Chapter 15
The Ferment of
Reform and
Culture
1790 – 1860
p. 222
The Third Revolution


A revolution to improve the character of
ordinary Americans and make them more
upstanding, God-fearing, and literate
Some high-minded people were disappointed
in the reality of politics


Some, mainly women, were left out of politics
altogether
As America grew, more people poured their
energies into religious revivals and reform
movements
The Third Revolution Cont.




Reformers called for: better public schools,
rights for women, polygamy, celibacy, rule by
prophets, and guidance by spirits
Societies were formed against: alcohol,
tobacco, profanity, and transit of mail on the
Sabbath
Overshadowing all reforms was the fight
against slavery
1790s- The Second Great Awakening
transformed the place of religion in American
life and sent out a generation of believers
I. Reviving Religion


1850- Church attendance was still regular- ¾
attended out of 23 million Americans, but the
Calvinist rigor had been seeping out of the
nation’s churches
The French Revolution era softened the older
orthodoxy


Thomas Paine in “Age of Reason” (1794) declared
that all churches were set up to “terrorize and
enslave mankind.”
People were rarely as extreme as Paine, but people
like Jefferson and Franklin embraced Deism
 Relied on reason rather than revelation and
rejected the concept of original sin and denied
Christ’s divinity, but believed in a Supreme Being
I. Reviving Religion Cont.

Deism inspired a spinoff of PuritanismUnitarianism



Held that God existed in only one person
and not in the orthodox Trinity
Denied the deity of Jesus, stressed the
essential goodness of human nature, the
possibility of salvation through good works,
and God as a loving Father rather than a
stern Creator
Appealed mostly to intellectuals whose
rationalism and optimism contrasted with
Calvinist doctrines of predestination and
human depravity
I. Reviving Religion Cont.

Second Great Awakening started in the South
and made its way quickly to the Northeast

Was spread by “camp meetings” where as many
as 25,000 people would gather for an
encampment of several days



Boosted church membership and stimulated
various humanitarian reforms
Moved to engage in missionary work among the
Indians, in Hawaii and in Asia
Led to prison reform, the temperance cause, the
women’s movement, and the crusade to abolish
slavery
p. 223
I. Reviving Religion Cont.

Methodists and Baptists stressed personal
conversion, a relatively democratic control of
church affairs, and a rousing emotionalism

Peter Cartwright- the best known Methodist
“circuit riders” (traveling frontier preachers)


Spent 50 years traveling from Tennessee to
Illinois calling upon sinners to repent
Charles Grandison Finney- greatest of the
revival preachers who led huge revivals in
Rochester and NYC in 1830 and 1831


Wanted a perfect Christian kingdom on earth and
denounced slavery and alcohol
Served as president of Oberlin College in Ohio
that he helped make into a hotbed of revivalist
activity and abolitionism
I. Reviving Religion Cont.

Key feature of the Second Great Awakening
was the feminization of religion in terms of both
church membership and theology





Middle-class women were the first and most
enthusiastic proponents for religious revivalism
Ambivalence about the expanding market
economy made them eager coverts to piety
Evangelicals preached a gospel of female
spiritual worth and offered women an active role
in brining their husbands and families back to
God
Turned to saving the society
Formed a house of charitable organizations and
led most of the crusades for reform
II. Denominational Diversity

Many different denominations had descended
from the first settlers of America

New England Puritans (“burned over district”) turned
into Millerites or Adventists (numbered several
hundred thousands)


Dampened, but not destroyed by the failed prophecy
of their leader, William Miller, who claimed that Christ
would return to Earth on October 22, 1844
Second Great Awakening widened the gaps
between classes and regions



Most prosperous and conservative denominations in
the East were little touched by revivalism
Wealthier- Episcopalians, Presbyterianism, and
Congregationalists
Lesser- Methodists, Baptists, & new denominations
III. A Desert Zion in Utah

1830- Joseph Smith, a rugged visionary,
reported to have received some golden plates
from an angel



The Book of Mormon and the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) was launched
Was a native American product, a new religion, that
would spread its influence worldwide
Ran into opposition from non-Mormon
religions, first in Ohio and then in Missouri and
Illinois


People were against their voting as a unit and
openly drilling their militia for defensive purposes
Accusations of polygamy
III. A Desert Zion in Utah Cont.

