Antebellum Culture and Reform
Religion and the Second Great Awakening
Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (1989), pg. 9
America's nonrestrictive environment permitted an unexpected and often explosive conjunction of evangelical fervor and
popular sovereignty. It was this engine that accelerated the process of Christianization within American popular culture,
allowing indigenous expressions of faith to take hold among ordinary people, white and black. This expansion of
evangelical Christianity did not proceed primarily from the nimble response of religious elites meeting the challenges
before the. Rather, Christianity was effectively reshaped by common people who molded it in their own image and threw
themselves into expanding its influence. Increasingly assertive common people wanted their leaders unpretentious, their
doctrines self-evident and down-to-earth, their music lively and singable, and their churches in local hands. It was this
upsurge of democratic hope that characterized so many religious cultures in the early republic and brought Baptists,
Methodists, Disciples of Christ, and a whole host of other insurgent groups to the fore. The rise in evangelical Christianity
in the early republic is, in some measure, a story of the success of common people in shaping the culture after their own
priorities rather than the priorities outlined by gentlemen such as the framers of the Constitution.
Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (1989), pg. 57
Above all, these upstarts (preachers of the Second Great Awakening) were radically innovative in reaching and organizing
people. Passionate about ferretting out converts in every hamlet and crossroads, they sought to bind them together in local
and regional communities. They continued to refashion the sermon as a popular medium, inviting even the most
unlearned and inexperienced to respond to a call to preach. These initiatives were changed to proclaim the gospel any
where and every day of the week- even to the limit of their physical endurance. The resulting creation, the colloquial
sermon, employed daring pulpit storytelling, no-holds-barred appeals, overt humor, strident attack, graphic application,
and intimate personal experience. These young framers of religious movements also became the most effective purveyors
of mass literature in the early republic, confronting people in every section of the new nation with the combined force of
the written and spoken word. In religious music, new techniques of protracted meetings, and new Christian ideologies that
denied the mediations of religious elites and promised to exalt those of low estate.
Edwin Gaustad, A Religious History of America (1990), pg. 153
By 1850, the Roman Catholic Church had become the largest denomination in the country, a status never thereafter
surrendered to any church. Its magnitude came chiefly as the result of massive emigration from Ireland, the potato famine
encouraging hundreds of thousands to leave their poor and inhospitable land. Of the five million immigrants who settled
in America from 1815 to 1860, two million came from Ireland. "Anti-popery" which in early America lay only slightly
below the surface raised itself above ground once more as nativist fears and Know-Nothing parties challenged the right of
Catholics to live in the United States.
Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (1989), pg. 112-113
Independent black churches, nurtured by biblical stories of consolidation and hope, by visions of a promised land, by
captivating songs of joy and sorrow, and by the warm embrace of brothers and sisters, forged a folk Christianity that
constituted the core of an African-American identity. Particularly effective in keeping paternalistic Christian masters at
arm's length, these fellowships permitted African-Americans to nurture their own leaders, sustain networks of
communication, express racial strength, and reach out to enfold other sisters and brothers in the fellowship of Christian
community. By its democratization in black hands, the church served as the major rallying point for human dignity,
freedom, and equality among those who bore slavery's cruel yoke.
Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 2007, pg. 218
The religious revivals of the burned-over district reflected in part a longing for stability and moral order amidst rapid
social change (the Erie Canal and Market Revolution). They began with efforts to tame the crudity and vice of little canal
towns and went on to bring a spiritual dimension to the lives of new urban middle and working classes.
Witness to the Cane Ridge Revival
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“The noise was like the roar of Niagara. The vast sea of human beings seemed to be agitated as if by a storm. I counted
seven ministers all preaching at once… Some of the people were singing, others praying, some crying for mercy… while
others were shouting most vociferously. At one time I saw at least five hundred swept down in a moment, as if a battery
of a thousand guns had been opened upon them, and then followed immediately shrieks and shouts that rent the heavens.”
