REFORM MOVEMENTS OF
THE 1800S
Which reforms of the era had the
most lasting effect on the civil
rights and liberties of Americans?
• The first half of the nineteenth century was
a time of “movers and shakers,” people
who saw injustices in American society
and worked to abolish those injustices.
• These reforms would change the lives of
many individuals.
What were the major reform
movements of the 1800s?
•
•
•
•
•
Treatment of the mentally ill
Temperance movement
Abolition of slavery
Women’s rights
Education
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
Leader: Dorothea Dix
GOAL: better
treatment of
persons with
mental illnesses
REASON:
the mentally
ill were badly
treated
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
• In the early 1800s, Americans viewed the United
States as a land of unlimited opportunity. Many
believed that those who failed did so because
they had bad characters.
• As a result, debtors, children who were
offenders, and the mentally ill were often locked
up in jails with murderers and thieves.
• Dorothea Dix and other reformers worked to
change Americans’ ways of thinking about these
institutions and their inmates.
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
• Dorothea Dix first observed prison
conditions while teaching Sunday school
at a Boston prison for women in 1841.
• She wanted to find out if all the prisons in
the state were as appalling.
• Over a two-year period, Dix investigated
more than 800 prisons, jails, and
poorhouses.
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
• She found the prisoners
were often living in
inhumane conditions.
• Prisoners were often
chained to the walls with
little or no clothing, often
in unheated cells.
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
• To Dorothea Dix’s horror,
she learned that some of
the inmates were guilty of
no crime—they were
mentally ill persons.
• Dix made it her life’s work
to educate the public as
to the poor conditions for
both the mentally ill and
prisoners.
Dorothea Dix Hospital, Raleigh, NC
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
• Dix decided to appeal to the
Massachusetts government for help.
• In 1843 she addressed the following report
to the state legislature:
“I proceed, gentlemen, to call your attention to the
present state of Insane Persons confined…, in
cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained,
naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into
obedience…”
TREATMENT OF THE
MENTALLY ILL
• As a result of Dix’s report, Massachusetts
passed a law to build mental hospitals
where mental illness could be treated as a
disease rather than a crime.
• By 1852, she had persuaded 11 states to
open hospitals for persons with mental
illness.
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• Leader: American Temperance Union and
religious leaders
GOAL: to
eliminate
alcohol
abuse
REASON:
alcohol led
to crime,
poverty,
abuse of
family
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• Religious leaders stood at the forefront of
the war against alcohol.
• Public drunkenness was common in the
early 1800s.
• Alcohol abuse was widespread, especially
in the West and among urban workers.
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• Reformers blamed alcohol for:
– poverty
– breakup of families
– crime
– insanity
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• Alcohol abuse was widespread during this
time.
• Employers often paid part of workers’
wages in rum or whiskey.
• Workers took rum breaks similar to today’s
coffee breaks!!
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• The reformers began a campaign against
drinking.
• The campaign was
known as the
temperance movement.
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• The American Temperance Society was
formed in 1826.
• Within a few years, about 1000 local
organizations sprang up across the nation.
• Some groups took a moderate approach
and asked people to drink less alcohol.
• Other groups insisted that the sale of
alcohol be banned altogether!
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• Northern and Southern temperance
societies used propaganda to win support
for their cause.
• They held meetings, gave speeches, and
distributed pamphlets.
• They even sang songs such as
“Drink Nothing Boys, but Water,”
and “Father, Bring Home
Your Money Tonight.”
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
• State legislators took the reformers’
message to heart. By 1857 several states
had passed prohibition laws.
• Many Americans protested the laws, and
most of the laws were later repealed.
• The temperance movement stayed alive,
though, and found renewed support later
in the century…….
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• Leaders: Quakers, Frederick Douglass,
Sojourner Truth, William Lloyd Garrison,
anti-slavery groups
GOAL:
end slavery
REASON:
it is immoral
for one
person to
own another
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• By 1840, nearly 2.5
million enslaved people
lived in the South.
• At one time, the North
also had slavery. By
1804 every Northern
state legislature had
passed laws to eliminate
it.
• The Southern economy,
though, depended on
slave labor.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• An organized antislavery
movement did not begin
until after the
ABOLISH
Revolutionary War.
SLAVERY!
• A religious group, the
Quakers, started the
abolition movement.
Quakers had opposed
slavery since colonial
times. In 1775 the
Quakers organized the
first antislavery society.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• The American
Colonization Society,
founded in 1817, wanted
to help free African
Americans.
• The society set up a
colony for free African
Americans in Liberia, in
western Africa.
• It was not successful
because many African
Americans wished to
remain in the United
States, their home.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• In 1831 white abolitionist
William Lloyd Garrison
founded The Liberator, a
Boston anti-slavery
newspaper.
• In the first issue, Garrison
demanded the immediate
emancipation, or freeing,
of all enslaved persons.
• He urged abolitionists to
take action without delay.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• The North had many
prominent African American
abolitionists.
• Isabella Baumfree, although
born into slavery in New
York, gained her freedom
when New York abolished
slavery. She changed her
name to Sojourner Truth and
vowed to tell the world about
the cruelty of slavery. She
began a tireless crusade
against injustice.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• The most important
spokesperson for the cause
was Frederick Douglass.
• Born into slavery, Douglass
secretly taught himself to
read, although Southern
laws prohibited it.
• He escaped from slavery in
1838 and settled in
Massachusetts.
• He captivated audiences by
talking about his life in
bondage.
• He spoke out against the
injustices faced by free
African Americans.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• In addition to his public
speaking, Douglass edited a
widely read abolitionist
journal called the North
Star.