Continuing hostility drove the Mormons to
desperate measures



1844- Joseph Smith and his brother were murdered
and mangled by a mob in Carthage, Illinois and
movement seemed near collapse
Saved by a remarkable Mormon Moses named
Brigham Young
 Proved to be an aggressive leader, eloquent
preacher, and gifted administrator
 1846-1847- Young led his oppressed Latter-Day
Saints to Utah
Made the desert bloom through irrigation

By 1848, about 5,000 settlers had arrived
p. 225
III. A Desert Zion in Utah Cont.



Started a prosperous frontier theocracy and
cooperative commonwealth
Young married as many as 27 women and begot
56 children
Crisis developed when Washington could not
control the hierarchy of Brigham Young, who was
made territorial governor in 1850



Federal army marched in 1857 against the
Mormons, who harassed its lines of supply and
rallied to die in their last ditch
Quarrel was finally adjusted without serious
bloodshed
Mormons went against anti-polygamy laws passed
by Congress in 1862 and 1882 (delayed their
statehood until 1896)
IV. Free Schools for Free People


Tax-supported schools were rare because they
would exist mainly to educate the children of the
poor
Between 1825 and 1850- the spread of democratic
ideas and manhood suffrage for whites won the
acceptance for public schools



Except in the South
Free vote cried for free education
One-room, one-teacher “little red
schoolhouses” were imperfect shrines of
democracy

Stayed open only a few months a year,
schoolteachers (mainly men) were ill trained, ill
tempered, and ill paid- “readin’, ‘ritin’, rithmetic”
IV. Free Schools for Free People Cont.


Reform was needed
Horace Mann- brilliant, idealistic graduate of
Brown University who worked as the secretary
of the Massachusetts Board of Education



Campaigned effectively for more and better
schoolhouses, longer school terms, higher pay for
teachers, and an expanded curriculumimprovements took place
Education remained an expensive luxury for most
communities
1860- Only about 100 secondary schools in the
nation and nearly 1 million white adult illiterates

Blacks legally prohibited to receive any educationSouth
IV. Free Schools for Free People Cont.

Educational advances were aided by improved
textbooks


Noah Webster- “The Schoolmaster of the Republic”
 “Reading lessons”, used to promote nationalism,
were used by millions of children in the 19th
century
 Devoted 20 years to his famous dictionary,
published in 1828, helped standardized the
American language
William H. McGuffey- teacher-preacher of rare
power
 Grade-school readers, first published in 1830s,
sold 122 million copies in the following decades
 McGuffey’s Readers- morals, patriotism, idealism
p. 227
V. Higher Goals for Higher Learning

Second Great Awakening led to small
denominational colleges, mainly in the South and
West



First in the South- North Carolina in 1795
University of Virginia (1819) founded by Jefferson
dedicated to freedom from religious or political
shackles, modern languages, and the sciences
Women’s higher education as frowned upon in the
early 19th century- a woman’s place was in the
home

Believed that too much learning injured the feminine
brain, undermined health, and rendered a young
lady unfit for marriage
 Susan B. Anthony’s teachers refused to teach
her long division
V. Higher Goals for Higher Learning
Cont.

Women’s schools at the secondary level gained
more respectability in the 1820s




Emma Willard- establish Troy (New York) Female
Seminary
Oberlin College opened its doors to women in 1837
(had already shocked people by admitting black
students)
Mary Lyon- established an outstanding women’s
school, Mount Holyoke Seminary in South Hadley,
Massachusetts
People who craved more learning could do so at
private or tax-supported libraries

Travel lecturers – Ralph Waldo Emerson
V. Higher Goals for Higher Learning
Cont.

Magazines flourished


The North American Review (1815)- the
long-lived reader of the intellectual
Godey’s Lady’s Book (1830)- survived until
1898 and attained an enormous circulation
of 150,000

Devoured devotedly by millions of women, many
of whom read the copies of their relatives and
friends
p. 228
VI. An Age of Reform

Reform campaigns of all kinds flourished

Second Great Awakening called to battle
against earthly evils (old Puritan visions)



Perfect society free from cruelty, war,
discrimination, intoxicating drink, and ultimatelyslavery
Women especially headed these in the struggle for
suffrage and provided an escape of the confines of
the home and entrance in public affairs
The Christianity of these reformers resulted
from their desire to reaffirm traditional values
as the market economy flourished

Blamed problems on bad habits
VI. An Age of Reform Cont.

