Era of Societal Reform

Underlying Factors:• Romanticism• Change becomes a factor in everyday life• Cultural nationalism—celebrate America• Nature—understand and control• Belief in human perfectibility– Change individual to change society– Moral authority and religion

• Democratic impulses• Search for order

Trends:• Economics:– Industrial Revolution– Transportation Revolution– Immigration

• Religion:– Second Great Awakening– Communal Experiments

• Culture:– Transcendentalists – Art, literature, music, architecture

• Social change and reform:– Temperance– Institution/asylum• Mental health• Blind/deaf• Prison• Youth

– Education– Women & family• Cult of Domesticity• Women’s Rights• Changing economic duties

• Abolition• Regional Differences:– North, South, West

• Politics:– Expansion of democracy– Jacksonianism– Era of the Common Man

•Describe movements in American society in the early 1800s and how they influenced reform movements:

Establishment of Reform

• Early 1800s were marked by an era of reform• Highly religious influence due to Second Great

Awakening• Issues included temperance, prison reform,

education, women’s rights and the abolition of slavery

Temperance Movement

• Wanted to control alcohol consumption for moral reasons

• Prevent spousal and child abuse• Maintain money for food and necessities• Reduce violence around urban working class

pubs• Local temperance groups are established and

form the American Temperance Union

Source:" The Drunkards Progress From The First Glass To The Grave," 1846.

Prison Reform

• Change to belief in rehabilitating prisoners instead of simply locking them up

• Penitentiaries – individuals worked to achieve penitence

• Better physical environment and reduce overcrowding

• Separate facilities for the mentally ill – Dorothea Dix

Source: Fourth Annual Report, Society for the Reformation of

Juvenile Delinquents in the City of New York, 1829

• We might feel a pride in the reflection, that our young country . . . was the first to adopt the penitentiary system of prison discipline, and the first to attempt to prevent the commission of crimes, by seeking out the youthful and unprotected, who were in the way of temptation, and by religious and moral instruction, by imparting to them useful knowledge, and by giving them industrious and orderly habits, rescuing them from vice and rendering them valuable members of society.

• To confine these youthful criminals . . . where no, or scarcely any, distinction can be made between the young and old, or between the more and less vicious, where little can be learned but the ways of the wicked, and from whence they must be sent to encounter new wants, new temptations, and to commit new crimes, is to pursue a course, as little reconcilable with justice as humanity; yet, till the House of Refuge was established there was no alternative.

Educational Reform• Movement towards government funded

public education available to all citizens• Belief that a democratic republic could

only survive if well-informed• Moves more slowly in rural areas due to

farming needs• North responds more quickly, as only

1/3 of children enrolled in the South in 1860

• Slaves completely barred from receiving an education

• Missionary movement attempts to spread learning and religion to Native Americans

Source: William H. McGuffey, Reader,1836.• The good boy, whose parents are poor, rises very early in the morning, and all day

long does as much as he can to help his father and mother.

• When he goes to school he walks quickly, and does not lose time on the road. "My parents," he says, "are very good to save some of their money in order that I may learn to read and write; but they can not give much, nor can they spare me long; therefore I must learn as fast as I can; if anybody has any time to lose, I am sure I have not." . . .

• When he has finished his lessons, he does not stay to play, but runs home; he wants to see his father and mother and to help them. . . .

• Sometimes he goes with his father to work; then he is very glad and though he is but a little fellow, he works very hard, almost like a man. . . .

• When he comes home to dinner, he says, "How hungry I am! And how good this bread is, and this bacon! Indeed, I think every thing we have is very good. I am glad I can work; I hope that I shall soon be able to earn all my clothes, and my food too."

• When he sees little boys and girls riding on pretty horses, or in coaches, or walking with ladies and gentlemen, and having on very fine clothes, he does not envy them, nor wish to be like them.

• He says, "I have often been told, and I have read, that it is God who makes some poor, and others rich; that the rich have many troubles which we know nothing of; and that the poor, if they are but good, may be very happy, indeed, I think that when I am good, nobody can be happier than I am.

