ANTEBELLUM AMERICA
THE YEARS BEFORE THE CIVIL
WAR
ANTEBELLUM AMERICA
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The years before the Civil War (1830s-1860)
are known as the antebellum years.
These years witnessed a religious revival,
several social reform movements and the
growth of slavery and sectional tensions.
During these years a diverse mix of reformers
dedicated themselves to such causes as free
public education, temperance, better
treatment of the mentally ill, women’s rights,
and abolishing of slavery.
ANTEBELLUM AMERICA
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The enthusiasm for reform had many
historic sources:
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The Puritan sense of mission
The Enlightenment belief in human goodness
and prefectability
The policies of Jacksonian Democracy
The changing relationship between men and
women
The changing relationship among the social
classes and ethnic groups
ANTEBELLUM AMERICA
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The most important and significant
source were the powerful religious
motives behind the reformers’ zeal.
These powerful religious motives led to
the far-reaching SECOND GREAT
AWAKENING.
THE SECOND GREAT
AWAKENING
THE SECOND GREAT
AWAKENING
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Religious revivals swept through America
during the early decades of the 19th century.
They were partly a reaction to the rationalism
(belief in human reason) which had become
fashionable during the Enlightenment and
American Revolution.
Calvinist (Protestant) teachings of original sin
and predestination had been rejected by
believers in more liberal and forgiving
doctrines, such as those of the Unitarian
Church.
THE SECOND GREAT
AWAKENING
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Calvinism began a
counterattack against these
liberal views in 1795.
This counterattack was led by
Reverend Timothy Dwight who
was President of Yale College.
Dwight started a series of
campus revivals, which
motivated a generation of
college-educated young men to
become evangelical preachers
of the Christian gospels.
Unlike the early Calvinists, the
new breed allowed free will, or
“free agency,” to play a role in
salvation.
THE SECOND GREAT
AWAKENING
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Presbyterian minister, Charles G.
Finney, in 1823, started a more
radical form of revivalism in upstate
New York.
Instead of delivering sermons based
on rational arguments, he appealed
to people’s emotions and fear of
damnation and persuaded
thousands to publicly declare their
revived faith.
He preached that all were free to be
saved through faith and hard work –
ideas that strongly appealed to the
rising middle class.
Because of Finney’s influence
western New York became known
as the “burned-over district” for its
frequent “hell-and-brimstone”
revivals.
THE SECOND GREAT
AWAKENING
THE SECOND GREAT
AWAKENING
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In the South and on the
advancing western frontier,
Baptist and Methodist circuit
preachers, such as Peter
Cartwright, would travel from
one location to another and
attract thousands to hear their
dramatic preaching at outdoor
revival or camp meetings.
They converted many of the
unchurched into respectable
members of the community.
By 1850, the Baptists and
Methodists had become the
largest Protestant
denominations in the country.
THE SECOND GREAT
AWAKENING
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Much of the religious
enthusiasm of the time was
based on the widespread belief
that the world was about to end
with the second coming of
Christ.
The preacher William Miller
gained tens of thousands of
followers by predicting a specific
date (Oct. 21, 1844) when the
second coming would occur.
There were obvious
disappointments when nothing
happened on the appointed day,
but the Millerites would continue
as a new religion, the SeventhDay Adventists.
THE SECOND GREAT
AWAKENING
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Another religious group,
the Church of the
Latter-Day Saints , or
Mormons was founded
in 1830 by Joseph
Smith.
Smith based his
religious thinking on a
book of Scripture - the
Book of Mormon –
which traced a
connection between the
Native Americans and
the lost tribes of Israel.
THE SECOND GREAT
AWAKENING
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The Mormons were
persecuted in Ohio,
Missouri and Illinois.
Their practice of
polygamy created
enemies.
1844, Smith and his
brother were
murdered by a mob
in Illinois.
THE SECOND GREAT
AWAKENING
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Brigham Young led the
Mormons to Salt Lake City,
Utah.
Here the community became a
prosperous frontier theocracy
and cooperative commonwealth.
They cultivated semi-arid Utah
by effective and cooperative
methods of irrigation.
Mormons later broke polygamy
laws passed by Congress in
1862 and 1882.
As a result, Utah was refused
statehood until 1896.
IMPACT OF THE SECOND GREAT
AWAKENING
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Became perhaps the most important era
in the history of American religion.
