Day 60: The Ferment of Reform and CultureBaltimore Polytechnic Institute

November 26, 2012A.P. U.S. History

Mr. Green

Objectives: Students will analyze antebellum reform movements including religion, education, prohibition, and women’s rights.Describe the widespread revival of religion in the early nineteenth century and its effects on American culture and social reform.Describe the cause of the most important American reform movements of the period, identifying which were most successful and why.

AP FocusThe Second Great Awakening releases a torrent of religious fervor, combining a belief in moral self-improvement and a wish to expand democracy by means of evangelicalism. Religion and Reform are among the new AP themes.From the 1830s to 1850s, the nation experiences a burst of reform activity. Various movements set out to democratize the nation further by combating what they see as institutions and ideas that thwart the expression of democratic values and principles.

The Ferment of Reform and Culture

Continue work on Presidential Election Charts 1836, 1840, 1844, 1848

Decades Chart for the 1840’s due WednesdayQuiz on Tuesday covering Chapter 14

Announcements

CHAPTER THEMEThe spectacular religious revivals of

the Second Great Awakening reversed a trend toward secular rationalism in American culture and helped to fuel a spirit of social reform. In the process, religion was increasingly feminized, while women, in turn, took the lead in movements of reform, including those designed to improve their own condition.

Chapter Focus

How do you think the rise of industry in the United States before the Civil War will affect social aspects of American life?

DeismThomas Paine’s Age of Reason 1794 declared churches were “set up to terrify and enslave mankind”Deism was followed by Paine, Jefferson and Franklin

reason over revelation, science over Bible, rejected original sin, Supreme Being created universe and gave humans capacity for human behavior

UnitariansUnitarians shunned the Trinity

goodness of human nature, believed in free will, salvation through good works, God as loving father, Appeal of intellectuals

Reform and Culture

liberalism in religion, 1800sconverted souls, shattering and re-

establishment of churchesled to prison reform, temperance,

women’s movement, abolition of slaverywomen were majority of new church

members, turned to saving the society spread by camp meeting – 25,000 over

several daysPeter Cartwright, Charles Grandison

Finney

Second Great Awakening

Burned-Over DistrictWilliam Miller

Western New York – blistered by sermons on “hellfire and damnation”

Led Millerites – believed Christ would return on October 22, 1844. All met up but Jesus never showed

Widened social linesDenominations in the East weren’t strongly

affected Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists

and Unitarians were wealthier, better educatedMethodists, Baptists, new sects came from less

prosperous groupsSplits over slavery

Southern Baptists and Methodists broke away from Northern sects over slavery, then Presbyterians

Joseph Smith founded Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day SaintsOpposition in Ohio, Missouri, Illinoisvoted as a unit, drilled their militia for defense, accusations of polygamySmith killed in 1844, murdered and mangled

Young led Mormons to Utah in 1846-1847prosperous farming polygamy, many childrenEuropean immigrants flooded in, converted to Mormonism Young became territorial governor in 1850

More struggles – antipolygamy laws in 1862 and 1882, statehood delayed in Utah until 1896

A Desert Zion in Utah

The schools would benefit the poor so they weren’t well supported for a while

Eventually people realized if they didn’t educate the “brats” they’d grow up to be criminals, or uneducated people with a right to vote

1825-1850, tax supported schools established One room schoolhouses, open a few months of the year, ill-trained

teachers, “readin, ritin, rithmetic”Horace Mann – MA board of ed, more and better schoolhouses,

longer school terms, higher pay for teachers, expanded curriculum influence moved out to other states

Schools were expensive for states to run Slaves forbidden from learning, even free blacks in north and south

were excluded Noah Webster wrote textbooks and helped standardize the American

language

Free Schools for a Free People

Reform was a way to escape the confines of the home, main focus was suffrage

Many debtors were in prison, even some who owed less than a dollar State legislators gradually abolished debtors prisonsCriminal codes being softened – number of capital offences reduced, brutal

punishments eliminated

19th century idea was that mentally challenged were beasts, not humans Chained in jails or poor-houses with “normal” people

Dix traveled the country and created reports of the conditions for mentally disabled

Worked with MA government to improve conditions for them, and to prove they were just ill, not willfully perverse

1828 American Peace Society

An Age of Reform

Hard liquor, all the time – weddings, funerals, etc.Threatened families, women and children

American Temperance Society, Boston, 1826Gave way to about 1,000 local groups

Ten Nights – happy village ruined by a tavern

Temperance – stiffen will to resist; teetotalism – eliminate completely

Maine Law of 1851 – prohibited manufacture and sale of alcohol. Other northern states started to follow suit. Some repealed

Demon Rum-The Old Deluder

Conditions for womenLife was home, required to obey her master (husband), could not vote, subject to beatings, could not keep property after marriage Many women avoided marriage now, something they couldn’t necessarily do in the colonial period

Female reformersMost female reformers were rich and whiteJoined in reform for temperance and abolition as wellLucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Blackwell, Margaret Fuller, Sarah and Angeline Grimke, Lucy Stone, Amelia Bloomer(bloomers – short skirt with Turkish pants)Rights convention – Declaration of Sentiments – demands for women – launched modern women’s rights movement

Woman’s Rights Convention at SenecaFalls, NY - 1848

Women in Revolt

1. What inspired the many utopian communities of the early 19th century? What issues or problems did various utopias attempt to address? Should the utopias be viewed as failures because most did not last long or attain the perfection they sought? Or should they be seen as natural, intense outgrowths of America’s own utopian ideals, of liberty, equality, and democracy?

Independent Work

Finish reading all of Chapter 15 Quiz on Tuesday over Chapter 14

Homework