Richard McNemar, The Kentucky Revival, 1808
The first extraordinary appearances of the power of God in the late revival, began about the close of the last century, in
Logan and Christian counties; on the waters of Gaspar and Red Rivers. And in the spring of 1801, the same extraordinary
work broke out in Mason County, upper part of Kentucky, of which I was an eyewitness, and can therefore, with greater
confidence, testify what I have heard, seen and felt.
It first began in individuals who had been under deep convictions of sin, and great trouble about their souls, and had
fasted and prayed, and diligently searched the scriptures, and had undergone distresses of mind inexpressibly sore, until
they had obtained a comfortable hope of salvation.
Under such exhortations, the people began to be affected in a very strange manner. At first they were taken with an
inward throbbing of heart; then with weeping and trembling: from that to crying out, in apparent agony of soul; falling
down and swooning away till every appearance of animal life was suspended, and the person appeared to be in a trance…
From small beginnings, it gradually spread. The news of these strange operations flew about, and attracted many to come
and see… To these encampments the people flocked in hundreds and thousands, on foot, on horseback, and in wagons and
other carriages.
The meeting continued five days and four nights; and after the people generally scattered from the ground.
The Book of Mormon
But behold, I shall take these plates, which contain these prophesyings and revelations, and put them with the remainder
of my record, for they are choice unto me; and I know they will be choice unto my brethren.
Town of Warsaw, Hancock County, Illinois, Resolution of 1844
Resolved that the time, in our opinion has arrived when the adherents of Smith, as a body, should be driven from the
surrounding settlements into Nauvoo, that the Prophet and his miscreant adherents should then be demanded at their
hands, and, if not surrendered, a war of extermination should be waged, to the entire destruction, if necessary for our
protection, of his adherents
Mormon Circular of the High Council, January 1846
Our pioneers are instructed to proceed west until they find a good place to make a crop, in some good valley in the
neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, where they will infringe upon no one and be not likely to be infringed upon. Here
we will make a resting place, until we can determine a place for permanent location.
Brigham Young, 1845
The exodus of the nation of the only true Israel from these United States to a far distant region of the west, where bigotry,
intolerance, and insatiable oppression lose their power over them, forms a new epoch, not only in the history of the
church, but of this nation.
Charles Grandison Finney
Look at the Methodists. Many of their ministers are unlearned, in the common sense of the term, many of them taken right
from the shop or the farm, and yet they have gathered congregations, and pushed their way, and won souls every where.
Wherever the Methodists have gone, their plain, pointed and simple, but war and animated mode of preaching has always
gathered congregations. Few Presbyterian ministers have gathered so large assemblies, or won so many souls. Now are we
to be told that we must pursue the same old, formal mode of doing things, amidst all these changes? As well might the
North River be rolled back, as the world converted under such preaching… We must have exciting, powerful preaching,
or the devil will have the people, except what the Methodists can save.
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Peter Cartwright, Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, the Backwoods Preacher, 1857
The people crowded to this meeting from far and near. They came in their large wagons, with victuals mostly prepared.
The women slept in the wagons, and the men under them. Many stayed on the ground night and day for a number of
nights and days together. Others were provided for among the neighbors around. The power of God was wonderfully
displayed; scores of sinners fell under the preaching, like men slain in mighty battle; Christians shouted aloud for joy.
To this meeting I repaired, a guilty, wretched sinner. On the Saturday evening of said meeting, I went, with weeping
multitudes, and bowed before the stand, and earnestly prayed for mercy. In the midst of a solemn struggle of soul, an
impression was made on my mind, as though a voice said to me,"Thy sins are all forgiven thee." Divine light flashed all
round me, unspeakable joy sprung up in my soul. I rose to my feet, opened my eyes, and it really seemed as if I was in
heaven; the trees, the leaves on them, and everything seemed, and I really thought were, praising God. My mother raised
the shout, my Christian friends crowded around me and joined me in praising God; and though I have been since then, in
many instances, unfaithful, yet I have never, for one moment, doubted that the Lord did, then and there, forgive my sins
and give me religion.
