Antebellum Reform Movements

Unit 5, Lesson 3

Essential Idea

• The “Era of the Common Man” and the Second Great Awakening caused people to push for reforms.

Era of the “Common Man”• Event:• Era of the Common Man• Cause:• Starting in the 1820s,

universal white male suffrage spread

• Effects:• Andrew Jackson, a “common

man,” was elected• Candidates had to campaign

to appeal to common people• The common man gained

more influence in government

Second Great Awakening• Event:• Second Great Awakening• Cause:• Americans were less religious, especially after the Enlightenment emphasized science and reason • Effect:• People looked to THEMSELVES to be saved, not church authority • Common people had more influence in their religion• Many wanted reforms to fix “sins” in society, especially slavery

Antebellum Reform• Combined Effect:• The country experienced a period of REFORM• The Era of the Common Man gave people more power in government• The Second Great Awakening gave people more power in religion• Combined, people felt empowered to use the GOVERNMENT to REFORM “sins” in

society• Issues to Reform:• Treatment of mentally ill, prison conditions, education, abuse of alcohol, and

slavery• Women, also wanting more power, began pushing for equal rights

Reforms: Mental Hospitals• Issue 1: • Mental hospitals• Reform:• Dorothea Dix—exposed inhumane treatment of the mentally ill• States created mental hospitals, not prisons, to give the mentally ill

proper help

Reforms: Prisons• Issue 2:• Prisons• Reforms:• Prisoners were treated

inhumanely were sometimes jailed just for being in debt

• Prisons began focusing more rehabilitating prisoners and “debtors’ prison” was abolished

Reforms: Public Education

• Issue 3:• Public education • Reforms:• Education was only

affordable for the wealthy• Many believed the country

could only survive if citizens were educated

• Horace Mann—pushed for public, tax-supported schools with required attendance

Reforms: Temperance• Issue 4:• Alcohol abuse• Reforms:• Many saw alcohol

abuse as the root of society’s problems

• Temperance—moderation of alcohol use

• The American Temperance Society convinced many to reduce alcohol use and some states banned the sale of liquor

•

The Women’s Rights Movement

• Effect of Industrial Revolution:

• Roles of men and women changed during industrialization

• Men and women had “separate spheres”

• Men’s Sphere:• Men left home to work

in factories• Men were active

outside the home in politics and reform

“True Womanhood”• Women’s Sphere:• Women stayed at

home to care for the home and children

• Women were not very active outside the home

Reform: Women’s Rights

• Women and Reform:• Women saw taking care of society as an extension of taking care of the home• Women resented men giving them secondary roles in reform• Women, like men during the “Era of the Common Man,” wanted more power

in government and society

Reform: Women’s Rights

• Issue 5:• Women’s Rights• Events:• Seneca Falls Convention—started the

organized women’s rights movement in the United States in 1848

• Declaration of Sentiments—declared men and women to be EQUAL

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton—demanded women’s SUFFRAGE (right to vote)

• Seneca Falls Convention• Impact:• The women’s rights movement was

overshadowed by the biggest reform movement, abolitionism

Reform: Abolitionism• Issue 6:• Abolition of Slavery• Abolitionism:• The abolition of slavery

was the biggest and most divisive issue of reform

• Tension over the issue of slavery contributed to the Civil War