Religion and
Culture in the
1800’s
Second Great Awakening
• 1797 – 1859
• 1st Awakening had
occurred in the 1740s
• 2nd began among frontier
farmers of Kentucky
• Spread among
Methodists, Baptists, and
Presbyterians
• Christians have a moral
duty to improve society
• Let God in and gain
admission to heaven
through acts of faith
Charles G. Finney
• 1792 – 1875
• Presbyterian minister
• Allowed women to
participate in public
prayer
• Taught that everyone has
the ability to gain
salvation through
repentance and good
works that demonstrate
faith
• Planned and rehearsed
his revivals
Lyman Beecher
• 1775 – 1863
• Revivalist Presbyterian
minister
• Father of Harriet Beecher
Stowe
• Preached that citizens,
not government ,are
responsible for building a
better society
• Strongly nativist and
anti-Catholic
The Unitarians
• Jesus not the Son of
God, but was an
important teacher –
there was no Virgin
Birth, no miracles,
and no Resurrection
• God is a unity, not a
trinity (God is One)
• Still considered a
Christian church
The Universalists
• Believed in Universal
salvation – there is no
Hell and God
redeems everyone
because He loves
everyone
• God would not create
a person knowing
that they were
doomed to eternal
damnation
The Mormons
• Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints
• Started in New York, but
were victims of constant
harassment
• Moved to Ohio, then
Missouri, then the town
of Commerce, Illinois in
1839
• Renamed the town
Nauvoo
• After founder’s murder in
1844, Mormons resettled
in Utah
Joseph Smith
• 1805 – 1844
• Recorder of The Book of
Mormon – received from
an angel – which
describes how Israelites
arrived in America
around 600 BC and were
later visited by Jesus
• Had numerous legal runins in Missouri and
Illinois which eventually
led to his arrest
• Murdered by a mob in
1844 while awaiting trial
Brigham Young
• 1801 – 1877
• President of Mormon
church from 1847 -1877
• Founded Salt Lake City,
Utah
• 1st Governor of Utah
• Led the Mormons west to
Utah to escape
persecution
• Practiced polygamy, had
55 wives
Utopian Communities
• Attempts to establish
socially perfect
communities, usually
through equal
communal sharing of
all work,
responsibilities and
rewards
New Harmony, Indiana
• Town was bought in
1824 by utopians
under Robert Owen
with the intention of
building it into a
perfect socialist
community
• No private property,
no money
• Community failed
and was dissolved in
1829
Oneida Community, NY
• Founded by John Noyes in 1848 in
Oneida, NY; lasted until 1881
• All members of the community
shared in work (making silverware)
• Every man was married to every
woman in the community (called
complex marriage or free love)
• Old women introduced young men
to sex, while old men did the same
for young women (to avoid
pregnancies)
• Efforts were made to breed more
perfect children by careful selection
of breeding partners; children were
then raised by the community rather
than by specific parents
• Community reached maximum size
of about 300
Brook Farm
• Founded in 1841, near
west Roxbury, MA
• Transcendentalist
community
• Citizens would share all
labor, be each others
intellectual stimulation
• Community collapsed
economically after being
destroyed by fire in 1847
Shakers
• The United Society of Believers in
Christ’s Second Appearing
• Founded by Ann Lee (who Shakers
believed to be the Second
Appearing of Christ) in England;
offshoot of the Quakers
• No marriage allowed, lifelong
celibacy required
• Shakers would adopt orphans to
keep communities alive
• All work and living quarters were
divided by sex, but the sexes were
equals
• Peaked in mid 1800s with about
6000 members, today only 3
known practitioners in the US
Tent Revivals
• Traveling ministers
would set up tents
and preach, often for
up to a week at the
time
• Singing, prayers, and
motivational
sermons, were all
designed to whip up
the crowd into
emotional
protestations of faith
Benevolent societies
• Developed in large
cities and towns to
spread Protestant
Christianity
• Soon began to focus
on social issues such
as temperance, prison
reform, education
reform, and
abolitionism
Revivalism and abolition
• Most revivalists were
also staunch
supporters of the
abolitionist
movement
• Taught that slavery
was sinful; slavery
destroys the soul of
the master while it
destroys the body of
the slave
Cultural
Movements of
Early 1800s
Neoclassical architecture
• Revival of Greek and
Roman styles
• US modeled itself
after the Roman
Republic and the
democratic ideals of
ancient Greece
• Sometimes called the
“Federal” style in the
US
The White House
• Built 1792 – 1800
• Burned during War of 1812,
but restored by 1817
• Built onto in 1824, 1829,
1901, 1927, and 1946
• In 1950s, entire structure
was rebuilt with a steel
frame from the inside, out
when it was found to be
collapsing!
