1820-1860
SOCIETY, CULTURE,
AND REFORM
Essential Question
• Evaluate the extent to
which reform movements
in the United States from
1820-1860 contributed to
maintaining continuity as
well as fostering change
in American society.
Religion: The 2nd Great Awakening
• Causes:
– Reaction to:
• Rationalism/Enlightenment ideals
• Materialism of Market Revolution
• Rejection of Puritan foundations
– Original Sin
– Predestination
• Characteristics:
–
–
–
–
Camp meetings/revivals
Grass-roots organization
Individual salvation
Democratic, egalitarian
Revivalism Expands
• The “Burned Over District”
– New York
• Charles G. Finney
– Sermons based on fear and
damnation
• Expansion of Denominations
– Baptists and Methodists
• Offshoots:
– Millennialism/Millerites
• 7th Day Adventists
– The Mormons
• Joseph Smith, Bringham Young
• NY  OH  MO  Nauvoo 
SLC
American Culture
• Transcendentalism
– Characteristics:
• Challenged materialism
• Self-cultivation
– Examples:
• Emerson
– Reject European traditions;
Spiritual over material;
abolitionist
• Thoreau
– “On Civil Disobedience,” and
Walden
» Advocated nonviolent
protest
Utopian Experiments
– Brook Farm
• Transcendentalist
– The Shakers
• Forbid marriage and sexual
relations
– New Harmony
• Secular, push back against
inequity and alienation
brought by the Ind. Rev.
– Oneida
• Free-love
• Successful
Arts and Literature
– Painting
• Hudson River School
– Cole and Church
– Architecture
• Greek revival
– Literature
• Irving & Cooper,
– Set stories in American
Landscapes
• Hawthorne
– Criticized intolerance and
conformity
• Melville
– Theological & Cultural
conflicts Performance
Reforming Society
• Temperance
– Causes:
• Overconsumption/alcoholism
(5 gal/person)
• Nativism
– Organizations and Methods
• American Temperance Society
• Neal Dow and the Maine Law
• Penal Reform
– Punishment vs. Rehabilitation
– Mental Hospitals
• Dorthea Dix
– Pennsylvania System
– Auburn System
Educational Reform
– Public Schools & Teacher
Training
• Horace Mann
– Moral Education
• McGuffey Readers
– Hard work
– Punctuality
– Sobriety
– Higher Education
• Denominational colleges.
• College education for
women: Mount Holyoke &
Oberlin
Changing Role of
Women and Families
• Gender Roles:
– Cult of Domesticity
• Took charge of household and children
• Strengthened by men’s absence
• Movement for Women’s Rights
– Grimké Sisters, Lucretia Mott,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Connection to abolitionist movement
– Seneca Falls Convention
(1848)
• Declaration of Sentiments
– All women and men are
created equal
– Listed grievances of male
dominated society
Antislavery Movement
•
•
American Colonization Society (1817)
American Antislavery Society (1831)
–
William Lloyd Garrison
•
•
•
The Liberator
Liberty Party (1840)
Abolitionists
–
–
Immediatists vs. Gradualists
Black Abolitionists
•
Frederick Douglass
–
•
–
Tubman, Truth
Rebellions
•
•
–
The North Star
Denmark Vesey (1822)
Nat Turner (1831)
Underground Railroad
Reaction and Legacy
• Sectionalism:
– Southerners viewed northern
reforms as alarming
• Threats to:
– Slavery
– Way of life
• Legacy:
– Birth of “American” culture
and ideals
• Religion, education, arts, and
entertainment
– Widespread reform
movements both united and
divided the country.