A
Reforming Society
Most American children were homeschooled
 The American Spelling Book was the most
popular school book
 Reformers thought the education wasn’t good
enough
 Public School Movement: Reformers sought to
establish a system of tax supported public
schools.
 Both genders learned from the same books


Horace Mann: One of the greatest school
reformers
 Poor family
 Inadequate education first hand
 Senate of Massachusetts
 Created State Board Of Education
 Resigned from senate in 1837

Women petitioned their legislature.
Pro public Schools
Became teachers

Catharine Beecher and Emma Willard
established schools for women
Connecticut, Ohio, New York

Elizabeth Blackwell and Ann Preston helped
establish medical training for women by the
1850’s
Catharine Beecher
Elizabeth Blackwell
Emma Willard
Ann Preston

Dorothea Dix Campaigns for change
1841 Dorothea Dix started teaching Sunday school
in prisons
She went to the legislature and told them about all
the horrors that were happening in the prisons
They housed criminals with the mentally ill
Started campaigns for people to build humane
hospitals for the mentally ill
Her campaign was remarkably successful

The prison reform movement is sometimes
called the penitentiary movement
Two types of penitentiaries were proposed by
reformers

Pennsylvania System
Advocated by the Philadelphia Society for alleviating
the miseries of public prisons
Expensive to run

Eastern State
Prisoners urged to repent while in complete solitary
confinement

Auburn prison
In New York in the 1820s
Prisoners worked with one another during the day
in strict silence
Prisoners slept individually at night

Many American prisons followed this model
An effort to end alcohol abuse and the
problems created by it
 Some reformers believed in prohibition

Created flyers warning families that wasting money
would cut back on providing food for family
Neal Dow, mayor of Portland, Maine, in 1851
had worldwide reputation for lectures about
alcohol abuse
 Maine law – restricted the sale of alcohol
 Most states passed this law