Imprisonment for debt continued to be a
nightmare

1830s- Hundreds were imprisoned



Poorer working classes especially hard hit
As laborers won the right to vote, they were
eventually abolished
Softened the criminal codes
 Number of capital offenses was reduced
 Brutal punishments, like whipping and
branding, were slowly eliminated
 Idea that prisons should reform as well as
punish
 “Reformatories”, “penitentiaries”, and “house
of corrections”
VI. An Age of Reform Cont.

Mentally ill still treated cruelly

New England teacher-author, Dorothea Dix
spent 8 years observing the conditions first hand
and petitioned the Massachusetts state
legislature in 1843


Resulted in better conditions and the idea that
they were not willfully perverse, but mentally ill
1828- American Peace Society was formed as
a war on war group that was making promising
progress, but setback by the Crimean War in
Europe and Civil War in America
VII. Demon Rum: The “Old Deluder”

Excessive drinking of hard liquor led many to
call for reform




Was common for most people, including women and
clergy
Turned weddings and funerals into brawls and
embarrassments
Fouled the sanctity of the family
American Temperance Society was formed in
Boston in 1826


Within a few years, a thousand local groups formed
Recruited people to sign the temperance pledge and
created children’s clubs- “Cold Water Army”
VII. Demon Rum: The “Old Deluder”
Cont.

T.S. Arthur- Ten Nights in a Barroom and What
I Saw There (1854)



Described a once-happy village ruined by Sam
Slade’s tavern
Best-seller, second only to Harriet Beecher
Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Foes of the Demon Drink took two moves of
attack:


Stiffen the individual’s will to resist alcohol
(stressed temperance over elimination)
Zealots- called for elimination by legislation
VII. Demon Rum: The “Old Deluder”
Cont.

Neal S. Dowe- Mayor of Portland and employer
of labor


“The Father of Prohibition”- sponsored the so-called
Maine Law of 1851
 Hailed as “the law of Heaven Americanized,” it
prohibited the manufacture and sale of
intoxicating liquor
 Other states in the North followed suit and by
1857, about a dozen had passed prohibitory laws
Prohibitionists made noticeable gains


Less drinking among women
Probably much less per capita consumption of hard
liquor
VIII. Women in Revolt

19th Century- It was still a man’s world






Women stayed in the home and were subordinate to
their husbands
Women could not vote
Like black slaves, could be beaten by her overlord
“with reasonable instrument”
Once married, she could not retain title to her
property- it passed to her husband
Still better than Europe- Alexis de Tocqueville noted
that in France, rape was punished only lightly, but in
America, it was punishable by death
As decades went on, women could be a little
more free- some avoided marriage and 10%
remained spinsters at the time of the Civil War
VIII. Women in Revolt Cont.

The market economy was increasingly
separating men and women into distinct
economic roles



Women were thought to be physically and
emotionally weak, but artistic and refined
 They also were believed to be morally in tuned
and the keepers of society’s conscience
Men were considered strong, but crude, always in
danger of slipping into some savage or beastly way
of life if not guided by women
The home was women’s special sphere. Even
reformers like Catherine Beecher celebrated
the role of the good homemaker- some felt it a
cage
VIII. Women in Revolt Cont.


Female reformers had a broad range of battles
from demanding rights for women, the fight for
temperance, and the abolition of slavery
Women’s rights movement was led by
prominent characters



Lucretia Mott- Quaker woman who traveled to
London and was not recognized by the anti-slavery
convention there in 1840
Elizabeth Cady Stanton- mother of 7 who left “obey”
out of her wedding vows and advocated for women’s
suffrage
Susan B. Anthony- a militant lecturer for women’s
rights
VIII. Women in Revolt Cont.

Other feminists:





Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell- A pioneer as the first female
graduate of a medical college
Margaret Fuller- Edited a transcendentalist journal,
The Dial, and took part in the struggle to bring unity
and republican government to Italy
The Grimke sisters (Sarah and Angelina)champions of anti-slavery
Lucy Stone- who kept her maiden name at marriage
Amelia Bloomer- revolted against current “street
sweeping” female attire and donned a short skirt
with Turkish trousers (“bloomers”
VIII. Women in Revolt Cont.