US Capitol
• Built 1793 – 1811
• Burned during War of
1812, but restored by
1819
• Expanded between
1826 and 1863; small
dome was added but
soon replaced by the
larger dome seen today
Monticello
• Built 1768 – 1809
• Charlottesville, VA
• Home of Thomas
Jefferson – he
designed it himself
• Today, it is the only
private home
designated as a World
Heritage Site by the
UN
Alexis de Tocqueville
• 1805 – 1859
• French
• Author of Democracy in
America
• Toured US for 2 years observing
how democracy was creating a
uniquely “American” culture
• Determined America was a
society where hard work and
money-making was what drove
people, where commoners never
deferred to their “betters”, and
where individualism was
admired.
• Forerunner to “The American
Dream”
Noah Webster
• 1758 – 1843
• Published his first
dictionary in 1806
• In 1826, published his
“American” dictionary
where he provided new
American spellings of
English words and
included thousands of
distinctly American
words
Romanticism
• Artistic and literary
movement that
advocated feeling over
reason, inner
spirituality over
external rules,
individual over society,
and nature over
human-made
environments
Hudson River School of Artists
• American artists who
focused on painting
distinctly American
landscapes – canyons,
rivers, scenes of wild,
untamed frontiers
• Popular throughout
1800s
Washington Irving
• 1783 – 1859
• Wrote The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow, Rip
van Winkle
• Usually wrote under a
pseudonym
• Perfected the short
story as a true literary
artform
Edgar Allan Poe
• 1809 – 1849
• “Master of the Macabre”
• Wrote many poems and shortstories in the horror genre:
The Raven, The Black Cat, The
Cask of Amontillado, The Fall
of the House of Usher, The Pit
and the Pendulum, The
Murders in the Rue Morgue,
The Tell-Tale Heart
• Married his 13 year-old cousin
(he was 26) but she died at 15
• Died of unknown causes
(known to drink heavily)
James Fenimore Cooper
• 1789 – 1851
• Wrote The Last of the
Mohicans
• Wrote mostly about
the frontier and
relations between
white settlers and
Native Americans
Nathaniel Hawthorne
• 1804 – 1864
• Wrote The Scarlet
Letter
• Wrote largely on
man’s tendency to
sin, resulting in his
work being called
“dark romanticism”
Herman Melville
• 1819 – 1891
• Wrote Moby Dick
• One of the only
Romantic authors to
not be very popular
during his own
lifetime
Walt Whitman
• 1819 – 1892
• Free Verse Poet
• Best known for his
work Leaves of Grass
• Works described as
obscene in his own
time because of
sexual frankness,
homosexual themes
Emily Dickinson
• 1830 – 1886
• American poet
• Wrote thousands of
poems
• Obsessed with death
• Broke rules of poetry
concerning structure,
rhyme, and capitalization
• Famous recluse – did not
leave her home for the
last 30 years of her life
Transcendentalism
• Literary and philosophical
movement
• Emphasized individualism
and self-reliance over
religion
• People need to “transcend”
(overcome) the limits of
their mind to embrace
beauty and truth
• Hated conformity and
“followers”
• Modern Day Hipsters…
Ralph Waldo Emerson
• 1803 – 1882
• Philosopher, lecturer,
essayist, and poet
• Believed that all
things were divine
because all things
were connected to
God
• Strong belief in
individualism
Henry David Thoreau
• 1817 – 1862
• Author of Walden
and Civil
Disobedience
• Early
environmentalist
• Abolitionist
• “That government is
best which governs
not at all”
• Opposed taxes
Margaret Fuller
• 1810 – 1850
• Author Woman in the
Nineteenth Century –
first major feminist work
published in US
• Believed in women’s
rights to education and
employment; wanted
prison reform and an end
to slavery
• Died in a shipwreck
“Penny Press”
• Mass produced daily
newspapers which
became affordable for
common people
• Focused on reports of
fires, crime reports,
marriages, gossip,
politics, local news
Godey’s Lady’s Weekly
• 1830 – 1898
• Covered poetry,
literature, and art
primarily from women
artists
• Included dress patterns,
sheet music
• First magazine to
copyright its material to
prevent other
publications from using it
Atlantic Monthly
• 1857 – Today
• Focused on literary and
cultural trends
• Founded and run by
famous writers of the
time: Stowe, Emerson,
Longfellow, etc.
• Has published everyone
from Mark Twain to
Martin Luther King
Harper’s Weekly
• 1857 – 1916
• Featured foreign and
domestic news,
fiction, essays on
many subjects, and
humor
• Became famous for its
political cartoons by
Thomas Nast