Reformers and Social Change in America 1812-1860
For the following reform movements, thinkers or religious groups, research the
main goals, concerns and causes of your reformer/person. While we will be in the
lab, the photocopy of the textbook, should be where you start.
I will be calling out several of you at a time, to sit at the table and have a
conversation. You will not know who will be at the table with you, but as the
conversation evolves, you should have plenty to say to one another, sometimes
agreeing, sometimes not.
Your gathering will have an audience-the rest of the class. We will be listening in on
your meetings and in doing so, should have a good grasp of what your cause or
beliefs are and who any important leaders, authors are etc…
**Optional-Bring in snacks and drinks for your gathering and dress the part for
extra points.
Total points: 25 per person.
1-The Lowell System and “mill girls” (page 177)
2-Irish immigrants/potato famine and challenges to Protestant consensus (177-178
and
The new working class, Irish slums and factory life and factory workers in general
(178)
3-The Workingmen’s Party and the National Trades Union-Protesting poor working
conditions (178-179)
4- The wives of the New Middle Class and “ladies literature” (179)
5-Charles Finney and the “burned over district”-a church meeting of the Second
Great Awakening (180)
6- Transcendentalists-Emerson and Thoreau (180)
7- Utopian communities-The Oneida community (181)
8- The Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and Joseph Smith (181)
9- American Female Moral Reform Society (182)
10. American Temperance Society (182)
11. Horace Mann and Education Reform (183)
12. Prison Reform and Dorthea Dix (183)
13. Abolition of Slavery and the American Colonization (183)
14. Anti-Slavery Society (183)
15. Resistance to Abolition and the “Gag Rule”(184)
16. Women’s movement- and the Grimke sisters and the Seneca Falls Convention
(184)-