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The Ferment of Reform & Culture
1790 - 1860
Reviving Religion 1850 – ¾ of population attended
church regularly Deism – very popular
Relied on reason Rejected original sin Denied Christ’s divinity but did
believe in a supreme being
Unitarian Faith Formal Puritans
God existed in only one person not in orthodox trinity
Stressed goodness of human nature Belief in free will & salvation through
good works Pictured God as a loving father Appealed to Intellectuals with
rationalism & optimism
Second Great Awakening
Started in 1800 Tidal wave of spiritual fervor resulted in:
prison, church reform, temperance cause, women’s movement, & a push for abolish of slavery
Spread through huge “camp meetings” Push to Christianize Indians Methodists & Baptists stressed personal
conversion Peter Cartwright – “circuit riders”
Charles Finney – great revival preacher
Denominational Diversity
Revival furthered fragmentation of religious faith NY with Puritans preaching “hellfire”
known as the “Burned-out District” Millerites (Adventists) – Christ would
return on 10-22-1844
Widen lines between classes & region
Split on slavery issue
A Desert Zion in Utah Joseph Smith (1830) - Mormons & The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Antagonism for polygamy, drilling militia, &
voting as a unit Brigham Young took over after Smith’s
death Led followers to Utah Grew quickly by 1850’s by birth &
immigration from Europe
Problems in Utah 1857 – Federal government sent to Utah
when Brigham Young became territorial governor No bloodshed
Polygamy prevented Utah entrance to US till 1896
Free School for a Free People
Free education Originally opposed
Related to pauperism & used by poor Gradually supported because poor could vote
Established 1825-1850 Ill taught & ill trained teachers Horace Mann fought for better schools Too expensive for many communities,
blacks were exempted from education Noah Webster – dictionary Ohioan William H. McGuffey – McGuffey’s
Readers
Higher Goals for Higher Learning
Second Great Awakening led to the building of small denominational, liberal art colleges in South & West Taught Latin, Greek, math, & moral philosophy
1st state supported university – 1795 in NC 1819 – T.Jefferson – University of Virginia
Freedom from religion & political shackles Focus on modern languages & sciences
Women in Education Women were taught that too much
education was bad Injured the feminine brain, undermined health,
& rendered a young lady unfit for marriage Women’s Schools:
Emma Willard - Tory Female Seminary (1821) Mary Lyon - Mount Holyoke Seminary (1837) Oberlin College – accepted women & men
(1837)
Thirst for Knowledge Number of libraries increased
Both private & tax-supported Lyceum lecture associations – traveling
lectures 1835 – 3,000 Science, literature, & moral philosophy (Emerson)
Magazines North American Review – 1815 Godey’s Lady’s Book’s Book – 1830 - 1898 – 1830 - 1898
An Age of Reform
Reformers attacked: (especially women) Tobacco, alcohol, profanity, transit of mail on
Sabbath, women’s rights, polygamy, medicines Optimistic for a perfect society
Naïve & ignored problems of industrialization Fought for no imprison for debt – gradually
abolished Criminal codes soften & reformatories added Mentally insane treated badly – Dorothea Dix /
classic petition of 1843 American Peace Society – 1828 / William Ladd
Demon Rum – The “Old Deluder”
Drunkenness was wide spread 1826 - American Temperance Society –
Boston Children’s clubs – “Cold Water Army” signed
pledges Used pamphlets & anti-alcohol tracts
Ten Nights in a Barroom and What I Saw There (1854)
Two lines of attack Stressed temperance – individual will to resist Legislature-removed temptation
Neal S. Dow – “Father of Prohibition” Sponsored Maine Law of 1851 – prohibited liquor Other states followed
Temperance pledgePressured by his determined wife and pleading child, this reluctant tippler is about to submit to "moral suasion" and sign the pledge to abstain from alcohol. (Library of Congress)
Temperance pledge
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Women’s Roles Women stayed home with no voting rights Some women avoided marriage all together Gender differences separated women & men
Women - weak physically & emotionally but were the keepers of society’s conscience & fit for teaching
Men were strong but crude if not guided by women
Home was the center Catharine Beecher – reformer agreed
Family group daguerreotype, 1852This daguerreotype, taken about 1852, reveals the little things so important to etching a middle-class family's social status: curtains; a wall hanging; a piano with scrolled legs; a small desk with elegantly curved legs; a pet; ladies posed in nonproductive but "improving" activities (music, reading); and a young man seemingly staring into space--and perhaps pondering how to pay for it all. (George Eastman House)
Family group daguerreotype, 1852
