Reform and Culture
UNIT 10
1
The American Nation
Reform and a New American Culture,
1820–1860
VOCABULARY WORDS
-Social Reform
-predestination
-Second Great Awakening
-revival
-debtor
-Temperance Movement
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What is reform and how is it protected by the
Constitution?
- All citizens have rights
- All citizens have responsibilities
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• Rights
-trial by jury
-to choose leaders
-to be elected to
public office
• Responsibilities
- serve on jury
- vote in elections
`- obey laws
4
What is the importance of accepting
personal responsibilities
- Educating your children
- Understanding the Constitutional
guarantees
- Admitting when your wrong
- Accepting consequences
5
It is necessary for a Democratic Society to
have freedom of speech and press in
order to protect individual rights
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Religious Ideals
In colonial times, American Protestants
believed in predestination, the idea that
God decided in advance which people
would attain salvation after death.
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Religious Ideals
•A religious movement of the early 1800s—the
Second Great Awakening —stressed free will
instead. Preachers said that individuals could
save their souls by their own actions.
•In revivals, or huge outdoor meetings, people
heard that individual salvation was the first step
toward reforming the world. This message
inspired people to improve society.
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Roots of Reform
Political Origins
• The ideals of liberty and equality in the
Declaration of Independence inspire
people to try to improve society
• During Jackson era, more people can vote
than ever before
• Critics say slavery and other injustices
violate democratic ideals
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• The Constitution provides citizens with
right to freedom of speech such as that
used by political activists during the 19th
century
• This reflects the importance American
society places on equality
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Roots of Reform
Religious Influences
• Second Great Awakening stresses free will
rather than predestination and had major
effects on:
- Temperance movement
- Prison reform
- Women’s suffrage
• Revivals encourage people to reform their lives
• Finney teaches that individual salvation is the
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first step to the reform of a society
Dorothea Dix
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Dorothea Dix Seeks to Reform the
Treatment of Prisoners and the
Mentally Ill
Reasons Dix called for prison reform:
• Men, women, and children were often
crammed together in cold, damp rooms.
• Sometimes prisoners went hungry unless
they could buy their own food.
• Most prisoners were debtors, people who
could not pay the money they owed.
13
Dorothea Dix Seeks to Reform the
Treatment of Prisoners and the
Mentally Ill
Reasons Dix called for reform in treatment
of the mentally ill:
• The mentally ill were put in jails rather than
hospitals.
• The mentally ill were often put in “cages,
closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained,
naked, beaten with rods.”, Dix reported.
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The Temperance Movement
Temperance Movement
• In the late 1820s, a campaign against
alcohol abuse
• Some groups urged people to drink less.
• Others sought to end drinking altogether.
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Temperance Movement
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Improving Education
Public Schools
• In the early 1800s, Massachusetts was the
only state that required free public
schools. Reformers argued that a republic
such as the United States requires
educated citizens.
• In 1814, New York State passed a law
requiring local governments to set up taxsupported school districts.
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Improving Education
• In Massachusetts, Horace Mann urged
legislators to provide more money for
education. The state built new schools,
extended the school year, raised teachers’ pay,
and established colleges to train teachers.
• By the 1850s, most northern states had set up
free tax-supported elementary schools.
• Mann is noted for the lasting institution of Public
Education
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Improving Education
•
•
•
•
Education for African Americans
A few northern cities set up separate schools
for black students.
In the North, a few African American men and
women opened their own schools.
Some African Americans went on to attend
private colleges such as Harvard, Dartmouth,
and Oberlin.
In 1854, Pennsylvania chartered the first
college for African American men.
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Improving Education
Education for people with disabilities
• In 1817, Thomas Gallaudet set up a school for
the deaf in Hartford, Connecticut.
• In 1832, Samuel Gridley Howe founded the first
American school for the blind.
