RELIGIOUS
REVOLUTION
 There is a third revolution in the early 1800s besides
politics and the economy
 It was a commitment to reform the character of Americans into
more upstanding, God fearing, and literate
 Church attendance still a regular ritual for Americans
 ¾ of 23 million people attend church in 1850
Second Great Awakening
 As a result of the Second Great Awakening (a
series of revivals in the 1790s-early 1800s), the
dominant form of Christianity in America became
evangelical Protestantism
 Membership in the major Protestant churches—
Congregational, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist—
soared
 the Methodists emerged as the largest denomination in
both the North and the South
DEISM
 The nature of American religion was changing though, the French
Revolution had softened the orthodoxy
 Many Founding Fathers, including Jefferson and Franklin, and
anticlerics embraced the liberal doctrines of Deism


Relied on reason rather than revelation, on science rather than the Bible
They rejected the concept of original sin, denied Christ’s divinity
 Deism helped inspire a New England spinoff from its severe Puritan
past at the end of the 1700s: the Unitarians


Believed God existed only in one person and not the trinity; denied divinity
of Jesus
appealed to intellectuals whose optimism contrasted sharply with hellfire
doctrines of Calvinism
1816 -> American Bible Society Founded
Revivalism and the Social Order
 Society during the Jacksonian era was undergoing deep
and rapid change
 The revolution in markets brought both economic expansion
and periodic depressions.
 To combat this uncertainty reformers sought
stability and order in religion
 Religion provided a means of social control in a
disordered society
 Churchgoers embraced the values of hard work,
punctuality, and sobriety
 Revivals brought unity and strength and a sense of peace
Second Great Awakening
 The reactive 1800s movement against this growing liberalism in
faith was known as the Second Great Awakening:
 Fresh wave of revivals beginning in the south and moving north
 Also began a new spirit of evangelicalism that spread into prison
reform, the temperance cause, and the abolition movement
 Started with large “camp meetings” in the south
 As many as 25,000 people would gather for several days
 “fire and brimstone” atmosphere with attendees dancing, rolling,
and shouting – EMOTIONALLY INTENSE
 These revivals spread across the nation
 The largest affected denominations were Baptist and Methodists
 Revivals boosted church membership
Charles Finney
 Charles Finney conducted
his own revivals in the NE
in the 1830s
 Greatest revivalist preacher
 He rejected the Calvinist
doctrine of predestination
 adopted ideas of free will and
salvation to all
Charles Finney and the
Conversion Experience
 New form of revival
 Meeting night after night to build excitement
 Speaking bluntly
 Praying for sinners by name
 Encouraging women to testify (pray) in public
 Denounced alcohol and slavery
EFFECTS
 Feminization of religion

In terms of membership and theology

Middle class women were the most fervent revival enthusiasts

Were the wives and daughters of businessmen

Evangelicals preached a gospel that appealed to them: female
spiritual worth and the role of bringing their husbands back to
God

With that message many women turned their effort into saving
the rest of society

They formed charitable organizations and spearheaded many of
the era’s reform movements
Burned Over District
 Burned over district in Western NY got its name
from a “wild fire of new religions”
 Gave birth to Seventh Day Adventists
 The Millerites believed the 2nd coming of Christ would occur
on October 22, 1843
 Members sold belonging, bought white robes for the
ascension into heaven
 Believers formed new church on October 23rd
Other Churches Founded
 While the Protestant revivals sought
to reform individual sinners, others
sought to remake society at large
 Mormons – The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints
 Founded by Joseph Smith in western
NY in 1830
In 1844 Smith and his brother were murdered by a
mob in Carthage Illinois
The movement seemed near collapse
The leadership torch was picked up by Brigham
Young
Mormons
• Brigham Young,
Smith’s successor, led
the Mormons westward
in 1846-1847 to Utah
where they could live
and worship without
interference
•
Through irrigation methods they made
the Utah desert bloom and they became
a populated and prosperous group
Other
Religious
Groups
The Shakers
 Ann Lee – 1774
 The Shakers used dancing as a worship practice
 Shakers practiced celibacy, separating the sexes as
far as practical
 Shakers worked hard, lived simply (built furniture),
and impressed outsiders with their cleanliness and
order
 Lacking any natural increase, membership began to
decline after 1850, from a peak
of about 6000 members
Utopian Communities
The Oneida Community
Brook Farm
New Harmony
The Oneida Community
New York, 1848
 Millenarianism --> the 2
nd
John Humphrey Noyes
(1811-1886)
coming
of Christ had already occurred.
Humans were no longer
obliged to follow the moral rules
of the past.
Key to happiness is suppression of
selfishness
No private property
No private relationships
All of these breed jealousy and
quarreling
Practiced “free love” all residents
married to each other.
Prospered due to steel and silver work
Communal work according to
skill
ROMANTICISM
 Early American writing was sneered and lampooned internationally