Women’s Rights

• Women were active participants and leaders in other social movements

• Women though still lack suffrage (the right to vote) and have limited opportunities for higher education

Different opinions on the place of women in society

• “True Womanhood” (Catherine Beecher) – women can find fulfillment carrying out their obligations to the home

• Margaret Fuller – women need their own relationship with God and “as a soul to live freely and unimpeded”

Move towards equality

• Women form reform societies and chosen as leaders

• Women working for abolition see a parallel between the plight of slaves and the condition of women

• American female antislavery leaders turned away at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London

• Event brings together Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, who will help organize the Seneca Falls Convention

Seneca Falls Convention• Met in Seneca Falls, New York in July 1848• Approximately 300 people (women and men) attend • First convention based around women’s rights• Most prominent demand became obtaining the right to vote• Adopt the Declaration of Sentiments, which was written by

Elizabeth Cady Stanton• Signed by 100 of those in attendance, including abolitionist and

freed slave Frederick Douglass• Declaration of Sentiments was shocking to most observers and

some delegates• It would take 72 more years to reach complete suffrage after the

Seneca Falls Convention

Source: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Seneca Falls Declaration, August 2, 1848.

• . . . But we are assembled to protest against a form of government, existing without the consent of the governed-to declare our right to be free as man is free, to be represented in the government which we are taxed to support, to have such disgraceful laws as give man the power to chastise and imprison his wife. . . . And, strange as it may seem to many, we now demand our right to vote according to the declaration of the government under which we live.

• Describe how society was changed by early 19th Century reforms:

• Describe developments in the role of women in 19th Century American society and politics:

Abolition

Conditions of Slaves• Two types of slaves• Each slave faced problems in the

conditions they worked• House slaves• Dressed and ate better, but no more

status than field slaves• No freedom of time, on call 24/7• Faced sexual advances

• Field slaves• On call from sunup to sundown• Terrible working conditions• Beating and whippings on more

regular basis

•Describe how the type of work done by slaves impacted the issues they faced:

History of Anti-Slavery Movement

• Early anti-slavery: Gradualism– Societies wanted to end slavery bit by bit– First end slave trade, then slavery in the

North, then Upper South, and finally Lower South

• Anti-slavery but racist: Colonization– Ending slavery would still leave racial problems– American Colonization Society wanted to send African

Americans back to Africa– The ACS sent est. 13,000 to present-day Liberia

Complete removal of slavery: Abolition

• Slavery was contrary to liberty and equality

• All humans were equal in the eyes of God• Benjamin Lundy

– Anti-slavery newspaper wanting immediate emancipation

• William Lloyd Garrison– Radical pacifist emancipation that denounced anyone

who allowed slavery to exist

• Fredrick Douglass– Escaped slave—activist

that demanded equal protection of the laws

– Argued that education was the surest way to reform for slaves

Source: Engraving by Patrick Reason, 1835.

•Describe the different approaches promoted for abolition:

Slave Uprisings

• 1800—Gabriel Prosser at Richmond – Prosser and 36 others hanged

• 1822—Denmark Vesey in S. Carolina– Vesey and 36 others were hanged

• 1831—Nat Turner in VA– Since Turner was educated, after this revolt

education of slaves was outlawed

Runaway SlavesAs an act of trying to escape slavery many slaves would try and run away. However, there were severe consequences for these actions.

• Many slaves were branded with an R and beaten, and some were even killed for their actions.

The Fugitive Slave Act struck fear in many slaves as they could be returned to their masters if they were found in any area throughout the United States.

Underground Railroad• A major way that slaves escaped the South• Used railroad terminology to describe those

involved• Harriet Tubman is the most prominent

member• She was a fugitive slave that escaped to the

North• Felt a calling from God to help free slaves• Lived her calling by making 19 trips to South,

saving hundreds of slaves• Tubman received title of “Moses” for work in

the Underground Railroad.

