The Reform Spirit

What is reform?

⚫A push to make changes in a social,

political, or economic institution or practice

in order to improve it

⚫Mid-1800s

New organizations formed to reach a variety of

goals

THE BASICS

What is reform?

⚫Progress, change, bettering of society, etc.

Basic Beliefs of Reformers

⚫Man is essentially good

⚫Capable of + changes

⚫Science

Diseases spread by

contact

⚫Oliver Wendell Holmes

⚫ Cultural nationalism

Unique democratic spirit

ART & LITERATURE

Art & Literature

⚫Nationalism

Hudson River School & the great American

landscape

http://www.ushistory.org/us/26e.asp

Art & Literature

⚫Romanticism

Ex. James Fennimore Cooper & the West

Novels romanticizing South

Art & Literature

⚫Human emotions

Egotism

“troubled” human spirit

⚫Herman Melville’s Moby Dick

⚫Edgar Alan Poe’s The Raven

Sentimental Novels

⚫Written & read mostly by middle-class

women

Ex. Harriet Beecher Stowe (until Uncle Tom)

⚫Voiced hopes & anxieties of women

Heroine in need of rescue

Romance = male protector

Success in life = happy marriage

TRANSCENDENTALISM

Transcendentalism

⚫People can overcome the mind’s limit

⚫Emotion & intuition

⚫Feeling over reason

⚫Natural world

Emerson-Self-reliance

Thoreau-Walden, Civil Disobedience

Whitman-poetry: Leaves of Grass

Margaret Fuller-women’s rights

http://www.ushistory.org/us/26f.asp

re-examine all you have been told at school

or church or in any book, dismiss whatever

insults your own soul; and your very flesh

shall be a great poem…

--Walt Whitman “Leaves of Grass”

TEMPERANCE

Temperance⚫American Temperance Union

⚫Most notably women (Women’s Christian

Temperance Union)

⚫Prohibition Laws

⚫“On the wagon”

RELIGIOUS REVIVAL

Religious Revivals

⚫Second Great Awakening

⚫ http://www.ushistory.org/us/26a.asp

J. Maze Burban’s Religious Camp Meeting

Religious Revival

⚫New religious groups

Mormons

⚫Joseph Smith (founder)

⚫Brigham Young (into the West)

⚫Importance of family

Religious Revival

⚫Benevolent Societies

Oneida

http://www.oneidacommunity.org/history/our-

history

Brook Farm (utopia?)

http://transcendentalism-

legacy.tamu.edu/ideas/brhistory.html

⚫**Religious movements especially

appealing to women in rural areas**

PRISON REFORM

Prison Reform

⚫Deplorable conditions

⚫Asylum Movement

Dorothea Dix

Humane treatment

⚫Rehabilitation

⚫http://www.ushistory.org/us/26d.asp

EDUCATION REFORM

Educational Reform

⚫Horace Mann ⚫Normal schools

WOMEN’S MOVEMENT

Women’s Rights

⚫Most early feminists active in multiple

reform movements

⚫Seneca Falls Convention

“Declaration of Sentiments”

Lucretia Mott

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

http://www.ushistory.org/us/26c.asp

ABOLITION

Abolition

⚫ Immediate end to slavery

⚫Some support in North, but considered

radical

William Lloyd Garrison

⚫White journalist

⚫No compensation

“I am a believer in that portion of the

Declaration of American Independence in

which it is set forth, as among self-evident

truths, "that all men are created equal; that

they are endowed by their Creator with certain

inalienable rights; that among these are life,

liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Hence, I

am an abolitionist. Hence, I cannot but regard

oppression in every form – and most of all, that which

turns a man into a thing – with indignation and

abhorrence”

--William Lloyd Garrison

Abolition

⚫Other notable abolitionists

Frederick Douglass

⚫Former slave

David Walker

⚫Most radical black abolitionist

Sojourner Truth

⚫Former slave; women’s rights

Abolition

⚫“Free soil” movement

More common than

abolition

Keep slavery out of

territories

ECONOMIC reasons

⚫Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Created more tension

between regions

A Slaveholders Character

⚫According to Douglass who were the

victims of the slave system?

⚫What incident revealed his master’s true

character?

⚫How did Douglass explain the treatment of

his cousin?

⚫What “curse” did Esther had?

Frederick Douglass

⚫ Born into slavery

⚫ His mother was a slave

⚫ His father was white—never knew him

⚫ Experienced brutal treatment as a slave

⚫ Vowed to become free & did

⚫ Encountered abolitionists in Baltimore

⚫ Became one of the most educated & influential abolitionists

⚫ Advised Lincoln during the Civil War & recruited black soldiers

⚫ Continued to fight for African American & women’s rights until his death

Modern reform? – Answer the

questions on a sheet of loose leaf

and turn in before class gets out.

⚫ Is America in need of reform today? Why

or Why not?

⚫Assuming you answered yes to the first

question, what causes would you support?

Why?