Ch. 12: Antebellum Culture and Reform
As you read, evaluate the following ideas:
• The First American Renaissance brought about an outpouring of American art and literature.
• The Second Great Awakening’s belief in the perfectibility of the self led to the formation of many reform
movements, having an impact into the future.
• African Americans actively participated in the abolitionist movement.
• The women’s rights movement attempted to challenge traditional beliefs about gender roles.
• The South remained politically, culturally, and ideologically distinct from the other sections.
• Abolitionists, despite being in the minority even in the North, intensified sectional conflict.
The Romantic Impulse (315)
• American intellectuals knew the low standing of or US art and intellectual life
• Worked for creation of an American artistic world independent of Euro
• Romanticism in literature, philosophy, art, politics, and economics overtook the desire for nationalism
Nationalism and Romanticism in American Painting
• First half of 19th century set out to evoke the wonder of the nation’s landscape
• “Sublime” – the feeling of awe and wonderment and even fear of the grandeur of nature
• Hudson River School (New York)
o Frederic Church, Thomas Cole, Thomas Doughty, Asher Durand
o Considered nature the best source of wisdom and spiritual fulfillment
o America was a nation of greater promise than the played-out lands of Euro
o Attempt to preserve the nature many Americans already viewed as threatened
Literature and the Quest for Liberation (316)
First half of 19th century most popular author was Sir Walter Scott
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James Fenimore Cooper – the first great American novelist, adventure and suspense
Fascinated with man’s relationship to nature and the challenges/dangers of America’s western frontier
“Leatherstocking Tales” – Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Deerslayer (1841)
o Native Americans, pioneers, violence, and the law
o The ideal of the independent individual w/a natural inner goodness
o Vicious, grasping nature of the west and need for social discipline & order
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Walt Whitman – “Poet of American Democracy”
o Printer, teacher, newspaper publisher, and poet
o 1855 published Leaves of Grass – helped liberate verse from traditional forms and helped
express spirit of individualism
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Herman Melville – Moby Dick (1851)
o The human spirit is a troubled, often self-destructive force
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Edgar Allen Poe – The Raven (1845) even more bleak than Melville
o Explored the deeper world of the spirit and emotions
o More popular in Europe
Literature in the Antebellum South (317)
White southerner produced very different images of what society was and should be
Southern Romanticism
• Richmond, VA (1830s) – historical romances or romantic eulogies of the plantation system
• Charleston, SC (1840s) – a unique quality to southern life that it was the duty of intellectuals to defend
• More broadly “American” works were also produced in the South that focused on ordinary people and
poor whites
o Deliberately and painfully realistic
o Robust, vulgar humor
o Leads to Mark Twain
The Transcendentalists
New England romantic writers and philosophers (influenced by English and Germans)
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Theory of the individual that rested on a distinction between “reason” and “understanding”
o Reason – the individuals natural capacity to grasp beauty and truth through giving full
expression to instincts and emotions = highest human faculty
o Understanding – the use of intellect in the narrow, artificial ways imposed by society =
repression of instinct and victory of externally imposed learning
o Everyone should strive to be liberated from “understanding” and cultivate “reason”
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Ralph Waldo Emerson – best known for essays and lectures (318)
o Nature (1836) – individuals should work for a communion w/the natural world, “in the woods
we return to reason…”
o Self-Reliance (1841) – “Nothing is at last sacred as but the integrity of your own mind.”
o Quest for self-reliance was a search for communion with the unity of the universe
o America lacked the cultural heritage of Euro nations, but artistic and intellectual achievement
didn’t have to rely on history, but on individuals: “Let the single man plant himself indomitably
on his instincts and there abide and the huge world will come round to him.”
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Henry David Thoreau – repressive forces of society produce “lives of quiet desperation”
o Individuals should resist pressures to conform and respond to their own instincts
o Walden (1845) – went and lived in the woods for two years; living simply was a better
alternative to the modernizing world
o Wrote in “Resistance to Civil Government” that a person’s personal morality had the first claim
on their actions and any government that required violation of that morality had no legitimate
authority = pubic refusal to obey unjust laws
The Defense of Nature
Transcendentalists, and others, believed nature was not just for economic activity, or a body of data to be
studied. It was the source of human inspiration.