Hundreds of thousands became “bornagain” Christians.
Shattered and reorganized churches
and new sects.
Fostered new reform movements.
Women were vital in these new reform
movements.
IMPACT OF THE SECOND GREAT
AWAKENING
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The SGA and reform movements offered
many middle-class women opportunities to
escape the “cult of domesticity” and take part
in public life.
Most affected by SGA: poor, working class
and middle class.
Wealthier, better-educated levels of society
not as affected by the revivalism.
SGA gave rise to the establishment of several
utopian communities seeking perfection.
THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS
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In Europe, during the early
years of the 19th century, a
romantic movement in art
and literature stressed
intuition and feelings,
individual acts of heroism,
and the study of nature.
At the same time, in the
United States from 18201860, these romantic and
idealistic themes were best
expressed by
transcendentalists, a small
group of New England
writers and reformers.
TRANSCENDENTALISTS
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Transcendentalists questioned the doctrines of
established churches and the capitalistic habits of
the merchant class.
They argued for a mystical and intuitive way of
thinking as a means for discovering one’s inner
self and looking for the essence of God in nature.
Their views challenged the materialism of
American society by suggesting that artistic
expression was more important than the pursuit of
wealth.
They supported a variety of reforms, especially the
antislavery movement.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
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Best known.
His essays and lectures
expressed the individualistic
mood of the period.
In a 1837 address entitled “The
American Scholar” he evoked
the nationalistic spirit of
Americans by urging them not
to imitate European culture but
to create an entirely new and
original American culture.
His poems and essays argued
for self-reliance, independent
thinking, and the primacy of
spiritual matters over material
ones.
He became a leading critic of
slavery and an ardent supporter
of the Union during the Civil
War.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
* To test his transcendentalist
philosophy, he conducted a twoyear experiment of living by himself
in the woods outside town.
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There he used observations of
nature to discover essential truths
about life and the universe =
Walden
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Through his essay “On Civil
Disobedience,” he established
himself as an early advocate of
nonviolent protest.
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The essay presented his argument
for not obeying unjust laws.
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His own act of civil disobedience
was to refuse to pay a tax that
might be used in an “immoral” war
– the U.S. war with Mexico.
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His sentence was to spend one
night in a Concord jail.
BROOK FARM
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1841: George Riley, a Protestant
minister, launched a communal
experiment at Brook Farm in
Massachusetts.
His goal was to achieve “a more
natural union between
intellectual and manual labor.”
A bad fire and heavy debts
forced the end of the
experiment in 1849.
But Brook Farm was
remembered for its atmosphere
of artistic creativity and an
innovative school that attracted
the sons and daughters of New
England’s intellectual elite.
At various times many of the
leading intellectuals of the time
lived at Brook Farm.
MARGARET FULLER
THEODORE PARKER
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
COMMUNAL EXPERIMENTS
COMMUNAL EXPERIMENTS
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The idea of withdrawing from conventional society to
create an ideal community, or utopia, in a fresh
setting was not a new idea.
But never before were the social experiments so
numerous during the antebellum years.
The early Mormons may be considered an example of
a religious communal effort.
Brook Farm may be considered an example of a
humanistic or secular experiment.
Although many of the communities were shortlived,
these “backwoods utopias” reflected the diversity of
the reform ideas of the time.
THE SHAKERS
THE SHAKERS
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One of the earliest
religious communal
movements.
Had about 6,000
members by the
1840s.
THE SHAKERS
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They held property
in common.
They kept men and
women strictly
separate –
forbidding marriage
and sexual relations.
Shaker communities
virtually died out by
the mid-1900s.
NEW HARMONY
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Robert Owen founded a
secular experiment in New
Harmony, Indiana.
He hoped his utopian
socialist community would
provide an answer to the
problems of inequity and
alienation caused by the
Industrial Revolution.
The experiment failed as a
result of both financial
problems and
disagreements among
members of the
community.
NEW HARMONY
NEW HARMONY
ONEIDA COMMUNITY
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1848: John Humphrey
Noyes started a
cooperative community
in Oneida, New York.
His community would
become highly
controversial.
Dedicated to an ideal of
perfect social and
economic equality,
members of the
community shared
property – and later
even shared marriage
partners.