Our meeting lasted without intermission all night, and it was believed by those who had a very good right to know, that
over eighty souls were converted to God during its continuance. I went on my way rejoicing for many days. This meeting
was in the month of May. In June our preacher, John Page, attended at our little church, Ebenezer, and there in June,
1801, I joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, which I have never for one moment regretted. I have never for a moment
been tempted to leave the Methodist Episcopal Church, and if they were to turn me out, I would knock at the door till
taken in again.
William Ellery Channing ,Boston minister, "The Perfect Life: The Essence of the Christian Religion", 1831
I believe that Christianity has one great principle, which is central, around which all its truths gather, and which
constitutes it the glorious gospel of the blessed God. I believe that no truth is so worthy of acceptation and so quickening
as this. In proportion as we penetrate into it, and are penetrated by it, we comprehend our religion, and attain to a living
faith. The great principle can be briefly expressed. It is the doctrine that "God purposes, in his unbounded fatherly love, to
perfect the human soul; to purify it from all sin; to create it after his own image; to fill it with his own spirit; to unfold it
for ever; to raise it to life and immortality in heaven- that is to communicate to it from himself a life of celestial power,
virtue, and joy." The elevation of men above the imperfections, temptations, sins, sufferings, of the present state, to a
diviner being,- this is the great purpose of God, revealed and accomplished by Jesus Christ; this it is that constitutes the
religion of Jesus Christ,- glad tidings to all people: for it is a religion suited to fulfill the wants of every human being.
… In the New Testament I learn that what God wills is our perfection; by which I understand the freest exercise and
perpetual development of our highest powers,- strength and brightness of intellect, unconquerable energy of moral
principle, pure and fervent desire for truth, unbounded love of goodness and greatness, …. Christianity reveals to me this
moral perfection of man, as the great purpose of God.
Prisons and Insane Asylums
Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 2007, pg. 605-606.
Dix's career illustrates a general principle of the growth of women's political participation in nineteenth-century America.
As women achieved more education, as the transportation and communications revolutions broke down their isolation, as
the evangelical movement reached out to them, and as the industrial revolution enabled more and more of them to earn
their own money (both within and without home), women became increasingly active in public life. In the South as well
as in the North, in free Negro communities as well as among whites, religious and benevolent causes benefitted early from
women's energies and talents. These kinds of activity seemed most compatible with prevailing assumptions about
women's roles. A good "republican mother" could there exert leadership without appearing to break out of her proper
"sphere" and challenge male authority. While men are acknowledged to be self-seeking, aggressive, and completive, a
woman like Dix could assume responsibility for making society compassionate and providing the helpless with a home
away from home in the form of an asylum. Female reformers could also address, with some show of legitimacy, problems
directly affecting women and children, such as intemperance, prostitution, prison reform- and ultimately slavery.
English traveler Edward Augustus Kendall describes a prison in New York, 1808
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The prisoners in the gaol are kept to hard labour at smiths’ work, within the walls; and their task, which ends at four o’
clock in the afternoon, commences at four o’ clock in the morning…The prisoners were heavily ironed, and secured both
by hand-cuffs and fetters; and, being therefore unable to walk, could only make their way by a sort of jump or hop. On
entering the smithy, some went to the sides of the forges, where collars, dependent by iron chains from the roof, were
fastened round their necks, and others were chained in pairs to wheelbarrows.
Dorothea Dix, Report to the Massachusetts State Legislature, 1843
I must confine myself to few examples, but am ready to furnish other and more complete details, if required. If my
pictures are displeasing, coarse, and severe, my subjects, it must be recollected, offer no tranquil, refined, or composing
features. The condition of human beings, reduced to the extremist states of degradation and misery, cannot be exhibited in
softened language, or adorn a polished page.
