The Ferment of Reform & Culture

1790-1860Partial Lecture

Chapter 15The American Pageant, 13th edition

Main ThemesDeism & Unitarianism2nd Great AwakeningMormonsPublic EducationLyceum Lecture seriesTreatment of debtors, prisoners & “insane”

Temperance MovementMaine Law, 1851Women’s Movement

Seneca Falls ConventionUtopian MovementsTranscendentalismLiterary & artistic trends

Hudson River School

Quickwrite2. How did the Second Great Awakening affect

existing religion in American life, and how did it reflect the trends leading to the Civil War?

OR10. How did social reform movements arise out of

the Second Great Awakening, & what were other influences?

OR18. How did the Transcendentalist Movement

reflect and differ from general American attitudes of the time?

Deism & UnitarianismDeism: religious philosophy influenced by Enlightenment

belief in Supreme Being who had created universe and given humans capacity for moral behaviorrejected divinity of Christ and original sinFranklin and Jefferson were deistsInfluenced development of Unitarianism

Unitarianism: new denominationbelieved God existed in one being, not a trinityrejected divinity of Jesusstressed basic goodness of human nature, and belief in free willand salvation thru good worksAppealed to intellectuals like Emerson

The Second Great Awakening

Mass religious movement began in the early years of the 1800s

even bigger than the First Great Awakening of the early 1700s. 100,000s of converted souls, shattered and reorganized churches many new sects, missionary work overseas;also influenced reform movts such as prisons, temperance. women’s movt and abolitionism.

“Camp meetings”especially on the frontier for days at a time; group ecstasymany of the “saved” fell back into old “sinning” ways

Methodists and Baptists saw the largest increases in numbers

personal conversiondemocratic controlemotionalism

Education Goes Public5. What led the wealthier classes to

favor tax-supported public education after their initial resistance?

6. What were some of the weaknesses of the earliest public schools?

7. How did Horace Mann and Noah Webster influence public education?

Education continued8. How did the colleges founded by

religious reformers differ from the established institutions of the time?

9. What were thought to be the negative affects of education on women?

Social Reforms10. How did the social reform

movements arise out of the Second Great Awakening, and what were other influences?

11. What was Dorothea Dix’s argument in favor of the “insane” and what was its influence?

Reforms continued12. What spurred the rise of the

temperance Movement in America, and how was it different from Dow’s Prohibition Movement?

13. What was accomplished at the Seneca Falls Convention, and why was its message unsuccessful in the short term?

Utopias14. How did the Utopian movements of

the early 19th century reflect long- standing American attitudes and ideals?

15. Which Utopian movements were most successful, and why?

Cultural Achievements16. What were the limitations on American

art and architecture during this period? 17. What were the characteristics of the

artistic movements that did arise?18. How did the Transcendentalist

Movement reflect and differ from general American attitudes of the time?

The Oxbow, by Thomas Cole, 1836

Shroon Mountain, by Thomas Cole, 1838

Falls of Kaaterskill, by Thomas

Cole, 1826

Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis, by Gilbert Stuart,

1809

Monticello, by Thomas Jefferson

TranscendentalismIntellectual movement, started in New England in 1830’sInfluenced by

loosening of Puritan theology in New EnglandGerman Romantic philosophyAsian religions

TranscendentalismCharacterized by

Rejection of Enlightenment theory that all knowledge comes to the senses from the mindBelief that truth “transcends” the senses and can be known from each person’s “inner light” which puts one in direct touch with God or the “oversoul”Emphasis on individualism; self-sufficiency & self-disciplineBelief in human dignity led them to embrace humanitarian reforms (abolitionism); rejected institutional authority.Love of nature

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)Leading TranscendentalistTremendous impact thru his writings (popular essay series) & his Lyceum lecture toursHis ideas became so popular because they reflected the general attitudes in the expanding US at the time: individualism, self-reliance, freedom and optimism, etc.Spoke out strongly against slavery. “That the government is best which governs least.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)Poet, mystic, transcendentalist & nonconformist; Famous for his 2 years in a tiny hut at Walden Pond (on Emerson’s property) and the resulting book, Walden(wanted to reduce his physical needs in order to have time to pursue truth thru study and meditation)Ended up in jail overnight because he would not pay Mass poll tax as a protest against a government that would allow slaveryVery influential on Gandhi and later MLK Jr. thanks to his book, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.

Culture continued19. What were the contributions of

Emerson and Thoreau in particular?20. What trends can be observed in

American literature in the first half of the 19th century?