ONEIDA COMMUNITY
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Critics attacked the
Oneida system of
planned
reproduction and
communal childrearing as a sinful
experiment in “free
love.”
ONEIDA COMMUNITY
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Even so, the
community
managed to prosper
economically by
producing and
selling silverware of
excellent quality.
FOURIER PHALANXES
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1840s: Many Americans
became interested in
the theories of French
Socialist Charles Fourier.
To solve the problems
of a fiercely competitive
society, Fourier
advocated that people
share work and living
arrangements in
communities popularly
known as Fourier
Phalanxes.
FOURIER PHALANXES
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This movement died
out almost as
quickly as it
appeared.
Americans proved to
be too individualistic
to adapt to
communal living.
REFORMING SOCIETY
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Reform during the antebellum era went
through several stages.
At first, the leaders of reform hoped to
improve people’s behavior through
moral persuasion.
After they tried sermons and
pamphlets, however, reformers often
moved on to political action and to
ideas for creating new institutions to
replace the old.
TEMPERANCE
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The Temperance Movement was
an excellent example of the
shift from moral exhortation to
political action.
Alcohol abuse was rampant in
19th century America (“the
Alcoholic Republic”)
Alcohol abuse decreased the
efficiency of labor while
increasing injuries in the
workplace.
Family life was also hindered by
the physical danger to women
and children.
1820: Alcohol consumption
= 5 gallons of hard liquor
per person.
TEMPERANCE
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1826: The American
Temperance Society
was formed in Boston.
Using moral arguments,
the society tried to
persuade drinkers not
just to moderate their
drinking but to take a
pledge of total
abstinence.
Within a few years
there were about 1000
local groups.
TEMPERANCE
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1840: The Washingtonians
was begun by recovering
alcoholics, who argued
that alcoholism was a
disease that needed
practical, helpful
treatment.
By the 1840s, the various
temperance societies had
more than a million
members, and it was
becoming respectable in
middle-class households
to drink only cold water.
TEMPERANCE
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German and Irish immigrants
were largely opposed to the
temperance movement but
did not have the political
power to prevent state and
city governments from siding
with the reformers.
Factory owners and
politicians joined with the
reformers when it became
clear that temperance
measures could reduce crime
and poverty and increase
workers’ output on the job.
TEMPERANCE
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1851: Neal Dow, known as
the “Father of Prohibition”
sponsored the Maine Law of
1851.
Under this law, Maine
became the first state that
prohibited the sale and
manufacture of liquor.
1857: 12 states had passed
various prohibitory laws.
Yet, during the 1850s, many
of these laws were repealed
or overturned.
“TEN NIGHTS IN A BARROOM
AND WHAT I SAW THERE”
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A play by T.S. Arthur in
1854.
It depicted how a stable
village was transformed
by a new tavern.
2nd best seller in 1854
behind Harriet
Beecher’s Stowe’s Uncle
Tom’s Cabin.
“DRUNKARD’S PROGRESS”
IMPACT OF THE TEMPERANCE
MOVEMENT
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Much less drinking among women than earlier in the
century.
Less per capita consumption of hard liquor.
1850s: The issue of slavery came to overshadow the
temperance movement.
1870s: The movement would gain strength again
with the formation of the Women’s Christian
Temperance Union and achieve national success with
the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919.
Given the high rate of alcohol consumption (5 gallons
of hard liquor per person in 1820), it is
understandable why the temperance movement
proved to be the most popular of the prewar reforms.
THE MOVEMENT FOR PUBLIC
ASYLUMS
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Humanitarian reformers of the 1820s and 1830s
called attention to the increasing numbers of
criminals, emotionally disturbed persons, and
paupers.
Often these people were forced to live in wretched
conditions and were regularly either abused or
neglected by their caretakers.
To alleviate these problems, reformers proposed
setting up new public institutions – state-supported
prisons, mental hospitals, and poorhouses.
They hoped that the inmates of these institutions
would be cured of their antisocial behavior as a result
of being withdrawn from squalid surroundings and
treated to a disciplined pattern of life in some rural
setting.
MENTAL HOSPITALS
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Dorothea Dix, a former
schoolteacher from
Massachusetts, was
horrified to find
mentally ill persons
locked up with
convicted criminals in
unsanitary cells.
She dedicated the rest
of her life to improving
conditions for
emotionally disturbed
persons.
