How did the Second Great Awakening impact
American society as a whole?

The Second Great Awakening spurred people in the North and the West to want to reform society. Reformers mainly wanted to earn their own spot in heaven, but also wished to help the underprivileged.

- Prodestant revivals led by preachers who traveled and spoke to large audiences
- Centered around Calvanist (Puritan) teachingsoriginal sin and predestination
New York : Charles G. Finney- appealed to people’s fears of sinning
- Western NY -“burnt over district” b/c of frequent revivals that crisscrossed the region

-watercolor painting of a
Methodist revival in 1839
-painted by J. Maze
Burbank, who presented it to the Royal Society in
London
-at a campground on a makeshift stage
-people extremely affected by his preaching
-preachers attracted large crowds
-shows that the Second
Great Awakening was widespread and impactful

-Baptists and Methodistscircuit preachers held outdoor revivals (camp meetings) where they converted the “unchurched”
-MillennialismWilliam Miller preached that there would be a second coming of Christ (Oct. 21,
1844)
-nothing happened

Millerites still existed as the
Seventh Day Adventists
-MormonsJoseph Smith founded Church of Latter
Day Saints (1830)

-Brigham Young estbl. New Zion (Mormon
Community) in Utah
-U.S. govt. disagreed with their policy of polygamy
-overall- the Awakening inspired people to perfect their own society and uphold good moral principles

-Temperance1826- American Temperance Society founded by protestant ministers and others
-1840s- Washingtonians
 society started by recovering alcoholics
-German and Irish immigrants opposed
-Maine= 1 st alcohol of 13 states to prohibit the sale of
-temperance movement demonstrated protestants wanting to improve society to uphold their religion

-Public Asylums1840s- Dorothea Dix traveled the
U.S. and reported of bad treatment in mental hospitals
-Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe  school for blind
-Thomas Gallaudet
 school for the deaf
-Pennsylvania- prisons experimented with solitary confinement
-Public EducationHorace Mann (1796-1859)common public school

-William Holmes McGuffey-created textbooks of moral instruction
-Roman Catholic groups founded private schools b/c they disagreed with the “Protestant tone” of public schools
-private colleges founded b/c of Second Great
Awakening
-some colleges began admitting women
-public schools were mainly supported so that the lower class would be taught obedience and learn to work hard

Horace Mann
Tenth Annual Report As Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of
Education, 1848
“an educated people is always a more industrious and productive people. Intelligence is a primary ingredient in the wealth of nations.”
-Mann is making an argument for the wealthy and middle class to support public schools
-His claim suggests that education will benefit the country and produce hard workers, rather than then emphasizing the benefits of the lower class children
-Shows that there was self interest behind support for reforms

-birth control available
 women have more leisure time
-cult of domesticity- women were thought to be moral leaders in the home and educators of children
-1848- Seneca Falls Convention-leading feminists met and issued “Declaration of Sentiments”  stated that “all women are created equal”
-Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony continued to protest for women’s rights

-1822- the American Colonization Society- estbl. an
African American settlement in Liberia (failed)
-1833-William Lloyd Garrison (radical abolitionist) founded the American Antislavery Society
(published The Liberator in 1831)
-1840- The Liberty Party- created by Northerners to take polit. action against slavery
-1847- Frederick Douglass (former slave)The
North Star

-David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet (violent abolitionists)- slaves should rise up against masters
-1831-Nat Turner (slave)- led revolt that killed 55 whites
-whites retaliated and killed 100s of African
Americans
-women also abolitionists
-Second Great Awakening  caused Northerners to want to make all men equal under the law

-reform= a regional phenomenon, in the North and West but not the South
- South= more traditional
- Opposed to antislavery

-Communal Experimentspeople experimented with various ideas of reform
-1841- Brook Farm estbl. in MA by George
Ripley where intellectual elites had lived
-Shakers- religious communities- women and men kept separate
-New Harmony- founded by Robert Owen was secular and socialist

- All of these failed

Americans= too individualistic for communal living
- Communal experiments demonstrated people trying to solve problems in society

Newman, John J., and John M. Schmalbach. United
States History: Preparing for the Advanced
Placement Examination . New York, NY: Amsco
School Publications, 2004. Print.
"Religion and the New Republic - Religion and the
Founding of the American Republic | Exhibitions
- Library of Congress." Religion and the New
Republic - Religion and the Founding of the
American Republic | Exhibitions - Library of
Congress . N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2013.