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Opposing Slavery
-American Colonization Society
-abolitionist
-The Liberator
-Underground Railroad
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Most notable abolitionist
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Grimke Sisters
Sojourner Truth
Harriett Beecher Stowe
Harriet Tubman
Fredrick Douglas
William Lloyd Garrison
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Angela & Sarah
Grimke
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The Grimke Sisters
•
•
•
•
•
•
Angelina and Sarah
Father was a rich slave owner
They hated slavery
Moved to Philadelphia to work for abolition
Spoke out to large crowds
Helped spark a crusade for Women’s Rights
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Sojourner Truth
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Sojourner Truth
• Born into slavery in New York
• Original name was Isabella
• After gaining freedom she felt God wanted
her to fight slavery
• She vowed to sojourn and tell the truth
about slavery thus her name
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
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Harriett Beecher Stowe
• She wrote and published a novel in 1852
• “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”-opposed slavery
- showed evils of slavery
- injustice of Fugitive Slave Act
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Harriet Tubman
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Harriet Tubman
• She was an escaped slave
• Lead more than 300 slaves to freedom
• Credited for establishing the :Underground
Railroad”
• Admirers called her “Black Moses”
• She had a $40,000.00 reward for her
capture by slave owners
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Fredrick Douglass
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Fredrick Douglas
•
•
•
•
•
Best known African American abolitionist
Escaped slave
Spoke in public after escaping
Spoke across United States and Britain
In 1847, started publishing the antislavery
newspaper, the “North Star”
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William Lloyd Garrison
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William Lloyd Garrison
• Out spoke white abolitionists
• Spoke about how this evil should end
immediately
• Started the antislavery newspaper “The
Liberator”
• Founded the New England Antislavery Society
• The Liberator provided a voice for abolition that
might have been unpopular in some places
because of First Amendment Rights
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Roots of the Antislavery Movement
Early antislavery efforts
Since colonial times, Quakers had taught that
slavery was a sin.
During the Second Great Awakening,
ministers called on Christians to stamp out
slavery.
35
Roots of the Antislavery Movement
Colonization Movement
The American Colonization
Society proposed to end slavery
by setting up an independent
colony in Africa for freed slaves.
In 1822, the society founded the
nation of Liberia, in West Africa.
Only a few thousand African
Americans settled there.
36
Roots of the Antislavery Movement
Abolitionist Movement
Reformers known as abolitionists wanted to
end slavery completely in the United States.
Some African Americans tried to end
slavery through lawsuits and petitions.
Others, such as Samuel Cornish and John
Russwurm, used their newspaper to
influence public opinion.
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Roots of the Antislavery Movement
Abolitionist Movement
Free African American David Walker
encouraged enslaved African
Americans to free themselves by any
means.
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The Underground Railroad
• The Underground Railroad was a network of
black and white abolitionists who secretly
helped slaves escape to freedom.
• Conductors guided runaways to stations
where they could hide—the homes of
abolitionists, churches, and caves.
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Reasons Why People Opposed
Abolition
In the North
• Northern mill owners, bankers, and
merchants who depended on southern
cotton worried about losing their cotton
supply.
• Northern workers feared that freed African
Americans might come and take their jobs.
40
Reasons Why People Opposed
Abolition
In the South
• Many white southerners accused
abolitionists of preaching violence.
• Slave owners defended slavery even more
firmly than before. Some argued that
slaves were better off than northern
factory workers.
• To many southerners, slavery was an
essential part of the southern economy
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and way of life.
A Call For Women’s Rights
• Seneca Falls Convention
• Women’s rights movement
• Most felt that giving women a right to vote
would lead to the breakup of families
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Major Women’s Rights
Advocates
• Abigail Adams
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Loucretia Mott
• Sojourner Truth
• Susan B. Anthony
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Seeking Equal Rights for Women
Reasons people sought equal rights for women
in the mid-1800s
– Women could not vote or hold office.
– When a woman married, all of her property
became her husband’s property.
– A working woman’s wages belonged to her
husband.
– A husband had the right to hit his wife.
– The abolitionist movement made people aware
that women, too, lacked full social and political
rights.
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Sojourner Truth
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Seeking Equal Rights for Women
Sojourner Truth
•This former slave was a spellbinding
speaker.
•She spoke out against slavery and also for
women’s rights.
•She ridiculed the idea that women were
inferior to men by nature
•She gave a powerful speech at the Seneca
Falls Convention “Ain’t I A Woman”
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Lucretia Mott
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Seeking Equal Rights for Women
Lucretia Mott
This Quaker woman used her organizing
skills to set up petition drives across
the North.