• Genuine spirituality came from communion w/the natural world
• Humans separated from nature, would lose their humanity
• Anticipated the environmental movement by 100+ years
Visions of Utopia (318-319)
Brook Farm (1841-47) - founded in West Roxbury, MA to create a new form of social organization
• Everyone shares equally in labor = all could share equally in leisure
• Leisure = first necessity for cultivation of self
• Labor also helped bridge the world of intellect & learning and the world of instinct and nature
New Harmony – Indiana, 1825. “Village of Cooperation”
• Everyone would live and work in total equality
• Economic failure, but inspired dozens of other experimental communities
Redefining Gender Roles
One of the main concerns of the new utopian communities was the relationship between men and women
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Transcendentalist Margaret Fuller: the discovery of “self” was central to antebellum reform and the
questioning of gender roles
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Oneida Community (1848) – upstate New York
o Residents called themselves “Perfectionists”
o Rejected all notions of family and marriage; all residents were “married” to all other residents
o Women were liberated from the demands of male “lust” and traditional bonds of family
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The Shakers – founded in 1770s. Members would “shake” themselves free of sin while dancing and
chanting
o Members were celibate – all members had to choose the faith voluntarily
o Openly endorsed idea of sexual equality; even a God not clearly female or male
o Women exercised the most power
o Response to growing chaos and disorder in US society
The Mormons (320)
• 1830 – Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon. A translation of a set of golden tablets revealed
to him by an angel of God
• 1831 – began searching for a sanctuary for his new community of “saints” (“New Jerusalem”)
o Repeatedly met with resistance and persecution and forced to move. First, from Independence,
MO and Kirtland, OH.
o Early 1840s settled the new town of Nauvoo, IL.
• In 1844 Smith was arrested for treason and imprisoned in Carthage, IL. He was taken from the jail and
lynched
• 12,000 Mormons left Nauvoo and made the trek to Utah, eventually establishing Salt Lake City
• Believed in human perfectibility. God had once been a man thus every man or woman could become a
saint.
• Created a highly organized, centrally directed, social structure as a refuge from disorder and
uncertainty of secular world
Remaking Society (321)
By the 1830s, women had joined, and were often the leaders of new movements to remake society.
• New reform movements:
o Temperance
o Education
o Peace
o Care of the poor, the handicapped and mentally ill
o Treatment of criminals
o Rights of women
• Personal Liberty vs. Social Order
Revivalism, Morality, and Order
Reform came from several places
• Optimistic vision of the divinity of the individual – Emerson, Thoreau, Unitarianism, Universalism
• Protestant Revivalism
o New Lights shared belief that every individual capable of salvation
o Predestination and human helplessness were obsolete & destructive
o Revival of faith didn’t need a miracle, just individual effort
o Popular message along Erie Canal due to major economic changes = many people confused and
disoriented. Again, religion as stabilizing force
o Revivalism became means for salvation and a crusade against personal immorality
The Temperance Crusade (322)
Crusade against drunkenness
• Alcoholism placed a special burden on women
o Money meant for family spent on booze
o Led to abuse of wives and children
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The average male in 1830s drank 3x as much average person today
Helped quell loneliness on the frontier and leisure activity in cities
1826 – American Society for the Promotion of Temperance. Used techniques of religious revivals in
preaching abstinence
1840 – Washington Temperance Society formed. Workers heavily represented
Another attempt to impose some type of order on society
Protestants vs. Catholics (viewed as drunk and threat to order
Phrenology and Health Fads (324)
• Threats to public health (cholera) led to attempts to find solutions, but no one knew what bacteria was
so…
o Water cure – get wrapped up in wet sheets
o Dietary theories – graham crackers
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Phrenology
o 1830s Germany
o Shape of skull important indicator of character and intelligence
o Intelligence and behavior controlled by different parts of the brain – can read this in the bumps
and indentations on person’s skull
o No scientific value
Medical Science
• Biggest problem was absence of basic knowledge about disease
• Advances that were made, often outside medicine, met w/stiff resistance
• 1843 - Oliver Wendell Holmes published his theory of contagion and people flipped out
Reforming Education (325)
• 1830s – public interest in education grew rapidly
o Reflected belief of the innate capacity of every person, and society’s obligation to bring that out
o Expose students to stable social values to help resist chaos and disorder
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Horace Mann – first secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education
o The only way to protect democracy was to create an educated population
o Lengthened the school year to 6 months
