Henretta • Brody • Dumenil
America’s History
Sixth Edition
CHAPTER 11
Religion and Reform, 1820-1860
Copyright © 2008 by Bedford/St. Martin’s and
Matthew Ellington, Ruben S. Ayala High School
Chapter 11: Religion and Reform, 1820-1860
1.
Individualism
A. Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalists
B. Emerson’s Literary Influence
C. Brook Farm
2.
Rural Communalism and Urban Popular Culture
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
3.
Mother Ann Lee and the Shakers
Arthur Brisbane and Fourierism
John Humphrey Noyes and the Oneida Community
Joseph Smith and the Mormon Experience
Urban Popular Culture
Abolitionism
A. Black Social Thought: Uplift, Race Equality, Rebellion
B. Evangelical Abolitionism
C. Opposition and Internal Conflict
4.
The Women’s Rights Movement
A. Origins of the Women’s Movement
B. Abolitionist Women
C. The Program of Seneca Falls and Beyond
Part 1: Individualism
1A: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Transcendentalism
• Transcendentalists believed that truth transcended the senses and
celebrated individualism and freedom
• Lyceum movement spread transcendentalist ideas
• Emerson’s & Finney’s personal improvement through self-discipline
appealed to middle class Americans
Part 1: Individualism
1B: Emerson’s Literary Influence
• Thoreau called for civil disobedience and nonconformity and Fuller
for greater rights for women
• Hawthorne and Melville rejected transcendentalism
Thoreau’s
cabin at
Walden
Pond
Part 1: Individualism
1C: Brook Farm
• An influential transcendentalist community that failed
• Hawthorne Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller all visited
• Emersonians shifted efforts to reforming society, especially
education and abolitionism
Painting of
Brook Farm
utopian
society
Part 2: Rural Communalism & Urban Popular Culture
2A: Mother Ann Lee and the Shakers
• Founded in late 1700s by Mother Ann
• Believed in gender equality, celibacy, pacifism, etc.
• Peaked at 3000 members, known for furniture
Part 2: Rural Communalism & Urban Popular Culture
2B: Arthur Brisbane and Fourierism
• Fourierists preached socialism and gender equity
• Panic of 1837 made communal experiments appealing to
farmers in New York and the Midwest
New
Jersey
Phalanx
building
photograph
Part 2: Rural Communalism & Urban Popular Culture
2C: John Humphrey Noyes & the Oneida Community
• Perfectionists believed that Christ had already returned and people
could live sinless lives
• Complex marriages
and communal
nurseries set them
apart
• Oneida community
became famous for
silver plate and
spawned a for profit
company
Part 2: Rural Communalism & Urban Popular Culture
2D: Joseph Smith and the Mormon Experience
• Communalism, secrecy, prosperity, bloc voting and polygamy
led to harassment of Mormons and Smith
• Brigham Young led 10,000 Mormons to Utah desert
• Traditional values (except polygamy) and hard work allowed
Mormons to succeed where others had failed
Part 2: Rural Communalism & Urban Popular Culture
2E: Urban Popular Culture
• Urban popular culture changed dramatically as cities grew from
immigration and urbanization
• Poverty,
commercialized
sex, prostitution,
and new forms
of entertainment
characterized
this new culture
• Nativist backlash
arose against
immigrants in
1830s
Part 3: Abolitionism
3A: Black Social Thought: Uplift, Race, Equality, Rebellion
• Blacks’ attempts to “elevate” themselves and gain
equality were met with hostility by most whites
• Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1830) led Virginia and other
southern states to impose stricter slave codes
Part 3: Abolitionism
3B: Evangelical Abolitionism
• William Lloyd Garrison founded The Liberator (1830) and called for
the immediate end to slavery
• Abolitionists
appealed to
evangelical
Christians, formed
an underground RR,
and pushed for new
laws
• By 1840, over
200,000 Americans
had joined
abolitionist societies
Part 3: Abolitionism
3C: Opposition and Internal Conflict
• Most conservatives, the wealthy, and wage earners were racist
and opposed abolitionism
• Postmasters stopped delivering abolitionist mail in the South
and the House passed the Gag rule
• The fight
over
women’s
roles split
abolitionists
Part 4: The Women’s Rights Movement
4A: Origins of the Women’s Movement
• Cult of domesticity followed republican motherhood and
encouraged a separate sphere for women
• Second Great Awakening allowed women to transcend their
rigid cultural boundaries
• Dorthea Dix fought to improve care of mentally ill
Chair used
to tranquilize
mentally ill in
mid 1800s
From Godey’s Ladies Book
Part 4: The Women’s Rights Movement
4B: Abolitionist Women
• Women such as Harriet Jacobs and Harriet Tubman played an
outspoken abolitionist role
• Many men resisted women like the Grimke sisters speaking
before mixed audiences
Picture from Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Part 4: The Women’s Rights Movement
4C: The Program of Seneca Falls and Beyond
• Reformers fought for married women’s property rights
• 1840 Seneca Falls Declaration called for equal rights
• Stanton, Anthony, and others had an uphill fight
Susan B. Anthony
Elizabeth Cady Stanton at
Seneca Falls Convention