• Douglass’s speaking and
writing abilities so
impressed audiences that
opponents refused to
believe he had been a
slave!
• In response, he wrote three
very moving
autobiographies.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• Many abolitionists, like Douglass, did more than
lecture and write. They became “conductors” on
the Underground Railroad.
• The Underground Railroad began around 1817.
It was not an actual railroad but a series of
houses where conductors hid runaway enslaved
persons and helped them reach the next
“station.”
• Enslaved African Americans made their way to
the North or Canada on the railroad.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• Harriet Tubman
became the most
famous African
American conductor
on the Underground
Railroad.
• Tubman fled from
slavery in 1849. Later
she explained why
she risked her life to
escape:
“There was one of
two things I had a
right to, liberty or
death; if I could
not have the one, I
would have the
other.”
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
• Tubman helped others
escape. She returned to
the South 19 times and
led more than 300
enslaved people—
including her own
parents—to freedom.
• Slaveholders offered a
reward of $40,000 for her,
dead or alive.
• But she managed to
avoid discovery time after
time.
Women’s Rights
Leaders: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia
Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth
GOAL: obtain equal
rights for women,
including suffrage,
right to own property,
and education
REASON: women
did not have the
same rights as men
Women’s Rights
• Their involvement in the antislavery
movement and other reform movements
gave women roles outside their homes
and families.
• They learned valuable skills, such as
organizing, working together, and
speaking public. (Note: it was considered
“unfeminine” to speak in public!)
Women’s Rights
• After attending the World AntiSlavery Convention in London
in 1840 and not being allowed
to participate in the
discussions, Lucretia Coffin
Mott and Elizabeth Cady
Stanton spent hours talking
about women’s position in
society.
• They realized that they could
not bring about social change
if they themselves lacked
social and political rights.
Women’s Rights
• On July 19, 1848, the first women’s rights
convention opened in Seneca Falls, New York.
• Both male and female delegates attended the
convention.
Women’s Rights
• The delegates issued the
Seneca Falls Declaration
that “all men and women
are created equal.”
• Then the declaration
listed several resolutions.
One of them demanded
suffrage, or the right to
vote, for women. After
much heated debate, it
passed by a narrow
margin.
Women’s Rights
• The Seneca Falls Convention marked the
beginning of an organized women’s rights
movement.
• Following the convention, women did not
achieve all of their demands. They did, however
overcome some obstacles.
– Many states passed laws permitting women to own
their own property and keep their own earnings.
• Many men and women, though, continued to
oppose the movement. Most politicians ignored
or acted hostile to the issue of women’s rights.
Women’s Rights
• Susan B. Anthony, a powerful organizer, joined the
women’s rights movement. Her father encouraged her
to get an education and so she became a teacher.
• A dedicated reformer, Anthony joined the temperance
movement and worked for the American Anti-Slavery
Society.
• She became one of the first to urge full participation of
African Americans in the women’s suffrage movement.
• Through her efforts, the state of New York agreed to
grant married women the guardianship of their children
and control of their own wages.
• Today Anthony is one of the early movement’s bestremembered leaders.
Education Reform
Leaders: Horace Mann
GOALS: to
educate all
Americans
REASON: more
Americans were
qualified to vote
and needed to be
able to make wise
decisions about
their government
“Education does better than to disarm the poor of their
hostility toward the rich; it prevents them from being poor.”
Education Reform
• American schools varied from section to
section across the country.
• As early as 1647, Massachusetts passed
a law requiring towns to provide schools
for their children. The rest of New
England adopted similar laws. The towns,
not the states, paid for the schools.
Education Reform
• The Middle Atlantic states also took responsibility for
education. Private societies in New York and
Pennsylvania raised money to fund schools.
• The federal government required education for people in
the Northwest Territory. In the Northwest Ordinance of
1787, Congress set aside a section of land in each
township for the support of schools.
• Public schools in the North and West
seldom had enough money to furnish
good educations, though.
Education Reform
• Southern schools had even less support.
In the South, families had to work so hard
to make a living that little time or money
was left for schooling.
• Well-to-do people in all sections of the
country managed to give their children
good educations. Many paid for privately
operated schools.
Education Reform
• During the 1830s more Americans qualified to
vote than ever before. Educational reformers
argued that voters needed good educations to
make sound decisions about their government.
• The reformers proposed raising the standards of
schools across the nation and supporting them
with taxes.
• To accomplish these goals, they started the
common school movement.
Education Reform
• Not everyone favored common schools,
also referred to as free, or tax-supported,
public schools.
• In the 1830s few people paid state or
federal taxes. As a result, many strongly
objected to paying taxes for public
schools.
Education Reform
• Horace Mann spearheaded the campaign for
common schools.
• Mann was especially concerned about poor
children. Their families could not afford to send
them to private schools or to contribute to the
support of schools in their district.
• Mann won over taxpayers to his way of thinking
by pointing out the benefits to society.
Education Reform
• During the 1840s and 1850s, the flood of
immigrants into the United States helped
free public schools gain general
acceptance. Many Americans realized
that schools were the ideal agents to teach
American values to the new arrivals.
Education Reform
• Even with reforms, for many Americans
getting into any kind of school remained a
struggle.
• Most areas of the country neglected the
education of women, African Americans,
and the physically challenged. Bold and
far-sighted reformers, however, took up
their cause.
REFORM MOVEMENTS
OF THE 1800s
Which reforms of the era had the most
lasting effect on the civil rights and
liberties of Americans?