Chapter 13
Coming to Terms with the New Age
Mr. Logan Greene
AP United States History
West Blocton High School
Chapter Objectives
• What impact did the new immigration of
the 1840s and 1850s have on American
Cities?
• What were the social reform movements
of the time?
• Who were the abolitionists and what
were their racial attitudes?
• What connections were there between
the women’s rights movement and
previous movements for social reform?
Immigration and Ethnicity
• During the period of market revolution
America also saw a drastic increase in
immigration centered around urban
industrial centers
• A large majority of the immigrants came
from Germany and Ireland
• Immigrants were welcomed by
industrialists who needed the cheap
labor but resented by many Americans
who feared the incoming “outsiders” and
the fact that most were Catholic
Ethnic Neighborhoods
• Upon arriving immigrants generally
stayed with their own ethnic groups
• This offered companionship,
opportunity, and protection
• Generally the poorer Irish found
homes close to industrial centers
while the somewhat wealthier
Germans could find nicer areas
• All ethnic groups used church
societies for communal good
The Growth of Cities
• Cities at this time exploded in size
with an incredible rapidity
• The Market Revolution was
transforming cities into large
metropolises while also creating
“insta” cities that grew at an
alarming rate
• Generally cities expanded to quick
for sanitation and civil services to
keep up creating numerous issues
Class and Living Patterns
• The market revolution did increase
overall incomes in America but also
increased the gap between rich and poor
• Class mirrored your usefulness in the
new industrial sectors as skilled
laborers led middle class lives and
unskilled laborers led lower class
rough existences
• Cities were slow to respond to disease
and overall health concerns due to both
lack of understanding and insufficient
funds
Civic Order
• As the middle class grew so did a
desire for a certain civility to the
cities
• Urban poor were very “rowdy” and
also commonly used streets and
public parks for various parties and
ethnic festivals
• Urban riots were common as police
forces were not adequate to quell
the large populations
African Americans
• Overall life for urban free blacks
was difficult
• On whole urban blacks were the
poorest segments of society and
also lived in segregated areas
• As well, they faced segregation
both in social life and in the
workplace where it was difficult to
find a stable job
The Early Union Movement
• Early unions were dominated by
craftsmen and artisans
• These early unions of skilled labor
did win some early victories for job
security and wages
• Sadly these early unions
perpetuated a fear of immigrants
and an attitude of exclusion
Big-City Machine Politics
• White working class voters helped
form political machines in most
Northern Cities
• The most famous, Tammany Hall, in
New York City
• Delivering votes in exchange for
patronage and favors, the machines
controlled all aspects of politics in
the cities
Evangelical Reform
• The Reverend Lynam Beecher pushed for
the idea of the Benevolent Empire
• Beecher and his associates saw America
as devoid of moral order
• Along with other protestant ministers
Beecher established the Benevolent
Empire to preach a restoration of classic
values and moral order including the
Sabbatarian movement pushing for Sunday
to be free of all work
Women in Reform
• Women began leading the call to
reform as the “social mothers” of
America
• In the 1830’s they began to
challenge male dominated society
attacking prostitution, alcohol, and
the idea of women being inferior to
men
• The American Female Moral Reform
Society demanded equality for
women
School Reform
• Early in American history school was
random, informal, and had no standards
• By the 1830s reform movements in the
northeast were pushing for public free
schooling
• Horace Mann from Massachusetts pushed
forward many educational reforms still
used today
• Women also found a home in become
educators of the new state schools
Prison Reform
• Before the period of reform prisoners
were simply held in prisons with no
attempt at reforming them
• Under reformers prisons became
institutions where prisoners were helped
• The same ideas were applied to asylums
under the leadership of Dorothea Dix
• Asylums and mental health hospitals
became clean well run places to help
persons afflicted with mental problems
Utopian Reform
• Some new social orders sought to
completely remake new societies
that would be Utopias or perfect
• The Shakers were the most
successful as they set up religious
communities where everything was
ordered and communism dominated
(the idea of public ownership)
• Overall Utopian communities died
out due to a lack of delivering on
their promises of perfection
Abolitionism
• Abolitionism, or the freeing of slaves, gained
prominence and popularity
• One idea was to return slaves to Africa, put
forth by the American Colonization Society, but
was quickly dismissed
• The American Anti-Slavery Society pushed for
immediate freedom and was supported by
noteworthy abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison,
editor of the newspaper the Liberator
• Women and the ideas for the Second Great
Awakening pushed abolition forward
Abolitionism
• Abolitionism slowly made its way into
the spectrum of America politics in
the 1840s
• Abolitionists formed the Liberty
Party in 1840 to lobby for their
beliefs
• Their most dynamic speaker was the
former slave Frederick Douglass
whose passionate speeches pushed
for freedom
Women’s Rights
• Feminism grew out of the same
popularity that Abolitionism gained
strength
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Lucretia Mott began leading the
call for women to have equal rights
• The Seneca Falls Convention of
1848 called for full rights and
suffrage (the right to vote) in
America
Chapter Objectives
• What impact did the new immigration of
the 1840s and 1850s have on American
Cities?
• What were the social reform movements
of the time?
• Who were the abolitionists and what
were their racial attitudes?
• What connections were there between
the women’s rights movement and
previous movements for social reform?