Chapter Thirteen
Coming to Terms With the
New Age, 1820s—1850s
Part One:
Introduction
Chapter Focus Questions
What new social problems accompanied
urbanization and immigration?
How did reformers respond to social
problems?
What were the origins and political effects of
the abolitionist movement?
What was the involvement of women in
reform efforts?
Part Two:
Seneca Falls: Women
Reformers Respond to Market
Revolution
Seneca Falls
Seneca Falls women’s rights convention.
Wide range of rights for women, including the
right to vote.
Women’s rights was just one of many reform
movements.
Movements sparked by societal disruptions on
market revolution
Part Three
Immigration and Ethnicity
Patterns of Immigration
Immigration was a key part of urban growth.
Beginning in 1830 immigration soared, particularly
in the North.
Immigrants came largely from Ireland, Germany,
and China.
MAP 13.1 Distribution of Foreign Born residents of United States in 1860 The ethnic
composition of the American population was increased by Irish and German immigration in
the 1840s and 1850s, Chinese attraction to the California gold rush, Mormon recruitment of
Scottish and English followers to Utah, and the reclassification of Mexicans after the
Mexican-American War, as foreigners in what had been their own lands.
Irish Immigration
First major immigrant wave to test American
cities
Reason for immigration: Potato Famine of
1845-49
Most lived in cities under horrible conditions
Largest number of Irish came to New York
Boston, smaller and homogenous, was
overwhelmed .
By 1855, half the voters in New York City were foreign-born. This 1858 engraving of an Irish
bar in the Five Points area appeared in the influential Harper’s Weekly. It expressed the
dislike of temperance reformers for immigrants and their drinking habits, and the dismay of
political reformers that immigrant saloons and taverns were such effective organizing centers
for urban political machines. SOURCE:Frank and Marie-Therese Wood Print Collections,The Picture Bank.
German Immigration
Initial migration started by invitation of William
Penn in the late 18th century.
By1854 German influx surpassed Irish.
Reasons for migration:
potato blight in mid 1840s
dislodging effects of market forces
German settlement was relatively dispersed.
Wright’s Grove, shown here in an 1868 illustration, was the popular picnic grounds and beer
garden for the large German community on Chicago’s North Side. Establishments such as
this horrified American temperance advocates, who warned about the dangerous foreign
notion of mixing alcohol with family fun. SOURCE:Chicago Historical Society.
Chinese Immigration
Many Chinese migrated to California to
reap benefits of Gold Rush
Chinese workers made up 90 % of laborers
building the Central Pacific RR
The Chinese tended to settle in ethnic
enclaves
This cartoon encounter between a
newly arrived Irishman and an African
American expresses the fear of many
immigrants that they would be treated
like blacks and denied the privileges of
whiteness.
SOURCE:Diogenes,Hys Lantern ,August 21,1852,reprinted from Noel Ignatiev,How the Irish
Became White (1995).
Irish and German Immigrant Employment in
New York City ,1855
Chart: “Participation of Irish and German
Immigrants”
Irish immigrants were clustered in laborer
and domestic jobs.
German immigrants were clustered in
skilled trades.
FIGURE 13.1 Participation of Irish and German Immigrants in NY City Workforce for
selected occupations 1855 SOURCE:Robert Ernst,Immigrant Life in New York City 1825 –1863 (Syracuse:Syracuse University Press,1994).
The Five Points neighborhood in lower Manhattan illustrates the segregated housing patterns
that emerged as New York City experienced rapid growth. Immigrants, free African
Americans, the poor, and criminals were crowded together in New York’s most notorious
slum, while wealthier people moved to more prosperous neighborhoods. SOURCE:1859 lithograph;The Granger Collection.
Ethnic Neighborhoods and Urban
Popular Culture
Irish and German immigrants created ethnic
enclaves.
A new urban popular culture emerged:
the tavern
theaters
the penny press
Middle Class challenged
Part Four:
Urban America
Class Structure and Living Patterns in
the Cities
The gap between rich and poor grew rapidly.
