Religious Movements
(1815-1850)
BRIAN HOUGH
Immigration & Antiforeign Movement (1840s)
Immigration & Antiforeign Movement (1840s)
 Americans detest immigration.
 Fear:
lose jobs, weaken Anglo majority…
 Nativists-Protestants; doubt Roman Catholicism
of Irish and Germans.
 Erratic riots and secret antiforeign society…
 Supreme Order of the Star-Spangled Banner…
American party (Know-Nothing party).
 Recede when North and South separate over
slavery.
Antebellum Period
Antebellum Period
 1789-1860
 War
of 1812
 More power to the states
 Westward Expansion
 “Manifest Destiny”
 Gold Rush (1849)
 Railroads
 New States: Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Maine,
Missouri, Michigan
Second Great Awakening
Second Great Awakening
 Connecticut (1790s)
 Educated Americans dislike…
Old Christian beliefs
 Rationalism (human reason)
 Forgiving rites (i.e. Unitarian Church).
 Educated Congregationalists and Presbyterians
 Timothy Dwight- president of Yale University
 Preach:
 Strong religious devotion
 Salvation
 Calvinist (Puritan): original sin and predestination
 Northern New England and western New York.

Revivalism (1823)
Revivalism (1823)
South and western frontier…
 Peter Cartwright (Methodist)…
 Better moral standards on the frontier
 Preach at open-air revival (camp) meetings
 Classes: end drinking, rioting, gossiping, sex-without-marriage, and “sharp business
ways”
 “Revive” them
 Methodists-emerged as the largest Protestant groups, the Baptists emerged as well
 Charles G. Finney-Presbyterian minister from a religious conversion in 1821 (NY)
 “Father of modern revivalism”
 Cooperation between the Protestant denominations
 “Anxious seat” – more conversions
 Denounces Calvinist ideals
 Can be sin-free
 Revive faith
 Huge middle class appeal

Unitarians
Unitarians
 Rivals of the revivals
 “Goodness”
by slow “character building”
Jesus; not an abrupt conversion by a revival
 Jesus Christ was not fully divine
 Broke down many Congressional churches
 Enticed the wealthy and educated
 Like Revivalists…
 Can change and be sin-free
Reject Calvinists
Millennialism
 World going to end in a second coming of
Jesus Christ.
William Miller-(Preacher):
Predicts October 21, 1844 (second
coming going to happen).
Nothing happens.
 Millerites form new religion-Seventh-Day
Adventists.
Church of Latter-Day Saints & Mormons
Church of Latter-Day Saints & Mormons
 Founder: Joseph Smith
Book of Mormon (1827)-links lost tribes of Israel to the Native Americans.
 Lehi (successors went to America and created successful society)
 Wait for Jesus to save them
 God curses them with dark skin (American Indians)
Nauvoo (model city)
 Convert Native Americas and escape persecution.
Smith’s revelations hurt Mormonism
 Polygamy (U.S. government detests this)
“Second Mohammed” & “higher form of religion”
Gathers many followers…Smith and his brother murdered by local mob.
 Under Brigham Young-go west and avoid prosecution.
 New Zion-near the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
 Cooperative in outdoors





Transcendentalists
 Questioning of established church doctrines and capital.
Need mystical and intuitive thinking to discover inner self and God in nature
 Artistic expression over money
 Ralph Waldo Emerson-American lecturer
 “The American Scholar”-(speech at Harvard): Original American culture (no Europe)
“Self-reliance, independent thinking, spiritualism over materialism”
 Henry David Thoreau
 Lived in the woods for two years-discover life and the universe
 “Walden”: A couple of weeks of work each year-can discover meaning of life
 “Civil Disobedience”: nonviolent ways to protest unfair laws.
 Brook Farm (MA)
 George Ripley (Protestant minister)-scholarly and physical labor.
 School-attracts New England elites

Utopian Communities
Utopian Communities
 By the highly educated
 Started: 1820s
 Leave society to create ideal community with
fresh start
 Difficulty in sustaining because of already
strong religious ideals
 Too radical
 Hope from Age of Jackson
Shakers
New Harmony
Utopian Communities: Shakers/New Harmony
 Shakers-early religious communal movements
Mother Ann Lee (illiterate daughter of English blacksmith)
 Very close, agricultural-artisan communities
 Common property; no marriage or sex
 Detest materialism
 New members: converts and orphans
 Amana settlements-(Iowa)
 Ascetic life (like Shakers) but allow marriage-keeps them going
 New Harmony-(Indiana): secular experiment
 Welsh industrialist and Robert Owen-(British industrialist and philanthropist)
 Humans shaped environment
 Answer inequity and alienation after Industrial Revolution
 “Villages of Unity and Mutual Cooperation”
 Fails because of money and disagreement issues.