I proceed, gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of insane persons confined within this
Commonwealth, in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience.
As I state cold, severe facts, I feel obliged to refer to persons, and definitely to indicate localities. But it is upon my
subject, not upon localities or individuals, I desire to fix attention; and I would speak as kindly as possible of all wardens,
keepers, and other responsible officers, believing that most of these have erred not through hardness of heart and wilful
cruelty so much as want of skill and knowledge, and want of consideration. Familiarity with suffering, it is said, blunts the
sensibilities, and where neglect once finds a footing other injuries are multiplied. This is not all, for it may justly and
strongly be added that, from the deficiency of adequate means to meet the wants of these cases, it has been an absolute
impossibility to do justice in this matter. Prisons are not constructed in view of being converted into county hospitals, and
almshouses are not founded as receptacles for the insane. And yet, in the face of justice and common sense, wardens are
by law compelled to receive, and the masters of almshouses not to refuse, insane and idiotic subjects in all stages of
mental disease and privation…
Danvers. November. Visited the almshouse. A large building, much out of repair. Understand a new one is in
contemplation. Here are from fifty-six to sixty inmates, one idiotic, three insane; one of the latter in close confinement at
all times.
Long before reaching the house, wild shouts, snatches of rude songs, imprecations and obscene language, fell upon the
car, proceeding from the occupant of a low building, rather remote from the principal building to which my course was
directed. Found the mistress, and was conducted to the place which was called "the home" of the forlorn maniac, a young
woman, exhibiting a condition of neglect and misery blotting out the faintest idea of comfort, and outraging every
sentiment of decency. She had been, I learnt, "a respectable person, industrious and worthy. Disappointments and trials
shook her mind, and, finally, laid prostrate reason and self-control. She became a maniac for life. She had been at
Worcester Hospital for a considerable time, and had been returned as incurable." The mistress told me she understood
that, "while there, she was comfortable and decent." Alas, what a change was here exhibited! She had passed from one
degree of violence to another, in swift progress. There she stood, clinging to or beating upon the bars of her caged
apartment, the contracted size of which afforded space only for increasing accumulations of filth, a foul spectacle. There
she stood with naked arms and dishevelled hair, the unwashed frame invested with fragments of unclean garments, the air
so extremely offensive, though ventilation was afforded on all sides save one, that it was not possible to remain beyond a
few moments without retreating for recovery to the outward air. Irritation of body, produced by utter filth and exposure,
incited her to the horrid process of tearing off her skin by inches. Her face, neck, and person were thus disfigured to
hideousness. She held up a fragment just rent off. To my exclamation of horror, the mistress replied: "Oh, we can't help it.
Half the skin is off sometimes. We can do nothing for her; and it makes no difference what she eats, for she consumes her
own fifth as readily as the food which is brought her."
The conviction is continually deepened that hospitals are the only places where insane persons can be at once humanely
and properly controlled. Poorhouses converted into madhouses cease to effect the purposes for which they were
established, and instead of being asylums for the aged, the homeless, and the friendless, and places of refuge for orphaned
or neglected childhood, are transformed into perpetual bedlams…
"Injustice is also done to the convicts: it is certainly very wrong that they should be doomed day after day and night after
night to listen to the ravings of madmen and madwomen, This is a kind of punishment that is not recognized by our
statutes, and is what the criminal ought not to be called upon to undergo. The confinement of the criminal and of the
insane in the same building is subversive of that good order and discipline which should be observed in every wellregulated prison. I do most sincerely hope that more permanent provision will be made for the pauper insane by the State,
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either to restore Worcester Insane Asylum to what it was originally designed to be or else make some just appropriation
for the benefit of this very unfortunate class of our 'fellow-beings.' "
Temperance
W.J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition, 1979
Americans drank on all occasions. Every social event demanded a drink. When Southerners served barbeque, they roasted
hogs and provided "plenty of whiskey." Guests at urban dances and balls were often intoxicated; so were spectators at
frontier horse races. Western newlyweds were customarily presented with a bottle of whiskey to be drunk before bedding
down for the night. Liquor also entered into money-making and business affairs. When a bargain was negotiated or a
contract was signed, it was sealed with a drinking; auctioneers passed a whiskey bottle to those who made bids. After the
harvest, farmers held agricultural fairs that ended with dinners laced with dozens of toasts. Whiskey accompanied
traditional communal activities such as house-raisings, huskings, land clearings, and reaping. It was even served when
women gathered to sew, quilt, or pick the seeds out of cotton…. Voters demanded and received spirits in exchange for
their ballots. Electoral success, explained one Kentucky politico, depended upon understanding that "the way to men's
hearts, is, down their throats."