MENTAL HOSPITALS
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1840s: Her travels
across the country and
reports of awful
treatment caused one
state legislature after
another to build new
mental hospitals to
improve existing
institutions.
As a result of Dix’s
crusade, mental
patients began receiving
professional treatment
at state expense.
SCHOOLS FOR THE BLIND AND
DEAF
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Two other reformers
founded special
institutions to help people
with physical disabilities.
Thomas Gallaudet
founded a school for the
deaf.
Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe
founded a school for the
blind.
1850s: Special schools
modeled after the work of
these reformers had been
established in many states
of the Union.
PRISONS
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Taking the place of crude jails
and lock-ups were new prisons
erected in Pennsylvania.
These penitentiaries
experimented with the
technique of placing prisoners in
solitary confinement to force
them to reflect on their sins and
repent.
The experiment was dropped
because of the high rate of
prisoner suicides.
These prison reforms reflected a
major doctrine of the asylum
movement: structure and
discipline would bring about
moral reform.
PRISONS
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Another penal
experiment, the
Auburn system in
New York, enforced
rigid rules of
discipline while also
providing moral
instruction and work
programs.
PUBLIC EDUCATION
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The movement to reform public education
focused on the need for establishing public
schools for children of all classes.
Middle-class reformers were motivated in part
by their fears for the future of the republic
posed by growing numbers of the uneducated
poor – both native-born and immigrants.
Workers’ groups in the cities generally
supported the reformers’ campaign for free
(tax-supported) schools.
FREE COMMON SCHOOLS
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Horace Mann was a leading
advocate of the common
(public) school movement.
As the secretary of the newly
founded Massachusetts
Broad of Education, he
worked for improved
schools, compulsory
attendance for all school
children, a longer school
year, and increased teacher
preparation.
1840s: The movement for
tax-supported schools spread
rapidly to other states.
MORAL EDUCATION
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Besides the teaching of
basic literacy, Mann and
other educational
reformers wanted children
to be instructed in
principles of morality.
William Holmes McGuffey,
a Pennsylvania teacher,
created a series of
elementary textbooks that
became widely accepted
as the basis of reading
and moral instruction in
hundreds of schools.
MORAL EDUCATION
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The McGuffey
Readers extolled the
virtues of hard work,
punctuality, and
sobriety – the kind
of behaviors needed
in an emerging
industrial society.
MORAL EDUCATION
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Objecting to the
evangelical
Protestant tone of
the public schools,
Roman Catholic
groups founded
private schools for
the instruction of
Catholic and foreignborn children.
HIGHER EDUCATION
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The religious
enthusiasm of the
Second Great
Awakening helped fuel
the movement for
educational reform.
Beginning in the 1830s,
various Protestant
denominations founded
small denominational
colleges, especially in
the newer states –
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
and Iowa.
HIGHER EDUCATION
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At the same time,
several new
colleges, including
Mount Holyoke
College in
Massachusetts and
Oberlin College in
Ohio, began to
admit women.
THE CHANGING AMERICAN FAMILY
AND THE WOMEN’S RIGHTS
MOVEMENT
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American society was still overwhelming rural in the mid19th century.
Even so, the growing part of society that was urban and
industrial underwent fundamental changes that would be
felt for decades to come.
In cities, as a result of the Market Revolution, the roles
of men and women, husbands and wives were
redefined.
Men left home to work for salaries or wages six days a
week in the office or factory.
Middle-class women typically remained at home to take
charge of the household and children.
THE CHANGING AMERICAN FAMILY
AND THE WOMEN’S RIGHTS
MOVEMENT
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Industrialization also had the effect of
reducing the economic value of children.
In middle-class families, birth control was
used to reduce average family size, which
declined from 7.04 family members in
1800 to 5.2 in 1830.
More affluent women now had the leisure
time to devote to religious and moral uplift
organizations.
THE CULT OF DOMESTICITY
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The Cult of Domesticity glorified
the traditional function of the
homemaker.
Men were responsible for
economic and political affairs.
Women were viewed as moral
leaders in the home and
educators of children.
Women were seen as keepers of
society’s conscience with special
responsibility to raise children to
become productive citizens.
(“Republican Motherhood”)
ORIGINS OF THE WOMEN’S
RIGHTS MOVEMENT
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Women increasingly
challenged their inferior
status.
