Religion Sparks Reform
Chapter 8 Section 1
I the Second Great Awakening
• Preachers reject the 18th cent. Belief that god
predetermined your salvation
– Believed individuals had responsibility to seek
salvation by improving themselves & society
• Churches began to split because of these ideas
A. Revivalism
• Revivals= religious gatherings designated to
awaken religious faith through preaching
• Burned-over district= western NY in whicch
religious “fires” burned
– Finney known as “father as modern revivalism”
II Transcendentalism
• 2nd Great Awakening new artistic expression
• Romanticism= style of art, lit., and thought
that stressed ppl should develop unique &
emotional forms of expressions
– Begins in GB and Trancendentalism
• Trancendentalism= philosophical & lit.
movement that emphasized living a simple life
and finding truth through natures laws
– Rstressed personal emotional expression
ratherthan any org. laws/belief systems
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
writes self-reliance
• Trancdendentalist
belief in indiv.
fighting for
humanitarian reforms
• Henry Davit thoreau
put idea of selfreliance into practice
by living alone near
pond in Mass
– Wrote Walden
III School & Prison Reform
A. Improving Education
• No nat’l education policyvarious school
cond. Aroudn country
– School not mandatory/all ages put together
• PA makes tax suppoted public school
– Other states follow
• Horace Mann= school reformer who pushed
for compulsory attendence & teacher training
programs
– Believed survival of Amer rep. depends on
educated ppl
B. Reforming Asylums & Prisons
• Dorthea Dix=social reformer who focused on
prison & mental health reform
– Jails held mentally ill & treated poorly
• Investigation state built public hospitals for
mentally ill & improved jails
IV Americans Form Utopian
Communities
• Optomism of rel. movement & Social
RreformUtopian Comm.
– Utopian Comunities= experimental groups who
lived together & tried to create a perfect society
• Brooke Farm set up by Ripley
– Like most, Brooke Farm was not successful
• Members could not agree on a philosophies &
operating methods