Unit V
1820-1861
Part 1
Review
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Four Points of Sectional Conflict
Nullification Crisis
Clay’s American System
Missouri Compromise (1820)
Northwest Ordinance: first federal legislation to
outlaw slavery
Reforms
Education
 Literature
 Religion
 Utopian communities
 Abolition
 Women’s Rights Movement
 Temperance
 Immigration
 Prison System
 Practical Reformers
 Unions
Also
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Jacksonian Democracy was considered part of
the larger reform movement
Jackson’s Administration
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Began a much bigger reform movement in the United
States
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Demand for more public schools…especially in New
England and the Midwest
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Not so practical for the South
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Westerners did not associate schools with education
The Public School movement is
important
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It was the first major effort in the U.S. which
succeeded in linking the power of government
to an effort to reform and transform society
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The Government wanted to wrest education out
of the hands of the Church
Massachusetts
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1837 First to establish a State Board of
Education
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Horace Mann was the first State School
Superintendent
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1852 Compulsory Attendance Law
Pennsylvania
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1834 Pennsylvania Free School Act: divided
the state into districts
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Districts levied taxes to support schools
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By the Civil War, most states had begun with
free public schooling
Women’s (higher) Education
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1827 Emma Hunt Willard established the Troy
Female Seminary
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1837 Mary Lyon established Mt. Holyoke
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1841 Oberlin
First coed college
 First integrated college
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Literature and the Romantic Period
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More of a mood than a set of ideas
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Emphasized: imagination, feeling, emotion,
intuition, inspiration, the inner light of an
individual, outward zeal for reform
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A revolt against the Age of Reason
European Influence
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Rousseau: the father of Romanticism: So long as
man preserves the human form, he is fettered by
institutions (of “civilization”)
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The German influence: Philosophy of Kant, poetry
of Goethe, music of Beethoven
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The English Influence: Coleridge, Wordsworth,
Carlyle
The Americans
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Irving: The Legend of Sleepy Hallow
Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter
Melville:
Moby Dick
Poe: The Raven
Cooper: The Leather Stocking Series
Mark Twain: Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn
Longfellow: The Village Blacksmith
The Transcendentalists
(kill me now)
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Thoreau: Walden, “Civil Disobedience”
Emerson: “Nature” “Self Reliance”
Whitman: Leaves of Grass
Anti organized government, religion, any
institution (schools, political party and even
reform movements)
The Transcendentalists
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Stress “natural” man, intuition, freedom,
spiritual distance from society…
Talked about reform (abolition) but no action
In the South: romanticized Southern
“institutions” (slavery)
NOTE: about 1/5 whites in South were slaveowners
Religion
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Unitarians: moved away from Christian doctrine
to no doctrine
New: Deciples of Christ, Church of Christ
Still: The Second Great Awakening
Off shoots from other churches: Primative
Baptists, Free-will Baptists
New surge of revivalism and camp meetings
The Mormons
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1823 Joseph Smith visited by a “divine being”
Called Moroni
Said, “The Lord has work for you to do…later”
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Smith was barely literate, not overly religious
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1827 Moroni returned, instructed Smith to dig
under a tree.
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The Mormons
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Smith dug up book plates inscribed with an
ancient language
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Moroni gave Smith tools to translate with and
instructed him to write The Book of the
Mormon
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11 people who were witnesses to the original
plates signed affidavits to verify
By 1830
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The Book of the Mormon was published
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Difficult to find recruits
Smith had a small following
Did institute polygamy
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Began to move his small community West
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On the Way
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In Illinois Smith was attacked by a mob and
killed
Mormons continued West led by Brigham
Young
Made it to Utah by 1847 where they multiplied
and prospered
Utopian Communities
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Experiments in communal living: people would
pool their belongings, share the work and share
in the profits (harvest usually)
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Some Communes were religious (often
millenarians)
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Some were purely secular
The Brook Farm Community
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Secular
Monogamous
Lived separately from society
Property ownership was communal
Strictly voluntary
Hawthorne lived there for 2 years
Oneida Community
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1850’s
Founder John Humphrey Noyes
Shared EVERYTHIG
Communal marriages, Children
Other Secular Communities
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Amana Community New York and Iowa in the
1840’s and 1850’s
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Fruitlands: founder Amos Alcott (father of
Louisa May Alcott
Religious Utopian Communities
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Rappites: Founder George Rapp 1804
Had 600 followers
Millenarians
Renounced Sex
Took the Bible literally
Believed the END was at hand
The Shakers
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Ann Lee: illiterate but effective speaker
Died 1784
By 1830’s: 6,000 members in 20 successful Shaker
Communities
Made furniture
Also millenarians
Strict separation of the sexes
Took in orphans, fed those down on their luck
Much singing and dancing
Practical Reformers
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Dorthea Dix: worked alone for 30 years on
behalf of the insane
Began in 1841
By 1854 Congress passed a bill to provide
federal funds to care for the insane
Was vetoed by Pierce who thought funding was
unconstitutional…but urged charitable giving
Practical Reformers
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1851 Thomas Gallaundet: established schools
for the deaf in 14 states
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Dr. Samuel Howe: worked with the blind.
Before the introduction of Braille, he devised his
own system of raised letters
Other Reforms
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Flogging was abolished in the navy
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Prison Reform: 2 model systems:
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The Auburn System and the Philadelphia System
Both were very harsh.
Prisoners: absolute silence, no contact with the
outside world
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The Big Three
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Temperance
Women’s Rights
Abolition