Oneida
Community
Fourier
Phalanxes
Utopian Communities: Oneida Community/Fourier Phalanxes
 Oneida community (1848)-perfect social and economic equality, sharing of
property and marriage partners.
 John Humphrey Noyes-founds in Oneida, New York.
 Challenges commonplace social ideals
 Communism
 Marriage-all the men and women were married to each other
 Silver
 Fourier Phalanxes (1840s)




By Charles Fourier-French socialist
Cooperative communities
Equal labor
Spare wealth: “Free Soil”
Temperance
(“First
Reform Era”)
Temperance (“First Reform Era”) (Start: 1826)
Moderation and abstinence of alcohol.
 Women
 Alcohol ruins society
 Can lower crime and poverty; increase work
 American Temperance Society-Protestant ministers
 1st national temperance group
 Total abstinence
 Washington Temperance Societies (Washingtonians) (Baltimore)
 Mechanics and laborers (not ministers or manufacturers)
 Reformed drunks
 God will oversee their society
 Salvation from alcohol (A.A.)
 International cooperation
 Order of the Good Templars, Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Anti-Saloon
League
 Get many liquor laws passed

What’s Next????
• NEW LAWS OR AMENDMENTS????
• WHAT WILL THE METHODISTS AND
BAPTISTS DO????
• AN ACTUAL IDEAL SOCIETY????
• WHAT DO YOU THINK….????
Picture Bibliography
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
http://withfriendship.com/images/c/13627/Second-Great-Awakening-picture.jpg
http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/files/images/HD_EmigrantLandinginNY1858.preview.jpg
http://www.historycentral.com/Ant/Daily/entertainment.jpg
http://www.kirkwood.k12.mo.us/parent_student/khs/plattes/topics5and6/topics5and69.jpg
http://uehs75.com/bleeding%20kansas.jpg
http://www.historicwoolenmills.org/blogimg/pr170_mamie.jpg
http://lehrman.isi.org/media/images/cache/Second_Great_Awakening_Revival.jpg/360px-Second_Great_Awakening_Revival.jpg
http://websupport1.citytech.cuny.edu/Faculty/pcatapano/lectures_wc2/Revival.JPG
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.gbgmumc.org/dimockcampmtg/camp.gif&imgrefurl=http://oldlandmark.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/camp-meeting-days-our-summertimeheritage/&usg=__faBoAma7zN756UQY-upUptCtxE=&h=520&w=850&sz=462&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=vsVqEAz7QFyZcM:&tbnh=126&tbnw=206&prev=/images%3Fq%3DReviva
lism%2Bcamp%2Bmeetings%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26gbv%3D2%26biw%3D779%26bih%3D382%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc
&vpx=466&vpy=112&dur=5172&hovh=175&hovw=287&tx=180&ty=119&ei=bw31TL-NJ82ynAeij4jHBw&oei=bw31TLNJ82ynAeij4jHBw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=3&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/f0703s.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_OXK6uRSTHN0/RrctASYovjI/AAAAAAAAAC4/7zanB2sAPzk/s320/Camp+Meeting.jpg
http://www.revival-library.org/images/imagesgalleries/CampMeeting.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/The_Deluge_engraving_by_WIlliam_Miller_after_J_Martin.jpg
http://www.bathintime.co.uk/lowres/51/main/2/189427.jpg
http://img.listal.com/image/293731/600full-ralph-waldo-emerson.jpg
http://www.ineedmotivation.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/md68what-lies-behind-us-ralph-waldo-emerson-posters.jpg
http://studentsforliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Thoreau1.jpg
http://positiveblatherings.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/m113happiness-henry-david-thoreau-posters.jpg
http://www.masshist.org/periodicals/images/Brook_Farm_Rainbow.jpg
http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Brook-Farm-engraving.jpg
http://amhist.ist.unomaha.edu/module_files/brookfarm.jpg
http://sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/IL/1840morm.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_K-T-w4tYTSo/TB-E6heikJI/AAAAAAAADW0/L-g0eKXS9rc/s1600/New+Harmony.jpg
http://faculty.polytechnic.org/gfeldmeth/Shakers_Dancing.jpg
http://sampottsatfreeunit.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/new_harmony_vision.jpg
http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ATLAS_EN/assets/images/047a.jpg
http://americancivilwar.com/pictures/Fourierism.jpg
http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/photos/assets/photos/1144.jpg
http://www.boisestate.edu/socwork/dhuff/us/images/6-18750-99/temperance-1870.jpg
http://www.librarycompany.org/ArdentSpirits/Temperance-ManPursued.JPG
Works Cited
Boyer, Paul S. The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People. 6th ed. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 2008. Print.
Gale, J. T. "What Is the Antebellum Period?" WiseGEEK: Clear Answers for Common
Questions. WiseGEEK, 3 Aug. 2010. Web. 28 Nov. 2010.
<http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-antebellum-period.htm>.
Newman, John J., and John M. Schmalbach. United States History: Preparing for the
Advanced Placement Examination. New York, NY: Amsco School Publications, 1998.
United States History. "The Second Great Awakening." United States History. Online
Highways. Web. 28 Nov. 2010. <http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1091.html>.
United States History. "The Temperance Movement." United States History. Web. 30
Nov. 2010. <http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1054.html>.
Z93. "Pursuit of Perfection - Radical Ideas & Experiments | Fourier Phalanxes | Event
View." Xtimeline - Explore and Create Free Timelines. Xtimeline, 2008-2009. Web.
28 Nov. 2010. <http://www.xtimeline.com/evt/view.aspx?id=683959>.