The American Pageant
Chapter 16

Rationalism, Deism, Unitarian faith led to growing liberalism in religion.

Response: 2 nd
Great Awakening, larger than 1 st
, spread through camp meetings.

Result: boosted church membership, led to humanitarian reforms.

Methodists & Baptists benefited the most – stressed emotional-ism & personal conversion rather than predestination.

Peter Cartwright was best known Methodist “circuit rider.”

Charles Finney was greatest revival preacher, called for perfect Christian kingdom on earth, led to reform efforts (alcohol, slavery).

Western NY became known as “Burned-Over District,” gave birth to

Adventists, predicted Christ’s return.
Like 1st, 2nd Awakening widened gaps between classes and religions.
Denominational Diversity (2)

Rich, conservative, eastern den. were not affected (Episc., Presb.,


Cong., Unit.)
Methodist/Baptist drew from poorer classes in South, West.
Split of churches over slavery foreshadowed political split.

1830: Burned-Over District produced Joseph Smith, Book of Mormon.

Cooperation, polygamy, militia created conflict with neighbors in
Ohio & MO.

1846-47: After Smith’s murder, Brigham Young leads LDS to Utah.

Utah grew quickly from LDS, European immigration

Conflict with fed. gov’t over territorial control, polygamy.

Early public schools were only for poor, but came to be viewed by rich

 as necessary for stable democracy.
1825-1850: Public schooling grew due to white manhood suffrage.
Free Schools/Free People (2)


Quality of early schools sporadic, needed reform.
Horace Mann (MA Board of Ed.) argued for longer terms, better pay, broader curriculum.
Free Schools/Free People (3)

Despite Mann, only 100 public secondary schools by 1860, education a luxury for many.

Webster provided improved textbooks, dictionary (standardized language)

McGuffey’s readers taught morality, patriotism.

2 nd Great Awakening led to small denominational schools which, like “ivy league” taught traditional subjects.

1st state schools began in South (N. Carolina in 1795).

UVA founded in 1819, brainchild of Jefferson. Dedicated to freedom from denominational control, modern languages, sciences.

Women’s higher ed frowned upon, but some schools developed in 1820-30s.

1837: Oberlin allowed women, previously blacks.

Adult education grew through lyceum lecture associations (3000 by

1835).
Magazines flourished, e.g. North American Review .

Various reform campaigns developed, most as a result of 2 nd Great

Awakening.
Puritan vision of perfected society fueled crusades against war, alcohol, discrimination, slavery.

State leg. gradually abolished debtor’s prisons.

Capital offenses and brutal punishments reduced, idea that prisons should reform rather than just punish grew.

Dorothea Dix led reforms to improve treatment of mentally ill (1843 petition to Mass. leg.).

William Ladd led peace movement, American Peace Society formed

in 1828.

Alcohol a problem, even among women, clergy; problem at weddings,
 funerals, work.
1826: American Temperance Society formed in Boston, thousands followed.

Anti-alcohol novel Ten Nights in a Barroom… was bestseller in 1850s.

Moderate reformers stressed temperance (moderation) rather than abstinence, but others favored prohibition.

Neal S. Dow, “Father of Prohibition,” sponsored Maine Law of

1851—no manufacture or sale.
Other states followed, but many laws were struck down or ignored.
However, drinking was reduced overall.

Women had few rights, but treated better than in Europe, partly due to their scarcity on frontier.

Distinctive gender roles, especially economically

Homemakers glorified, e.g. “cult of domesticity”

Midcentury: more women involved in reform (women’s rights, temperance, slavery).

E. Cady Stanton advocated women’s suffrage.

Susan B. Anthony was militant lecturer, progressive women called “Suzy
Bs.”

1848: Feminist reform led to Seneca Falls Convention.


Declared that all men and women are created equal, demanded suffrage.
Significance: launched modern women’s rights movement.

Utopian spirit led to creation of over 40 cooperative communities.


New Harmony, Robert Owen, 1825: failed due to lack of unity.
Brook Farm, 1841: 20 transcen-dentalists, collapsed in debt after fire.
Inspired Hawthorne.


Oneida, 1848, John H. Noyes: “complex marriage,” eugenics.

Survived for 30 years due to silver, traps.
Shakers, 1770, Mother Ann Lee: Peaked in 1840, prohibited marriage/sex, gone by 1940.

Early Americans interested only in practical/gadget science, e.g.
 plowing, ocean navigation.
But a few real scientists were influential, e.g. Silliman (Yale) &
Agassiz (Harvard).

John J. Audobon published Birds of America . Bird protection society

 named after him.
Medicine: bleeding as treat-ment & plagues still common.
1850: Life exp. only 40 years.

Use of medicine often harmful, surgeries painful (whiskey).

Early 1840s: MDs & DDSs began using laughing gas/ether as anesthetics.

Architecture generally followed Greek/Roman models.


Jefferson (Monticello, UVA) was best architect of his time.
Art suffered b/c lack of wealthy class & leisure time, Puritan view of art.

Notable American painters: Gilbert Stuart (in England), Charles

Wilson Peale (G. Washington), John Trumball (Rev. War).
After 1812, nationalism led to portraits of landscapes, e.g. Hudson
River School.

Early lit. was practical, e.g. political essays (Federalist).

Nationalism and economic dev. of older eastern areas produced support for US lit.

Knickerbocker Group in NY produced 1st US lit. comparable to
Europe.

Knickerbockers:




Washington Irving: impressed Europe, The Sketch Book
James Fenimore Cooper: 1 st novelist, Leatherstocking Tales
William Cullen Bryant: poetry ( Thanatopsis ), NY Post

1830: Rejected Locke’s theory that knowledge comes only through senses—we all have inner light to give knowledge and put us in touch
 with God.
Led to social & religious individualism; self-reliance, self-discipline.

Ralph Waldo Emerson most famous: former minister, writer, speaker
(lyceum).

Speech “The American Scholar” urged Americans to have intellectual independence from Europe.

Henry David Thoreau: like Emerson opposed to slavery, developed ideas of civil disobedience.

Gifted writer: Walden described experience of simple life.

Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass (1855) - collection of poetry.

“Poet Laureate of Democracy” – he described love for masses, expansion of America.

Longfellow: popular poet both in US & Europe, popular works based on


American themes.
Whittier: poet laureate of antislavery effort.
Lowell: great poet, essayist, political satirist – condemned slavery expansion of Polk.

Holmes: saw Boston as central, poet, essayist, novelist, lecturer.


Alcott: wrote Little Women to support family.
Dickinson: recluse, would not publish poems during lifetime.

Simms: “Cooper of the South,” 82 books, southern themes.

Some writers were not reform oriented, but were dissenters, e.g.:

Poe: Life of suffering, alcohol, wrote horror short stories, poems (“The
Raven”).


Hawthorne: Scarlet Letter , Puritan influence/themes.

Melville: Adventurer, Moby Dick was not initially popular, most liked more upbeat novels, died in poverty.

Early American historians (Bancroft, Prescott, Parkmann) were New
Englanders, due to Boston’s libraries, literary tradition.

Result: many works reflected anti-southern bias.