The feminists met in 1848 in a Women’s Rights
Convention at Seneca Falls, New York





Stanton read a “Declaration of Sentiments” which
like the Declaration of Independence, stressed that
“all men and women are created equal.”
One of the resolutions called for the ballot for
females
Launched the women’s rights movement
The Crusade for women’s rights was eclipsed
by the campaign against slavery
Women still could not vote, but were being
admitted into colleges gradually

Mississippi (1839)- women could own property after
marriage
IX. Wilderness Utopias

Inspired by the utopian spirit of the age, various
reformers set up more than 40 communities of
a cooperative, “communistic” or
“communitarian” nature


Robert Owen founded a community (1825) of about
1000 people at New Harmony, Indiana
 Little harmony (ha-ha) prevailed as it attracted a
sprinkling of radicals, work-shy theorists, and
outright scoundrels.
Brook Farm in Massachusetts (1841) consisted of
200 hundred acres of grudging soil and started with
25 intellectuals committed to transcendentalism
 Did well until a fire in 1846 took a large new
communal building and forced them into debt
 Inspired Hawthorne’s The Blithedale RomanceI
IX. Wilderness Utopias Cont.

Oneida Colony (1848)- New York. Practiced
free love (“complex marriage”), birth control
(through “male continence”), an eugenic
selection of parents to produce offspring



Flourished for more than 30 years because its
artisans made superior steel traps and Oneida
Community Plate
1879-1880: Embraced monogamy and abandoned
communism
Shakers (1770s)- Founded in England by
Mother Ann Lee and moved to New York

Membership of about 6000 in 1840, but monastic
customs prohibiting both marriage and sexual
relations drove them to extinction by 1940
X. Artistic Achievements

Arts were the slowest to gain momentum



Shelters were still built to imitate those in England
Public buildings and other important structures
imitated the Greeks and Romans (out of place)
 Greek revival from 1820-1850
 Gothic revival in the 1850s
Thomas Jefferson was one of the most talented
architects of his generation

Can be seen through Monticello and the University
of Virginia at Charlottesville
X. Artistic Achievements Cont.

Painting and theater were seen as sinful by the
Puritan prejudice, but competent painters still
emerged





Gilbert Stuart of Rhode Island, was one of the most
gifted, produced many portraits of Washington that
were idealized and dehumanized
Charles Wilson Peale of Maryland, painted some 60
portraits of Washington, who sat for 14 of them
John Trumbull, who fought in the Revolutionary War,
recaptured its scenes and scores on canvas
American painters turned from human subjects
to romantic landscapes- Hudson River School
Portrait painters received competition from the
invention of the French daguerreotype photo
X. Artistic Achievements Cont.

Music was slowly coming into its own after all
non-religious singing was looked down upon by
the Puritans



Rhythmic and nostalgic “darky” tunes were popular
by midcentury
Special favorites included the American minstrel
shows, featuring white actors with darkened faces
Most famous black songs came from Stephen C.
Foster
 Made a valuable contribution to American folk
music by capturing the mournful spirit of the
slaves in songs like “Old Folks at Home”
XI. The Blossoming of National
Literature


America had produced praiseworthy political
essays (The Federalist), political orations by
Daniel Webster, and Benjamin Franklin’s
Autobiography, but most was imported or
plagiarized from Britain
The Knickerbocker Group enabled America to
boast of a literature to match its magnificent
landscapes and had an impressive group of
members
XI. The Blossoming of National
Literature Cont.


Washington Iriving- NYC. First American to win
international recognition as a literary figure.
Published Knickerbocker’s History of New York
(1809) with amusing caricatures of the Dutch and
Sketchbook (1819-1820) which included DutchAmerican tales like “Rip Van Winkle” and “The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
James Fenimore Cooper- First American novelist
to gain world fame



The Spy (1821)- tale of the American Revolution
Leatherstocking Tales- tales of Natty Bumpo (rifleman)
The Last of the Mohicans- Natty and the Indians
XI. The Blossoming of National
Literature Cont.

William Cullen Bryant- New York. Wrote
“Thanatopsis,” (1817) one of the first highquality poems produced in the United States

Critics couldn’t even believe that it had been written
on “this side of the water.”
XII. Trumpeters of Transcendentalism


Transcendentalism was especially popular
near Boston which believed itself “The Athens
of America”
Resulted in part from a liberalizing of the
straitjacket of Puritan theology


Owed much to foreign influences, (German romantic
philosophers and religions of Asia)
Rejected the idea that all knowledge comes to
the mind through the senses


Trust “transcends” the senses- It cannot be found by
observation alone
Every person possesses an inner light for the
highest truth- in direct touch with God (“Oversoul”)
XII. Trumpeters of Transcendentalism
Cont.

