1800’s Movements in America
 Public schools began to
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open to create an educated
population of voters
Teacher’s began to be
specially trained and their
salaries increased
More schools opened
School attendance became
mandatory through
elementary school
High schools began to
become more common
 1796 – 1859
 President of the
Massachusetts Senate
 Stepped down to head the
new Massachusetts School
Board for 12 years
 Established the standard
other states would follow
for creating public school
systems and teachertraining programs
 1819 – 1887
 North Carolina’s first
school superintendent
 Championed creating state
standards for what should
be taught in schools
 More difficult to get
children in school in the
South because they were
needed for farm work
 Emma Willard’s Troy
Female Seminary in NY
(1821)
 Mary Lyon’s Mount
Holyoke Female Seminary
in MA (1837)
 Elizabeth Blackwell: 1st
woman to earn a medical
degree, built hospital for
women and children
staffed entirely by women
 Why did reformers think education
was important?
 Why was it important that the
government fund public schools?
 Inmates were not
separated by offense and
prisons included the
violent & mentally ill
 Idea of rehabilitation
rather than punishment
began to take hold
 States began to build
modern prisons
(penitentiaries) to house
long-term prisoners
 Mentally ill received no
treatment, kept in
prisons with common
criminals where they
received not even the
most basic of medical
care and were often
tortured
 The field of “mental
health” didn’t exist yet
 1802 – 1887
 Former teacher who took
up the plight of the
mentally ill
 Traveled and wrote articles
to expose the abuses
suffered by the mentally ill
 Dorothea Dix Hospital in
Raleigh was named after
her in 1856
 What do the efforts and career of
Dorothea Dix suggest?
 How did reform change the prison
system?
 How did the Mentally Ill receive a
voice in reform?
 First labor unions began
to form – pushed for
higher wages, shorter
workdays
 Early unions had little
success – ignored by
employers, not supported
by the government who
saw them as a threat to
American industry
 Men who drank often neglected
their families
 Many bars and saloons, high rate
of alcoholism, especially along
the frontier and in large Eastern
cities
 1833: American Temperance
Union created
 1851: Maine banned sale of
alcohol; by 1855 12 other states
had done so as well
Do you think temperance or
prohibition was a more realistic
reform goal?
What role does religion play in
these reform movements?
The Second Great Awakening
“Spiritual Reform From Within”
[Religious Revivalism]
Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal
of Equality
Temperance
Education
Abolitionism
Asylum &
Penal Reform
Women’s
Rights
 Movement to end
slavery in the United
States
 Took on several
different forms
 Championed primarily
by Northerners and
women
 Opposed slavery on
moral grounds
 Earliest form of
abolitionism called for the
gradual freeing of the
slaves – stop importing
new slaves, then phase out
slavery over time
 Slave owners would be
compensated for their lost
property
 South would have time to
adjust its economy
 1816
 Called for freeing the slaves
but then sending them back
to Africa
 Helped establish country of
Liberia in West Africa as a
home for repatriated slaves
 Too many slaves to be
effective, too expensive to
transport millions
 Most slaves at this point had
never seen Africa and didn’t
want to go
 1785 – 1830
 Free African-American from
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Wilmington, NC who settled
in Boston
Published “Appeal to the
Colored Citizens of the
World”
Called for a violent rebellion
by slaves;
pamphlet was banned
throughout the South
Died under mysterious
circumstances – murdered?
What was the life of a slave like?
Discuss “Slave Spirit” page 279
What were early forms of slave
resistance?
Describe the life of a freedman?
Go Down Moses page 281
 1805 – 1879
 Editor of the Liberator –
an abolitionist newspaper
in Boston
 Demanded immediate
emancipation of the slaves
rather than any kind of
gradual end to slavery
 Founded American
Antislavery Society in 1833
– by 1838 the AAS had
over 250,000 members
 1811 – 1896
 Author of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin,
 a novel which exposed
conditions under
which slaves lived in
the South
 Made real to many
Northerners how
brutal the slave system
could really be
 Sarah: 1792 – 1873
 Angelina: 1805 – 79
 Grew up on
plantation in South
Carolina but became
avid abolitionists
 Wrote and gave
speeches on the
realities of slavery
 1818 – 1895
 Born a slave, but escaped at age 20
 Became a speaker and writer – his
autobiography was a bestseller
 Convinced many whites that
Africans were intelligent and
capable of learning (many in the
South had made claims that
Africans were not)
 Second wife was white, which cost
him support of fellow AfricanAmericans in his later years
 1797 – 1883
 Born a slave in NY, gained
her freedom when NY
emancipated all slaves in
1827
 Became a famous
abolitionist speaker,
especially after her “Ain’t I a
Woman?” speech in 1851
 Born into slavery to
Elijah and Delilah
Jacobs in 1813, the
daughter of slaves
owned by different
families.
 Harriet Ann Jacobs
grew up in
Edenton, N.C.
 Incidents in the
life of a Slave Girl
 Obviously, most people in the South opposed the
abolition movement (Gag Rule)
 Many in North feared the divisiveness that the
movement would cause between North and South;
they would rather maintain the status quo and
avoid conflict
 Some in North feared that freed slaves would all
move North, flooding the job market and driving
down wages
 Others feared that if the South’s economy
collapsed, it would send the entire nation into a
massive economic depression
 Women’s traditional roles in the
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North began to change as fewer
families worked on farms
As women began to take on
more social roles and become
active in reform movements,
demand more political rightsVote
Divorce
own property
Access to birth control
Video: “Not for ourselves” pt1
 1793 – 1880
 First American
“feminist” to push for
women to gain access
to a voice in politics
 Like many women,
began her social
activism with the
abolitionist movement
 1815 – 1902
 Argued for women’s
suffrage, right to
divorce, own property,
and access to birth
control
 Also strongly
supported the
abolitionist and
temperance
movements
 1820 – 1906
 Traveled Europe and the US
giving 75 – 100 speeches each
year for over 40 years
 Also a force in the
abolitionist and temperance
movements
 Arrested in 1872 for illegally
voting the presidential
election
 Video: Not for ourselves pt2
 1848, Seneca Falls. NY
 Organized by Mott and
Stanton
 Issued the “Declarations
of Sentiments and
Resolutions” which added
“and women” to the
Declaration of
Independence’s “all men
are created equal”
 Began the call for suffrage
for women
 What was the role of women in society?
 What led women to become leaders in the
various reform movements we’ve talked
about?
 How did women’s leadership compare to
male leadership in the different reform
movements?
 What was the significance of the Seneca
Falls Convention?