W.J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition, 1979
Alcohol was pervasive in American society; it crossed regional, sexual, racial, and class lines. Americans drank at home
and abroad, alone and together, at work and at play, in fun and in earnest. They drank from the crack of dawn to the crack
of dawn. At nights taverns were filled with boisterous, mirth-making tipplers. Americans drank before meals, with meals,
and after meals. They drank while working in the fields and while travelling across half a continent. They drank in their
youth, and, if they lived long enough, in their old age. They drank at formal events, such as weddings, ministerial
ordinations, and wakes, and on no occasion- by the fireside of an evening, on a hot afternoon, when the mood called.
From sophisticated Andover to frontier Illinois, from Ohio to Georgia, in lumber camps and on satin settees, in log taverns
and at fashionable New York hotels, the American greeting was "Come, Sir, take a dram first." Seldom was it refused.
Early nineteenth-century America may not have been "a nation of drunkards," but Americans were certainly enjoying a
spectacular binge.
W.J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition, 1979
But by 1800, prosperity, improved distilling technology, the growing popularity of whiskey together with illicit and
therefore untaxed distilled spirits had combined to raise per capita consumption to the 1770 level. Then, between 1800
and 1830, annual per capital consumption increased until it exceeded 5 gallons- a rate nearly triple that of today's
consumption. After 1830 the temperance movement, and later on high federal taxation discouraged the drinking of
distilled beverages. Annual per capita consumption fell to less than 2 gallons, a level from which there has been little
deviation in more than a century.
In addition to distilled spirits, Americans drank weaker fermented beverages: beer (5% alcohol), hard cider (10%), wine
(18%). Colonial beer consumption was negligible, except for home brewed "small beer," which was only one percent
alcohol. Until 1850 annual per capita consumption of commercial beer at no time reached 2 gallons, and it was not until
after the Civil War that it rose dramatically toward today's rate of ore than 18 gallons. But hard cider was a different
matter. Pre-Revolutionary cider consumption, heaviest in the apple country from Virginia northward, was probably as
high if not higher than in the early nineteenth century. In fact, so much cider was drunk that colonial Americans probably
ingested more alcohol from that beverage than from their much more potent rum. And even with the increased popularity
of distilled spirits after 1800, the annual per capita consumption of hard cider was 15 or more gallons. It continued until
the 1830s to account for a significant proportion of all the alcohol Americans imbibed. Hard cider disappeared only after
the leaders of the temperance movement succeeded in persuading farmers to cut down their apple trees. Wine
consumption war and always has been relatively light. In 1770 the typical American annually drank only one-tenth of a
gallon; between 1770 and 1870 less a third of a gallon; and even today less than one and a half gallons.
David S. Reynolds, Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson, 2008
The advent of democracy and the spread of evangelical religion gave rise to a more stringent stance of alcohol. Widening
suffrage among Americans raised the question, How can the citizens of a republic vote responsibly while under the
influence of liquor? As perfectionism spread, Protestants increasingly demanded that individuals take steps to clean up
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their lives. Preachers used persuasion and rhetoric to convince their hearers that intemperance was a sin against God and
the family.
Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 2007
This campaign to alter age-old habits and attitudes proved amazingly successful: consumption of alcohol, especially of
hard liquor, declined steadily and dramatically after 1830, falling to 1.8 gallons per person over fifteen by the late 1840s.
As important as this success, however, was the example of reformers set of organizing voluntary societies to influence
public opinion. Beecher convinced the societies as forming "a disciplined moral militia." The American Temperance
Society, founded in 1826, served as a model for other movements. Through such issue-oriented organizations, reformers
transcended geographical and denominational limitations to wage nationwide campaigns. The voluntary associations
became a conspicuous feature of American society from that time forward. They distributed Bibles and tracts, supported
missions foreign and domestic, abuse of women, children, animals, convicts, and the insane. Most momentous of all their
activities would be their crusade against slavery.
Lyman Beecher, "Six Sermons on Intemperance"
Upon national industry the effects of the intemperance are manifest and mischievous... The prospect of a destitute old age,
or of a suffering family, no longer troubles the vicious portion of our community. They drink up their daily earnings, and
bless God for the poor-house... Thus is the insatiable destroyer of industry marching through the land, rearing poorhouses... squandering property, cutting the sinews of industry, undermining vigor, engendering disease, paralyzing
intellect, impairing moral principle... continually transferring larger and larger bodies of men, from the class of
contributors to the national income, to the class of worthless consumers...
The effects of intemperance upon civil liberty may not be lightly passed over... (The) day is not far distant when the great
body of the laboring classes of the community, the bones and sinews of the nation, will be contaminated; and when this is
accomplished, the right of suffrage becomes the engine of self-destruction. For the laboring classes constitute an immense
majority, and when these are perverted by intemperance, ambition needs no better implements with which to dig the grave
of our liberties, and entomb our glory...
"Come Home Father!", by Henry Clay Work, 1864
Tis the Song of little Mary
Standing at the bar-room door
While the shameful midnight revel
Rages wildly as before.
Father, dear father, come home with me now!
The clock in the steeple strikes one;
You said you were coming home right home from the shop,
As soon as your day's work was done.
Our fire has gone out our house is all dark
And mother's been watching since tea,
With poor brother Benny so sick in her arms,
And no one to help her but me.
Come home! Come home! Come home!
Please, father, dear father, come home.
T.S. Arthur
The book is not so much an evangelical tract about the evils of alcohol, but instead shows the sapping of the virtue of a
fictious town- "Cedarville"
Education
Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (1991), pg. 368
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Massachusetts school reform, rather than raising enrollments already high, shifted urban education from private to public
schools while substantially increasing the length of terms, attendance, and financial support in rural schools as well.
Communities lagging in these categories were flayed annually by Mann's statistical reports of each district's record.
Inspired by the industrial model, the reformers called for a new class of professional educators to intensify and
standardize schooling. They were applying, said Boston's first superintendent of schools, "the principle of division of
labor, which has done so much to advance and perfect the various branches of industry." Mann persuaded the state to
establish several "normal schools" to train professional teachers, and under his influence Boston led the way toward
graded schools, written examinations, and a hierarchical school bureaucracy.
Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 2007, 452-453.
The commercialization and diversification of the economy multiplied jobs requiring literate and numerical skills;
continued economic development would demand still more of them. American society needed an educational program
synthesizing the civic objectives of Jefferson's Enlightenment with the energy and commitment of the religious
Awakening. Such a movement appeared in the educational reforms embraced by the Whig Party in the 1830s. The
greatest of the Whig educational reformers was Horace Mann, who became secretary the newly created Massachusetts
State Board of Education in 1837. From that vantage point Mann tirelessly crusaded on behalf of "common schools"- that
is, schools that the whole population would have in common: tuition-free, tax-supported meeting statewide standards of
curriculum, textbooks, and facilities, staffed with teachers who had been trained in state normal schools, modeled on the
French école normale. In Massachusetts, Mann could build on the strongest tradition of public education in any state.
