Antebellum
Revivalism
&
Reform
Ms. Susan M. Pojer
Horace Greeley HS Chappaqua, NY
1. T he Second Great
Awakening
“Spiritual Reform From Within”
[Religious Revivalism]
Social Reforms & Redefining the
Ideal of Equality
Temperance
Education
Abolitionism
Asylum &
Penal Reform
Women’s
Rights
Second Great Awakening
• At the start of the 18th century many people
wanted to improve the character of the
American people
• Most Americans still attended Church
• Many leading figures were Deists
• Helped create Unitarianism – God existed in
only one person, not the Trinity
• They stressed the goodness of human
nature and saw God as loving and kind
• Unitarians tended to be intellectuals like
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who were rational
and optimistic
• Slowly a new emphasis on religion started
to develop
• It also influenced prison reform,
temperance, woman’s movement and the
abolition of slavery
• At “camp meeting” thousands would meet
to hear evangelical speakers
• Many new believers became Baptists or
Methodists
• Preachers like Charles Goodison Finney
appealed to thousands who wanted to be
saved – especially appealing to women
• Methodists and Baptists tended to come
from the less wealthier segments of society
• In 1844 the Methodists and Baptists both
split from their northern churches over the
issue of slavery
• In 1857 the Presbyterians also split over the
issue
“T he Benevolent Empire”:
1825 - 1846
Second Great Awakening
Revival Meeting
Mormons
• In 1830 Joseph Smith claimed he had been
given golden plates by an angel
• The plates became the Book of Mormon
and launched the Church of Latter-Day
Saints
• Accusations of polygamy led to continued
hostility
• In 1844 Smith and his brother were
murdered in Illinois – the movement
seemed in danger
T he Mormons
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)
 1823  Golden
Tablets
 1830  Book of
Mormon
 1844  Murdered in
Carthage, IL
Joseph Smith
(1805-1844)
T he Mormon “Trek”
T he Mormons
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)
 Deseret
community.
 Salt Lake City,
Utah
Brigham Young
(1801-1877)
• Brigham Young took over and in 1846-7 he
led his people to Utah to avoid persecution
• The barren land of Utah was soon made to
flourish by the Mormons and the community
grew
• But problems occurred when Washington
D.C. tried to control Young who had made
himself governor
• Issues of polygamy prevented the territory
from becoming a state until 1896
Mother Ann Lee (1736-1784)
T he Shakers
e If you will take up your crosses against the
works of generations, and follow Christ in the
regeneration, God will cleanse you from all
unrighteousness.
e Remember the cries of those who are in need
and trouble, that when you are in trouble, God
may hear your cries.
e If you improve in one talent, God will give you
more.
R1-4
Shaker Meeting
Shaker Simplicity & Utility
Literature
• Before 1820 much of the literature was
British and few people actually had the time
to read
• After the War of 1812 and the development
of a national spirit, literature became
important
• Washington Irving was the first American
author to gain international recognition. He
wrote Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow
• James Fenimore Cooper, was the first
American novelist –the Leatherstocking
Tales which included The Last of the
Mohicans
• One of the effects of the flowering of
literature was the transcendental movement
• They rejected the traditional philosophies
that knowledge comes from the senses and
stressed that truth transcends the senses,
not just through observations
2. Transcendentalism
(European Romanticism)
e Liberation from understanding and
the cultivation of reasoning.”
e “Transcend” the limits of intellect
and allow the emotions, the
SOUL, to create an original
relationship with the Universe.
Transcendentalist T hinking
 Man must acknowledge a body of moral
truths that were intuitive and must
TRANSCEND more sensational proof:
1. The infinite benevolence of God.
2. The infinite benevolence of nature.
3. The divinity of man.
Transcendentalist Intellectuals/Writers
Concord, M A
Ralph Waldo
Emerson
Nature
(1832)
Self-Reliance
(1841)
Henry David
Thoreau
Walden
(1854)
Resistance to Civil
Disobedience
(1849)
“The American
Scholar” (1837)
R3-1/3/4/5
A Transcendentalist Critic:
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
e Their pursuit of the ideal led
to a distorted view of human
nature and possibilities:
* The Blithedale Romance
e One should accept the world
as an imperfect place:
* Scarlet Letter
* House of the Seven
Gables
3. Utopian Communities
T he Oneida Community
New York, 1848
e Millenarianism --> the 2nd
coming of Christ had
already occurred.
e Humans were no longer
obliged to follow the moral
rules of the past.
• all residents married
John Humphrey Noyes
(1811-1886)
•
to each other.
carefully regulated
“free love.”
Secular Utopian
Communities
Individual
Freedom
Demands of
Community Life
e spontaneity
e discipline
e self-fulfillment
e organizational
hierarchy
George Ripley (1802-1880)
Brook Farm
West Roxbury, MA
Robert Owen (1771-1858)
Utopian Socialist
“Village of Cooperation”
Why Did New Harmony Fail?