Economic class was reflected by residence as:
poor people (70 %) lived in cheap rented housing
middle-class residents (25-30 %) lived in more
comfortable homes
very rich (about 3 percent) built mansions and large
town houses.
Civic Order
Americans grew concerned that cities would
become centers of disorder.
Cities began to hire more city watchmen,
police.
Riots targeted Catholics and African
Americans.
In 1849 a rather commonplace riot broke out at the Astor Place Theater when Irish members
of the audience objected to a British actor. This riot, however, spiraled into 36 hours of
violence and 22 fatalities, quelled only when city officials, for the first time, called in the Army
to control it. SOURCE:The Astor palace Riot,Museum of the City of New York.
The Urban Life of Free African Americans
About half of the nation’s free African Americans lived in
the North:
residential segregation
job discrimination
segregated public schools
limits on their civil rights
African Americans formed support networks, newspapers,
and churches.
Dim economic prospects for African-American men.
African Americans engaged in antislavery activities
Targets of urban violence.
Part Four:
The Labor
Movement and
Urban Politics
The Tradition of Artisanal Politics
Cities had been centers of organized artisans and skilled
workers.
Worker associations, parades and celebrations were parts of
the urban community.
By the 1830s, skilled craft workers were being undercut by
industrialization.
Workers’ associations became increasingly class-conscious.
Urban worker protest against change focused on party
politics.
Both major parties tried to woo the votes of organized
workers.
This seal of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen illustrates in its motto—“By
Hammer and Hand All Arts Do Stand”—the personal and community pride artisans took in
their work. SOURCE:Abraham Godwin,print.Courtesy,Winterthur Museum.
The Union Movement
Workers organized trade unions and formed citywide “General Trades Unions.”
The local groups then organized the National Trades
Union.
The trade union movement was met with hostility
and most collapsed during the Panic of 1837.
Early unions included only skilled white workers.
Big-City Machines
Competition for the votes of workers shaped urban
politics.
Big-city machines arose reflecting the class structure of the
fast-growing cities.
The machines cultivated feelings of community by:
appealing directly for working-class votes through mass
organizational activities
creating organizations that met basic needs of the urban poor
The machines also had a tight organizational structure
Corruption arose.
Part Five:
Social Reform Movements
Evangelism, Reform and Social Control
Middle-class promoted various reform campaigns.
Evangelical religion drove the reform spirit forward.
Reformers recognized that:
traditional small-scale methods of reform no longer worked
the need was for larger-scale institutions
Reform characteristics
The doctrine of perfectionism
basic belief in the goodness of people
moralistic dogmatism.
Regional and national reform organizations emerged from
local projects..
Reformers mixed political and social activities.
Education and Women Teachers
Educational reformers changed the traditional ways of
education by:
no longer viewing children as sinners whose wills had to be
broken
seeing children as innocents who needed gentle nurturing.
Work of Horace Mann and others led to tax-supported
public schools.
Women were seen as more nurturing and encouraged to
become teachers.
Winslow Homer’s famous painting, The Country School is both affectionate and realistic,
showing both the idealism of the young female teacher and the barefoot condition of most of
her pupils. SOURCE:Winslow Homer,The Country School ,1871.St.Louis Art Museum
This Currier and Ives lithograph, The Drunkard’s Progress, dramatically conveys the
message that the first glass leads the drinker inevitably to alcoholism and finally to the grave,
while his wife and child (shown under the arch) suffer. SOURCE:The Drunkard ’s Progress ,Library of Congress.
Temperance
Middle-class reformers sought to change alcohol
habits.
Temperance seen as a panacea for all social
problems.
Working class joined the temperance crusade.
By the mid-1840s alcohol consumption had been cut
in half.
Chart: Per Capita Consumption of Alcohol
FIGURE 13.2 Per Capita
Consumption of Alcohol
1800–60 The underlying cause
of the dramatic fall in alcohol
consumption during the 1830s
was the changing nature of
work brought about by the
market revolution. Contributing
factors were the shock of the
Panic of 1837 and the untiring
efforts of temperance reformers.
SOURCE:W.J.Rorabaugh,The Alcoholic Republic:An American Tradition (New
York:Oxford University Press,1979).