Much was plagiarized from Great Britain
After 1820 young American authors began to answer the call for authentic
literature
 Much was influenced by the arrival of Romanticism in America
 Emphasized imagination over reason; Nature over civilization
 Intuition over calculation; Self over society
 Emotion, expression were core values
 Washington Irving (1783 – 1859)
 The Sketch Book
 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
 Rip Van Winkle

James Fenimore Cooper (1789 – 1851)

Last of the Mohicans (1826)
Transcendentalism
Golden Age of American literature
Began in New England (Concord, Mass.) in 1830’s
 From 1830 to 1855 transcendentalists argued that humans
are naturally good
To transcend means to “rise above”
Every person possesses an inner light that puts you in touch with
God/“Oversoul”
Self reliance, self culture, self discipline
Taught that the process of spiritual discovery would lead a person to
profound truths
Reject outward rituals, favor inward searching
This would help lead a moral life where you could help society
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803 - 1882
 Leader of the transcendentalists movement

Trained as a Unitarian Boston minister
 He began an “American Renaissance” in literature


He stressed self reliance, self improvement, self confidence, optimism,
and freedom
Try to improve the world around; spent much time in reflection
 In “The America Scholar” speech at Harvard in 1837 he urged
American writers throw off European traditions and delve into rich
American tales

Many of his essays started as lectures
Henry David Thoreau
1817 - 1862
 Among his themes were the value of leisure, living in nature, antislavery, and working for common good


Condemned a government that supported slavery
Refused to pay Mass. Poll tax and was jailed for a night
 Walden: Or Life in the Woods (1854)


Records two years of simple life spent in a hut that he built on
Walden Pond in Concord Mass
Favored quest for isolation in nature to get away from corruptions of
society
 Influenced Gandhi and MLK
Transcendentalist Intellectuals/Writers
Concord, MA
Ralph Waldo
Emerson
Nature
(1832)
Self-Reliance
(1841)
“The American
Scholar” (1837)
Henry David
Thoreau
Walden
(1854)
Resistance to Civil
Disobedience
(1849)
Walt Whitman
 From Brooklyn – more bold, confident, swagger
 Leaves of Grass (1855)
 Collection of poems
 Gave divinity to nature and human body
 Glorification of self
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABOae1jGB3w&feat
ure=related
ABOUT POP CULTURE
 Transcendentalists writers Emerson and Thoreau
wrote about that the modern newspapers & novels just
contained murderous stories, carried a haunted nature,
and ruined the works of mankind
LITERARY LIGHTS
 Other great works were created during this age by literary giants
who were not associated with transcendentalism
 Professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)


One of most popular American poets; popular in Europe as well
Evangeline (1847); The Song of Hiawatha (1855)
 Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

Little Women (1868)
 Emily Dickinson (1820-1886)

Explored universal themes of love, death, nature, immortality
DISSENTERS

There were also contrary writers who did not believe so keenly in human progress and goodness


Edgar Allen Poe (1808-1849)





Specialized in gothic horror and detective stories
The Raven (1845); The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)
His career was cut short when found drunk in a Baltimore gutter; dying shortly after
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 – 1864)






They explored darker realms of human experience with pain, fear, grief, and the supernatural
Lived in Salem, Mass.
Grew up with the heavy atmosphere of Puritan ancestry
The Scarlet Letter (1850)
Puritan sin, romance
Herman Melville (1819 – 1891)


Went to sea as a youth; served 18-months as a whaler
Moby Dick (1851)
•
Conflict between Captain Ahab and giant white whale Moby Dick
EDGAR ALLEN POE
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIp4m_v9xGs