Increased number of
women avoided
marriage.
Women began working
as schoolteachers and
in domestic service.
Women played an
increasing role in other
reform movements of
the era especially the
Abolitionist Movement.
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
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Two sisters, Sarah and
Angelina Grimke,
objected to male
opposition to their
antislavery activities.
In protest, Sarah
Grimke, wrote her
Letter on the Condition
of Women and the
Equality of the Sexes
(1837)
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
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Grimke’s book was a
powerful call for
equal rights for
women and a
critique of the
notion of separate
spheres.
It raised numerous
issues familiar even
today.
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It raised the issue of
“equal pay for equal
work.”
Why, Grimke
wondered, did male
teachers receive
higher wages than
women teachers.
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
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
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Lucretia Mott, key
organizers of the
Seneca Fall Convention
of 1848, were veterans
of the anti-slavery
movement.
1840: They had
traveled to London as
delegates to the World
Anti-Slavery Conv., only
to be barred from
participating because of
their sex.
SENECA FALLS CONVENTION OF
1848
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1848: The leading
feminists met at Seneca
Falls, New York.
At the conclusion of
their convention – the
first women’s rights
convention in American
history – they issued a
document modeled
after the Declaration of
Independence.
THE SENECA FALLS
DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS
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The Declaration of
Sentiments declared
that “all men and
women are created
equal.”
It listed women’s
grievances against
laws and customs
that discriminated
against them.
WOMEN’S RIGHTS

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Seneca Falls marked
the beginning of a
70 year struggle for
suffrage.
But the vote was
hardly the only issue
discussed at the
Conv.

The Dec. of Sentiments
condemned the entire
structure of inequality
that denied women
access to education and
employment, have
husbands control over
property and wages and
custody of children in
the event of divorce.
WOMEN’S RIGHTS

Equal rights became the rallying cry of
the early movement for women’s rights,
and equal rights meant claiming access
to all the prevailing definitions of
freedom.
FEMINISM AND FREEDOM
FEMINISM AND FREEDOM
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The movement for
women’s rights was an
international movement.
“Women alone will say
what freedom they
want,” declared an
article in The Free
Women, a journal
published in Paris in
1832.
FEMINISM AND FREEDOM

Many middle-class
women chafed at
the restrictions that
made it impossible
for them to gain an
education, enter the
professions, and in
other ways exercise
their talents.

Whether married or
not, early feminists
insisted, women
deserved the range
of individual choices
– the possibility of
self-realization –
that constituted the
essence of freedom.
FEMINISM AND FREEDOM
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Women, wrote
Margaret Fuller, had
the same right as
men to develop their
talents, to “grow…
to live freely and
unimpeded.
1845: She published
Woman in the
Nineteenth Century.
FEMINISM AND FREEDOM

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In this book, Fuller sought to apply the
transcendentalist idea that freedom
meant a quest for personal
development.
“Every path,” to self-fulfillment, she
insisted, should be “open to woman as
freely as to man.”
WOMEN AND WORK
WOMEN AND WORK
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Women also demanded
the right to participate
in the market
revolution.
1851: Sojourner Truth
insisted that the
movement devote
attention to the plight
of the poor and working
class women.
WOMEN AND WORK
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While there were no representatives of
the growing numbers of “factory girls:
at the Seneca Falls Convention, the
participants rejected the identification
of the home as the women’s “sphere.”
Women, it was argued, must go to work
to emancipate them from bondage.
WOMEN AND WORK
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1850s: Some feminists
tried to popularize a
new style of dress,
devised by Amelia
Bloomer, consisting of a
loose-fitting tunic and
trousers.
Women who wore this
style were ridiculed by
the press and public.
WOMEN AND WORK

The “bloomer” costume
attempted to make a
serious point – that the
long dresses, tight
corsets, and numerous
petticoats considered to
be appropriate female
attire were so confining
that they made it
impossible for women
to claim a place in the
public sphere or to work
outside the home.
WOMEN AND WORK
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In one sense, feminism demanded an
expansion of the boundaries of freedom
rather than a redefinition of the idea.
Women, in the words of one reformer, should
enjoy “the rights and liberties that every ‘free
white male citizen’ takes to himself as Godgiven.”
In every realm of life, declared Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, there could be “no happiness
without freedom.”
11 STAGES OF WOMENHOOD