Moral Reform, Asylums, and Prisons
Reformers also attacked prostitution but had
little success.
The asylum movement promoted humane
treatment of the insane and criminals.
Reform Movements in the
Burned-Over District
The region of New York most changed by the Erie
Canal became “Burned-Over District”.
Map: Reform Movements in the Burned-Over
District
The reform movements originating or thriving there
included:
the Mormon Church
utopian groups like the Millerites and Fourierites
antislavery sentiment
the women’s rights movement
MAP 13.2 Reform Movements in the Burned-Over District The so-called Burned-Over District,
the region of New York State most changed by the opening of the Erie Canal, was a seedbed of
religious and reform movements. The Mormon Church originated there, and Utopian groups and
sects like the Millerites and the Fourierists thrived. Charles G. Finney held some of this most
successful evangelical revivals in the district. Antislavery feeling was common in the region, and the
women’s rights movement began at Seneca Falls. SOURCE:Whitney Cross,The Burned-Over District (1950;reprint,New York:Hippocrene Books,1981).
Utopianism and Mormonism
Utopianism:
Millerites and Shakers saw an apocalyptic end of history.
Shakers also practiced celibacy amid a fellowship of equality.
Conversely, Oneida Community practiced “complex marriage.”
New Harmony unsuccessfully attempted a kind of socialism.
Shaker Hannah Cohoon’s 1845 painting of the Tree of Life—her effort to reproduce a vision
she had seen while in a religious trance—communicates the intense spirituality of Shaker life.
SOURCE:Hannah Harrison Cohoon,Tree of Life, 1845,tempera on paper.
From the collection of Hancock Shaker Village,Pittsfield,MA.
Utopianism and Mormonism
Mormonism:
Founded by Joseph Smith in 1830
Close cooperation and hard work made the
most successful communitarian movement
They migrated to Utah in 1846 under the
leadership of Brigham Young.
Part Six:
Antislavery and
Abolitionism
The American Colonization Society
Various antislavery steps had been taken
prior to the 1820s.
None addressed the continuing reality of
southern slavery.
Small number of free African Americans
founded Liberia.
African Americans’ Fight Against
Slavery
Free African Americans rejected colonization.
They founded abolitionist societies that:
demanded equal treatment
demanded an end to slavery
encouraged slave rebellions.
The different dates on these two widely used
antislavery images are important. The title page of
Thomas Branagan’s 1807 book includes a then
already commonly used image of a male slave. The
engraving of a chained female slave was made by
Patrick Reason, a black artist, in 1835. The
accompanying message, “Am I Not a Woman and a
Sister?” spoke particularly to white female
abolitionists in the North, who were just becoming
active in antislavery movements in the 1830s.
SOURCE:Library of Congress.
Abolitionists
William Lloyd Garrison headed the best-known
group of antislavery reformers.
Garrison denounced all compromise.
The American Anti-Slavery Society drew on the
style of religious revivalists.
Abolitionists mailed over a million pieces of
propaganda.
Several abolitionists were violently attacked and
one was killed.
In 1837, white abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy had placed the press he used to print his antislavery
newspaper in an Alton, Illinois warehouse in order to protect the press against a mob. This
contemporary woodcut depicts the mob’s attack on the warehouse. Lovejoy died defending it.
SOURCE:The Granger Collection.
Abolitionism and Politics
Abolition began soon became a national political
issue.
Abolitionists called for abolition in the District of
Columbia.
Congress imposed a “gag rule” tabling all such
petitions.
Abolitionist unity splintered along racial and
political lines.
White abolitionists founded the Liberty Party.
Part Seven:
The Women’s Rights
Movement
Women’s gatherings, like the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls in 1848, and
this meeting of strikers in Lynn in 1860, were indicators of wide-spread female activism.
SOURCE:Lynn Museum.
Women and Reform
Women were active members of all reform societies.
The Grimkes became the first female public speakers in
American history.
Seneca Falls women’s rights convention in 1848.
Historians acknowledged central role women played in
reform movements.
Part Eight:
Conclusion