Original Plans for New Harmony, IN
New Harmony in 1832
Reforms
• The Second Great Awakening caused
people to seek the creation of a morallycorrect society
• Some of the most significant reforms were
in the field of prison reform – especially for
debt
• By the 1830s hundreds of people were in
prison for owing less than one dollar
• The Enlightenment led to a softening of
harsh punishments
4. Penitentiary Reform
Dorothea Dix
(1802-1887)
1821  first
penitentiary founded
in Auburn, NY
R1-5/7
Dorothea Dix Asylum - 1849
• The other big problem in America was
alcoholism
• 1826 American Temperance Society formed
in Boston
• They stressed temperance as opposed to
“teetotalism”
• Neal S. Dow became known as the “Father
of Prohibition” sponsored the Maine Law in
1851, prohibited the manufacture and sale of
alcohol
5. Temperance Movement
1826 - American Temperance Society
“Demon Rum”!
Frances Willard
R1-6
The Beecher Family
Annual Consumption of Alcohol
Based on the above chart:
Was the Temperance
Movement Successful?
7. Educational Reform
Religious Training  Secular Education
e MA
e By
 always on the forefront of public
educational reform
* 1st state to establish tax support for
local public schools.
1860 every state offered free public
education to whites.
* US had one of the highest literacy rates.
Education
•
•
•
•
•
Most wealthy Americans opposed free
education
But fear of an uneducated mob with the
power to vote forced many to consider
public education
The image of the school house became a
common feature in many small towns
Students in mixed grades usually learned
the “three Rs”
It was prohibited to teach blacks in the
South
• Horace Mann campaigned for better
schools, more pay for teachers, and more
time in school
• Noah Webster the “Schoolmaster of the
republic” created lessons that promoted
patriotism
• The Second Great Awakening led to the
opening of many small liberal arts colleges
especially in the South and West
• Women’s education was frowned upon
Horace Mann (1796-1859)
“Father of
American Education”
R3-6
T he McGuffey Eclectic
Readers
e Used religious parables to teach “American values.”
e Teach middle class morality and respect for order.
e Teach “3 Rs” + “Protestant ethic” (frugality,
hard work, sobriety)
R3-8
Cult of Domesticity
•
•
•
•
•
The 19th century was man’s world
Like slaves – women were subordinate,
could be legally beaten, and could not vote
Women were expected to create a cult of
domesticity for the home
Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
became prominent in the women’s rights
movement
The most conspicuous advocate was
Susan B. Anthony
7. “Separate Spheres” Concept
“Cult of Domesticity”
e A woman’s “sphere” was in the home (it was a
refuge from the cruel world outside).
e Her role was to “civilize” her husband and
family.
e An 1830s MA minister:
The power of woman is her dependence. A woman
who gives up that dependence on man to become a
reformer yields the power God has given her for
her protection, and her character becomes
unnatural!
Early 19c Women
1. Unable to vote.
2. Legal status of a minor.
3. Single  could own her own
property.
4. Married  no control over her
property or her children.
5. Could not initiate divorce.
6. Couldn’t make wills, sign a
contract, or bring suit in court
without her husband’s permission.
Cult of Domesticity = Slavery
The 2nd Great Awakening inspired women
to improve society.
Angelina Grimké
Sarah Grimké
e Southern Abolitionists
R2-9
Lucy Stone
e American Women’s
Suffrage Assoc.
e edited Woman’s Journal
R2-6/7
8. Women’s Rights
1840  split in the abolitionist movement
over women’s role in it.
London  World Anti-Slavery Convention
Lucretia Mott
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
1848  Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments
• Feminists met at Seneca Falls, New York in
1848 at the Women’s Rights Convention
• Stanton read the “Declaration of
Sentiments” – that all men and women are
created equal
• The Seneca Falls Convention was the start
of the modern women’s rights
• Before the Civil War the movement closely
tied itself to the antislavery campaign.
• After the war there was a great sense of
disappointment over the lack of success for
women
9. Abolitionist Movement
e 1816  American Colonization Society
created (gradual, voluntary
emancipation.
British Colonization Society symbol
Abolitionist Movement
e Create a free slave state in Liberia, West
Africa.
e No real anti-slavery sentiment in the North
in the 1820s & 1830s.
Gradualists
Immediatists
W illiam Lloyd Garrison
(1801-1879)
e Slavery & Masonry
undermined republican
values.
e Immediate emancipation
with NO compensation.
e Slavery was a moral, not
an economic issue.
R2-4
T he Liberator
Premiere issue  January 1, 1831
R2-5
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
1845  The Narrative of the Life
Of Frederick Douglass
1847  “The North Star”
R2-12
Sojourner Truth (1787-1883)
or Isabella Baumfree
1850  The Narrative of Sojourner Truth
R2-10
Harriet Tubman
(1820-1913)
e Helped over 300 slaves
to freedom.
e $40,000 bounty on her
head.
e Served as a Union spy
during the Civil War.
“Moses”
T he Underground Railroad