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Women’s Movement Fought for:
Women’s rights, temperance, abolition of slavery
Women’s Rights Convention – 1848
Seneca Falls – NY Declaration of
Sentiments Demanded ballot for
women Launched women’
rights movement
Leaders: Lucretia Mott Susan B. Anthony
(Suzy B’s)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton Elizabeth Blackwell
(first female medical graduate)
Margaret Fuller Grimké Sisters Amelia Bloomer
(bloomerism)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and sons, 1848Elizabeth Cady Stanton posed in 1848 with two of her sons, Henry Jr., left, and Neil. Stanton, one of the organizers of the Seneca Falls Woman's Rights Convention, traveled widely and agitated for women's equality while raising five children. (Collection of Rhoda Jenkins)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and sons, 1848
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Angelina GrimkéBorn in the south to a prominent slaveholding family, Angelina Grimké moved to the north to distance herself from an institution she hated. When she discovered that northerners were no more sympathetic about the plight of slaves than southerners and would not give abolition a free hearing, she chose to do something about it. She toured the northeast, speaking first to groups of women and then to large mixed audiences. She capped her tour by becoming the first woman to address the Massachusetts state legislature. Her courage won new respect both for abolitionists and for women. (Library of Congress)
Angelina Grimké
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Wilderness Utopians
Robert Owen – founded New Harmony – 1825 Confusion & contradiction
Brook Farm – Mass –1841 20 intellectuals committed to transcendentalism Lasted until 1846
Oneida Community – NY – 1848 Practiced free love, birth control, eugenic
selection of parents to produce superior offspring Shakers – 1770s – Mother Ann Lee
Communistic community / Can’t marry so extinct
The Dawn of Scientific Achievement
Early American interested in practical science rather than pure
T. Jefferson - plow Nathaniel Bowditch – navigation & oceanographer Matthew Maury – ocean winds & currents
Influential US scientists Benjamin Silliman – pioneer in chemist, geologist Louis Agassiz – Harvard, insisted on original
research Asa Gray – Harvard – Botany John Audubon – painted birds
Medicine in America
Primitive Bleeding – common cure/ curse Smallpox & yellow fever killed many Poor diet & ignorance of germs & sanitation
Life expectancy – 1850 – 40 years old Self-prescribed patent medicine common
& often harmful Surgery
Tied down with a shot of whiskey for pain 1840s – laughing gas
Artistic Achievement
US imitated European styles Thomas Jefferson – great architect
Monticello & University of Virginia Painting suffered - No leisure time & Puritan
prejudice Gilbert Stuart – painted Washington & competed
with English artists Wilson Peale – portraits of Washington John Trumbull – painted American Revolution
After War of 1812 – human landscapes & romanticism
Music Puritans frowned upon nonreligious
singing “Darky” tunes became popular
“Dixie” – 1859 Stephen C. Foster – “Old Folks at Home”
The Blossoming of a National Literature
Reading plagiarized from England US literature was practical in nature
The Federalist, Common Sense, Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography
Literature was revived after the War of 1812
The Knickerbocker Group – NY
Washington Irving 1st American to win international recognition The Sketch Book
James Fenimore Cooper 1st American novelist Leatherstocking Tales, The Last of the
Mochicans William Cullen Bryant
1st high quality poet in US “Thanatopsis”
Trumpeters of Transcendentalism
Transcendentalists Rejected Locke’s theory that all
knowledge comes to the mind through the senses
Truth “transcends” the senses: it cannot be found by observation alone but with inner light
Dignity of the individual – black & white
Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson
Stressed self-reliance, self-improvement, self-confidence, optimism, & freedom
Henry David Thoreau Condemned slavery On the Duty of Civil Disobedience – idealistic
thought Walt Whitman
“Poet Laureate of Democracy” – Leaves of Grass
Glowing Literary Lights Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – Poet John Greenleaf Whittier – Poet
Against inhumanity, injustice, & intolerance James Russell Lowell – political satirist Oliver Wendell Holmes – poet Louisa May Alcott – Little Women Emily Dickinson – poet William Gillmore Simms – southern themes
Literary Individualists & Dissenters
Edgar Allan Poe – “The Raven” Fascinated with ghostly & ghastly
Reflected Calvinist obsession on original sin & struggle between good & evil Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter Herman Melvile – Moby Dick
Portrayers of the Past George Bancroft
Founded naval academy “Father of American History”