o Doubled teacher salaries
o Introduced new professional training for teachers
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States built new schools, created teachers’ colleges, expanded access to new groups of children
1850s – tax-supported elementary schools accepted in all states
Even with advances, quality varied wildly depending on location
In the South – entire Black population barred from education, and only about 35% of white children of
school age actually enrolled in school in 1860
In the North – 72% of school age kids actually enrolled, but attendance was lax
Some people believed Native Americans could be assimilated easier if educated
By Civil War, 94% of population in the North was literate and 83% of the white population of the South
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The Benevolent Empire – creation of new institutions to help the handicapped “discover inner strength
and wisdom”
o Perkins School for the Blind (Boston) first of its kind in the US
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Most reforms focused on imposing a set of social values appropriate for a new, industrializing society
o Thrift, order, discipline, punctuality, and respect for authority
o “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Rehabilitation (326)
• Starting in 1820s, states began to replace antiquated facilities with modern new “penitentiaries” and
mental institutions designed to actually hold inmates
• Attempts made to reform and rehabilitate the inmates, not just lock them away
• Discipline and reflection on bad deeds
• Orphanages, homes for “friendless” women, facilities for the poor with close supervision that would
train people to live more productive lives
The Indian Reservation
• For decades, US policy had been to get Native Americans out of way of white civilization
• Small step from relocation to the reservation
• Ultimately served to get them out of the way, but some believed if on reservations they could learn the
ways of civilization, “the great work of regenerating the Indian race”
Emergence of Feminism (327)
• Women played major roles in reform movements, esp. temperance and abolition
• Doctrine of “separate spheres” contributed to restrictions on women (place is in the home)
• Women begin drawing parallels between slavery the plight of women
• 1848 – Seneca Falls Convention
o Declaration of Sentiments said “all men and women are created equal”
o Demanded the right to vote
o Rejected the idea of “separate spheres” for men and women
• Demands of women still seen as secondary to the far greater issue of slavery
The Crusade Against Slavery (330)
• American Colonization Society (1817) – challenge slavery w/o challenging property rights or southern
culture
o Proposed gradual emancipation w/owners receiving compensation
o Transport newly freed people out of the US to establish a new society somewhere else
Garrison and Abolitionism (331)
• 1831 – William Lloyd Garrison founded the weekly newspaper, The Liberator, in Boston
o Opponents of slavery should view the institution from the p.o.v. of the enslaved, not the white
slaveowner
o Don’t talk about the evil influence on white society, but focus on damage on enslaved people
o Reject “gradualism” and demand the “immediate, unconditional, universal” abolition of slavery
o True aim = extend to African Americans all the rights of citizenship
• 1832 – Garrison founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society
• 1833 – American Anti-Slavery Society
• 1835 – more than 400 chapters
• 1838 – 1,350 chapters w/over 250,000 members
Black Abolitionists
1850 – most free blacks (250,000) in North lived in cities, were victims of mob violence, almost no access to
education, couldn’t vote in most states, and were barred from all but the lowest jobs. BUT they were free.
• Many came to support Garrison, subscribing to, and distributing, The Liberator
• David Walker, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass
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Anti-abolition forces began to respond
o Abolition was a dangerous and frightening threat to their way of life
o Free blacks might flood the North, would mean more competition and lower wages for working
class whites
o Seen as a threat to lucrative trade with the South
Led to violent reactions from the anti-abolition forces (333)
o Prudence Crandall (Connecticut), William Lloyd Garrison (Boston), Elijah Lovejoy (Illinois)
Abolitionism Divided – Moderates vs. Extremists
• From 1840 on, abolition had serious strains and divisions
o Garrisonians – uncompromising moral stance
o Moderates – immediate abolition gradually accomplished
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Secured the passage of “personal liberty laws”—forbade state officials to assist in capture and return
on runaways
Petitioned Congress to abolish slavery places the federal govt had jurisdiction – territories and D.C.,
and stop the domestic interstate slave trade
Free Soilers – keep slavery out of the territories, not just worried about African Americans also wanted
the best land for white people
Harriet Beecher Stowe – Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), sold over 300,000 copies in the US in a year
o Combined the emotional conventions of sentimental novels with political idea of abolition
o Embedded the antislavery message in a popular literary form = brought message of abolition to
a whole new audience