come about only because people had lost touch with the fundamental insights of reason

• For many Americans, the appeal of the Enlightenment was its focus on a search of useful knowledge, ideas, and inventions that would improve the quality of human life. What mattered was practical experimentation.

• The Enlightenment spawned scores of earnest scientific thinkers, people who dutifully recorded changes in temperature, the appearance of strange plants and animals, and the details of astronomic phenomena.

• While these 18th century Americans made few earth-shattering discoveries, they did encourage their countrymen, especially those who attended college to apply reason to the solution of social and political problems.

Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790

• Absorbed the new cosmopolitan culture• A genuine philosophe ( a person of reason

and science• The Autobiography• Junto• Promoted the spread of reason

Benjamin Franklin

• Exemplified the scientific curiosity and search for practical knowledge characteristic of Enlightenment thinkers of the 18th century.

• Franklin’s experiments on electricity became world famous and inspired many others to study the effects of the strange force.

How Did European ideas affect the character of 18th Century American Life?

• During the Enlightenment, educated Europeans and American colonists, like Benjamin Franklin, brought scientific reason to the study of religion, nature, and society.

• By mid-century, economic growth sparked a consumer revolution that introduced colonists to an unprecedented array of imported manufactured items.

• New ideas and dew goods helped integrate the American colonies into mainstream British culture.