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Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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Seeking Equal Rights for Women
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Stanton joined Mott and other Americans at the
World Antislavery Convention in London. Back at
home in the United States, she and Mott organized
a convention to draw attention to women’s
problems.
Seneca Falls Convention- 200 women and 40 men
attended
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Declaration of Sentiments
• “We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men and women are created
equal”.
• This was the beginning of the women’s
movement
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Susan B. Anthony
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Seeking Equal Rights for Women
Susan B. Anthony
Traveled across the country, speaking
tirelessly for women’s rights.
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American Art and Literature
• How did American painters develop their
own style?
• What themes did American poets,
novelists, and storytellers explore?
• Why was the “inner light” important to
Emerson and Thoreau?
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American Painters
A New Universal theme or idea developed with
American Art, Music, and Literature
-spirit of self-determination
-celebrations of freedoms
-importance of the common man
Before 1800, most American painters studied in
Europe.
– Benjamin West
– Charles Willson Peale
– Gilbert Stuart
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Benjamin West
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Charles Willson Peale
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Gilbert Stuart
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American Painters
By the mid-1800s, American artists began to
develop their own style. The Hudson River
School painted vivid landscapes of New
York’s Hudson River region.
– Thomas Cole
– Asher B. Durand
– Robert S. Duncanson
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Thomas Cole
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Asher B. Durand
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Sam Gridley Howe
- gifted Frenchman
- painted American wildlife
- Had to go to England to be published
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Samuel Gridley Howe
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American Painters
Some American artists painted scenes of
hard-working country people.
– George Caleb Binghan: frontier life along the
rivers
– George Catlin: Indians of the Great Plains and
Rockies
– Alfred Jacob Miller: Indians of the Great
Plains and Rockies
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American Poetry, Stories, and Other
Literature
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Poems based on events from the
American past, such as “Paul Revere’s
Ride” and “The Song of Hiawatha.”
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John Greenleaf Whittier
Poems about the evils of slavery.
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Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass, a book of poetry
celebrating democracy and common
people.
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Emily Dickinson
Recognized as one of the nation’s
greatest poets.
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Washington Irving
The Sketch Book, including “Rip Van
Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow.”
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James Fenimore Cooper
Stories set in the American past. The
Deerslayer and The Last of the
Mohicans, about a strong, solitary
frontiersman.
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Herman Melville
Moby Dick, about the captain of an
American whaling ship.
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Nathaniel Hawthorne
Stories set in early New England, such as
The Scarlet Letter.
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Edgar Allan Poe
Tales of horror. Known as the “father of
the detective story” for stories such as
“The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”
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William Wells Brown
The first African American to earn his
living as a writer. Wrote Clotel, a novel
of slave life.
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The “Inner Light” of the
Transcendentalists
Transcendentalists believed that the most
important truths in life transcended, or
went beyond, human reason.
– They valued the spark of deeply felt emotions
more than reason.
– They believed that each individual should live
up to the divine possibilities within.
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The “Inner Light” of the
Transcendentalists
Ralph Waldo Emerson
– He believed that civilization provides material wealth, but the
human spirit was best reflected in nature.
– He believed that nature exhibited values that came from
God.
– He stressed individualism, or the importance of each
individual. He said that people have an “inner light” they can
turn to for guidance in their personal lives and to help them
improve society.
– He created paintings, novels, and essays on equality and
the needs of the down trodden
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The “Inner Light” of the
Transcendentalists
Henry David Thoreau
– He believed that the growth of industry and
the rise of cities were ruining the nation.
– He urged people to live as simply and as
close to nature as possible.
– He believed that each individual must
decide what is right or wrong.
– He argued in favor of civil disobedience,
the idea that people have a right to disobey
unjust laws if their consciences demand it.79
Henry David Thoreau
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Horace Mann
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Mary Lyon
No available picture
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Emma Willard
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Brigham Young
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Joseph Smith
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Elizabeth Blackwell
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Thomas Gallaudet
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Abraham Lincoln
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Lyman Beecher
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