Tocqueville & Beaumont

• 1831-1832 American tour of the Great Republic• Democracy in America – Tocqueville

Emphasis on equalityLabor conditions, poverty, wealth gap

• European visitors to AmericaFanny Trollope – Domestic Manners of AmericansCharles Dickens – “Republic…full of sores and ulcers”

A Restless People

• Tocqueville – “In America, men never stay still, something is almost always provisional about their lives”

• Trollope – “Their incessant bustling” similar to their eating too fast and spitting too often. It stemmed from their “universal pursuit of money”

A Restless People

• Population increases – doubling every 22 years

• New states added continuously

• Migration to new lands but also cities

• Growth of new cities

• South – only 4 major cities – all on the periphery

The Family Recast

• Assignment - Construct a chart that Shows the characteristics of the Middle-Class

familyShows changes from earlier American society

to that of the mid-1800’sPages 276-277

Family Unit Early America Mid-1800’s

Family

Family was major unit of economic production

Cities undermined importance of family as jobs took place outside the home

Husband

Husband held power in the family

Some power had to be given to the wife as husband works outside home

Wife

Children

Second Great Awakening

• Many Calvinist tenets in dispute – infant damnation and predestination

• Charles Grandison FinneySalvation versus fire & brimstoneEntertainment

• Growth in church membership• Changes in economic situation and

families helped Awakening• Women took major role in movement

Era of Associations

• Three pillars of the American Middle-ClassThe recast familyA resurgent churchAssociations

• AssociationsNo colonial precedents or European equivalentLed by professional class – membership common

classEstablished for local or national causes

Backwoods Utopias

• Some established experimental communities• Communitarians - to achieve social

reorganization first by demonstrating it on a small scale

• The ShakersFounded by Ann Lee 1774Celibacy – sexes segregatedThe Family House Industrious - furniture

Backwoods Utopias

• Amana Community Inspirationist movement

• Oneida Community “Community” marriages

• MormonsFounded by Joseph SmithNauvoo

• Polygamy• Nauvoo Legion• Murder of Smith

Brigham Young - Great Salt Lake

Age of Reform

• Thomas Gallaudet – School for the deaf• Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe – School for the blind• Rise of the institution versus family care• Science and separation from society• Dorothea Dix

Demon Rum

• 1820’s – peak of American alcohol consumption• Availability of cheap corn whiskey• Drunkenness crossed class and age lines• American Temperance Union established 1826

– “sign the pledge”• Opposition increased as demands for restraint

became calls for prohibition• States imposed strict licensing requirements and

heavy taxes• Towns and counties could become “dry”

Abolition & Women’s Rights

• Assignment: Compare and ContrastWorking individually, or with a partner, create

a Venn Diagram that compares and contrasts the Abolition Movement with the Women’s Rights Movement

Pages 285-291

AbolitionMovement

Women’s Movement

Similarities