An Age of Reforms (1820s-1850s)
Reform
Movement
Public
Education
Prison reform
Description
Important
Leaders
Major
Accomplishments
Movement that focused on
revolutionizing systems of
education in the United
States to make in
accessible to all
Americans. This
movement called for
creating tax-supported
public schools and
standardized the training
of teachers.
Horace Mann
Noah Webster
Emma Willard
Mary Lyons
Mann championed educational
reforms as the first secretary of the
Massachusetts Board of Education –
created new curricular and
developed “normal schools” for
teacher education.
Webster began to standardize
American language with his
dictionary.
Willard (Troy School) and Lyons
(Mount Holyoke) established the
first schools for women.
Dix complied a report of the abuses
in the Massachusetts House of
Corrections. This report was used by
the MA legislature to make changes
concerning sanitation, physical
activity and the separation of
mentally-ill inmates from the
general population.
The Auburn System gave structure
to the prisoner’s day with structured
jobs and activities along with
separate cells – This would give
inmates time to think about their
crimes and rehabilitate their
conditions.
Movement to improve the Dorothea Dix
conditions in America’s
jails to help the health and
wellbeing of the prisoners.
The emphasis was on
rehabilitation instead of
incarceration. Mentally-ill
individuals would be
cared for in a hospitalsetting and prisons would
become places where
prisoners could show
“penitence.” These places
would be called
“Penitentiaries.”
Connection to the 2nd Great
Awakening, Jacksonian
Democracy and Manifest
Destiny?
Educated the common man on the
government – informed voters
Benefitted the Common Man –
Education for all
Better society through education –
2nd great awakening
Expansion of language (Webster)
and Amer. institutions (education
and MD)
Self-improvement – Prisoners will
REFORM their lives.
Puts the penance in penitentiary
Auburn System lets prisoners be
productive members of society
(behind bars).
Benefits the common man (in jail)
Improved prisons, improved
society once prisoners get out
Reform
Movement
Temperance
Description
Important
Leaders
Major
Accomplishments
A movement designed to
prohibit the consumption
of alcohol. By the mid1830s, the overuse of
alcohol was rampant in
the United States. Public
drunkenness was seen as a
major de-stabilizing force
in the community and had
a devastating impact on
women and children.
Lyman Beecher
Catherine Beecher
L. Beecher was a prominent
Connecticut minister who travelled
around the Northeast and West
lecturing about the “evils of liquor.”
He co-founder the American
Temperance Society in 1826. By
1833 – 6,000 similar societies were
working to prohibit alcohol in the
country.
C. Beecher wrote The Evils Suffered
by American Women and Children:
the Causes and Remedy (1846) that
chronicled the impact of alcohol on
the family.
Connection to the 2nd Great
Awakening, Jacksonian
Democracy and Manifest
Destiny?
JD – improved the life and stature
of the common man.
Elevates the common man.
More contributions to societies.
Religious movement to improve
society – mostly worked out of the
churches.
A tool of nativism – antiimmigrants.
Temperance will show our
“improved culture.”
Alcoholism hurts the family:
Domestic violence
Absentee fathers/workers
“Drinking the paychecks”
Women take a more active role in
this movement than previous
reforms.
Women’s
Rights
A movement that hoped to
decrease the affects of the
“cult of domesticity” on
women. Its goals were to
increase opportunities for
women outside of the
home. This movement
was among the latest to
form because its leaders
first had to gain
experience from the other
reform movements
(namely the temperance,
prison and abolition
movements)
Elizabeth Cady
Stanton
Lucretia Mott
Susan B. Anthony
In 1848, Stanton and Mott decided
to hold a conference concerning
women’s rights, after they were
refused equal access at the
International Abolition Convention
in London. At the Seneca Falls
Convention (NY state), 300 women
and men passed resolutions and
approved the “Declaration of
Sentiments” advocated that women
should have a more equal station in
all parts of public life. This included
voting rights (although this measure
narrowly passed a vote at the
convention.)
Rejection of Jacksonian
Democracy idea of cult od
domesticity.
Common WOman (JD)
Focused on a more equal station
for women in society (2nd Great
Awakening)
A START of a discussion but not
fulfillment of voting rights
Extension of democratic
institutions to include women
mirros the extension of manifest
destiny and US democracy.(MD)