Underground Railroad

Paranoia & Abolition• Abolition not likely due to necessity of ¾ approval

of constitutional amendment• Southerners were paranoid of a great slave

rebellion and perceived a “Great Northern Anti-Slavery Conspiracy”

• Northerners thought the South wanted to dominate the country and perceived a “Southern Slave Conspiracy”

• Abolitionists intensified sectionalism: N vs. S• Abolitionists helped propagandize the North

about the evil of slavery

•Describe how resistance by slaves and the idea of abolition led to increased tensions:

The Changing Workplace

Pre-Industrialization• Prior to industrialization, the main form of

manufacturing was the cottage industry, in which manufacturers provided raw materials to people who worked out of their homes

• Early factories retained this model, but with greater output

• Experienced artisans had ranks:– Master– Journeyman– Apprentice

Industrialization Case Study: Lowell, MA

• Francis Cabot Lowell revolutionizes the textile industry in MA, giving thousands of young women the opportunity to work outside the home

• Many women find mills to be a relief from farm work and housework

“…I have a very good place, have enough to eat… The girls are all kind and obliging… I think that the factory is the best place for me and if any girl wants employment, I advise them to come to

Lowell.” – 16-year-old Mary Paul, Lowell employee

(1846)

• Many young women stay only a few years before returning home – Newfound independence ripples through their daily

lives, influencing many new ideas pertaining to women’s rights

• Greater awareness of miserable working conditions in factories develops– Long hours– Poor ventilation– Stifling heat– Dark rooms– Dangerous machinery

Industrialization Case Study: Lowell, MA

• In response to working conditions, mill workers call for a strike – a work stoppage to force employers to meet workers’ demands

• Strike under the banner “UNION IS POWER”• Bosses do not grant strikers’ demands, but stage is set

for the class battles that will define the factory and mining industries for decades to come

A Specter Haunts Europe• Worldwide, industrialization rapidly

increases and working conditions & living standards rapidly decrease for the vast majority of people

• German journalist Karl Marx published The Communist Manifesto in 1848 – one of the most influential works of economic theory ever published – All struggles are class struggles (political

struggles)– Proletariat will increase until it swallows

up the bourgeoisie – Workers must control the means of

production

Other factors• In addition to native-born American men and women,

thousands of immigrants flock to America in the 19th century

• Enormous wave of Irish immigrants flee from the Potato Famine– Mass starvation– Brutal land/social policies of the British government

• Irish willing to work for less and in harsher conditions, making unionizing more difficult

• National Trades’ Union becomes largest union in the country, uniting workers from 6 industries

• Commonwealth vs. Hunt – Supreme Court ruling in favor of strikers– workers may act “in such a manner as best to subserve their own

interests” – Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw

•Describe how industrial changes caused reform movements within workers and the labor movement:

Other Issues

• Medicine• New Religions and Utopian Societies• Immigration

Source: Charles G. Finney,1834.

• When the churches are . . . awakened and reformed, the reformation and salvation of sinners will follow, going through the same stages of conviction, repentance, and reformation. Their hearts will be broken down and changed. Very often the most abandoned profligates are among the subjects. Harlots, and drunkards, and infidels, and all sorts of abandoned characters, are awakened and converted.

Source: Samuel F.B. Morse, Imminent Dangers to the Free Institutions of the United States, 1835.

• In our national infancy we needed the strength of numbers. . . . Now emigration is changed; naturalization has become the door of entrance not alone to the ever welcome lovers of liberty, but also for the priest-ridden troops of the Holy Alliance. . . . Now emigrants are selected . . . not for their affinity to liberty, but for their mental servitude, and their docility in obeying the orders of their priests. . .

• It may be, Americans, that you still doubt the existence of a conspiracy. . . . Do you wish to test its existence and its power? . . . Test it by attempting a change in the Naturalization Law. Take the ground that such a change must be made, that no foreigner who comes into the country after the law is passed shall ever be allowed the right of suffrage.