The mystical doctrines defied precise definition,
but underlay concrete beliefs




Stiff-backed individualism in matters religious and
social
Hostility to authority and formal institutions of any
kind and all conventional wisdom
Exaltation of the dignity of the individual, whether
black or write- humanitarian reforms
Ralph Waldo Emerson- Trained an a Unitarian
minister who left the pulpit to reach people
through paper and pen

“The American Scholar” (1837): an intellectual
Declaration of Independence
XII. Trumpeters of Transcendentalism
Cont.

Emerson was not of the highest rank, but more
influential as a practical philosopher who
reached people through his fresh and vibrant
essays



Stressed self-reliance, self-improvement, optimism,
and freedom
His ideals reflected those of an expanding America
By the 1850s, he was an outspoken critic of slavery
and supported the Union case in the Civil War
XII. Trumpeters of Transcendentalism
Cont.

Henry David Thoreau- poet, mystic,
transcendentalist, and nonconformist who was
a close associate of Emerson’s.



Condemning a government that supported slavery,
he refused to pay his Massachusetts poll tax and
was jailed for a night
Best known for Walden: Our Life in the Woods
(1854)- a record of two years he spent living in
simple existence in a hut that he built o the edge of
Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts
Individualist who felt he should reduce his bodily
wants to gain time for a pursuit of truth through
study and meditiation
XII. Trumpeters of Transcendentalism
Cont.

Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
showed a strong influence in furthering
idealistic thought


Writings later encouraged Mohandas Gandhi to
resist British rule in India and inspired MLK Jr.’s idea
of nonviolence during the Civil Rights Movement
Walt Whitman




Leaves of Grass (1855) gushed genius
Highly romantic, emotional, and unconventional
Was first a financial failure- only 3 anonymous
enthusiastic reviews were ever written about him
Won a large following and named Poet Laureate of
Democracy
p. 237
XII. Trumpeters of Transcendentalism
Cont.


Louisa May Alcott- Concord. Transcendentalist
daughter of a philosopher father, she wrote
Little Women and other books to support her
family
Emily Dickinson- Amherst. Lived as a recluse,
but created her own original world through her
poetry


Used spare language and simple rhyme schemes to
explore themes such as nature, love, death, and
immortality
Refused to publish her works in life, when she died
nearly 2000 were found and published
I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –
Between the Heaves of Storm –
The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset – when the King
Be witnessed – in the Room –
I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away
What portions of me be
Assignable – and then it was
There interposed a Fly –
With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz –
Between the light – and me –
And then the Windows failed – and then
I could not see to see –
XIII. Literary Individualists and
Dissenters

Edgar Allan Poe was an eccentric genius







Orphaned at an early age, cursed with ill health, and
married to a child-wife of 13 who fell fatally ill of
tuberculosis
Suffered hunger, cold, poverty, and debt
Was a gifted lyric poet- “The Raven”
If he did not invent the detective novel, he set new
high standards for it
Excelled in the short story, especially the horror
genre- fascinated by the ghostly and ghastly
Was a contrast of dark sensibility to the optimistic
tone of American culture
Life cut short when he was found drunk in a
Baltimore gutter and died shortly after
XIII. Literary Individualists and
Dissenters Cont.

Two writers showed the Calvinist obsession
original sin and the struggle between good and evil


Nathaniel Hawthorne- The Scarlet Letter (1850)about a Puritan adulteress and The Marble Faun
(1860) about young American artists who witness a
mysterious murder in Rome
Herman Melville- an orphaned, ill-educated New
Yorker who went to sea as a youth and served 18
months on a whaler
 Moby Dick (1851) is an allegory for good and evil
 Was ignored at first and Melville worked as a
customs inspector and died in obscurity and
poverty
 Wasn’t recognized until the 20th century
XIV. Portrayers of the Past

American historians were emerging at the
same time American writers were

George Bancroft- secretary of the navy that helped
found the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1845




Known as the “Father of American History”
Published a spirited, super-patriotic history of the United
States to 1789 in 6 volumes (1834-1876)
William H. Prescott- Published classic accounts of
the conquest of Mexico (1843) and Peru (1847)
Francis Parkman- Penned a brilliant series of
volumes beginning in 1851 that chronicled the
struggle between France and Britain in colonial
times for mastery of North America
XIV. Portrayers of the Past Cont.

Early American historians were prominently
New Englanders



Boston area provided well-stocked libraries and a
stimulating literary tradition
Writers were mainly abolitionists and had a harsh
video of the South
The writing of American history suffered for
generations from an anti-southern bias