There, local communities had no hesitation about employing the resources of the state; he was a political disciple of John
Quincy Adams. The normal schools that he created (beginning with Lexington in 1839) constituted Mann's most
important innovation, the precursors of teacher training colleges. The normal schools turned out to be the avenue through
which women in large numbers first entered any profession. Since they were paid less than men, women teachers
provided a human resource agreeable to legislators worried about the cost of Mann's ambitious plans.
As envisioned by Mann and his successors until long after the Civil War, the common schools embodied a common
ideology. The ideology of the American common schools included patriotic virtue, responsible character, and the
democratic participation, all to be developed through intellectual discipline and the nurture of the moral qualities. It would
never have occurred to Mann and his disciples that such an educational program should not include religion, but since
they wanted above all to achieve an education common to all, this necessitated a common religious instruction.
Horace Mann, “End Poverty Through Education,” Twelfth Annual Report, Massachusetts Board of Education,
1848
… a State should… seek the solution of such problems as these: To what extent can competence displace pauperism?
How nearly can we free ourselves from the low-minded and the vicious, not by their expatriation, but by their elevation?
To what extent can the resources and powers of Nature be converted into human welfare, the peaceful arts of life be
advanced, and the vast treasures of human talent and genius be developed? How much suffering, in all its forms, can be
relieved? Or, what is better than relief, how much can be prevented? Cannot the classes of crimes be lessened, and the
number of criminals in each class be diminished?
…The distance between the two extremes of society is lengthening, instead of being, abridged. With every generation,
fortunes increase on the one hand, and some new privation is added to poverty on the other. We are verging towards the
extremes of opulence and of penury, each of which unhumanizes the human mind…
I suppose it to be the universal sentiment of all those who mingle any ingredient of benevolence with their notions on
political economy, that vast and overshadowing private fortunes are among the greatest dangers to which the happiness of
the people in a republic can be subjected. Such fortunes would create a feudalism of a new kind…
Now, surely nothing but universal education can counterwork this tendency to the domination of capital and the servility
of labor… if education be equably diffused, it will draw property after it by the strongest of all attractions; for such a thing
never did happen, and never can happen, as that an intelligent and practical body of men should be permanently poor.
Property and labor in different classes are essentially antagonistic; but property and labor in the same class are essentially
fraternal.
Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men,- the balancewheel of the social machinery. I do not here mean that it so elevates the moral nature as to make men disdain and abhor
and oppression of their fellow-men. This idea pertains to another of its attributes. But I mean that it gives each man the
independence and the means by which he can resist the selfishness of other men. It does better than to disarm the poor of
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their hostility towards the rich: it prevents being poor. Agrarianism is the revenge of property against wealth. The wanton
corn-ricks, the demolition of machinery because it supersedes hand-labor, the sprinkling of vitriol on rich dresses- is only
agrarianism run mad. Education prevents both the revenge and the madness. On the other hand, a fellow-felling for one’s
class or caste is the common instinct of hearts not wholly sunk in selfish regards for person or for family. The spread of
education, by enlarging the cultivated class or caste, will open a wider area over which the social feelings will expand;
and, if this education should be universal and complete, it would do more than all things else to obliterate distinctions in
society….
…But he beneficent power of education would not be exhausted even though it should peaceably abolish all the miseries
that spring from co-existence, side by side, of enormous wealth and squalid want. It has a higher function. Beyond the
power of diffusing old wealth, it has the prerogative of creating new. It is a thousand times more lucrative than fraud, and
adds a thousand-fold more to a nation’s resources than the most successful conquests. Knaves and robbers can obtain only
what was before possessed by others. But education creates or develops new treasures,- treasures not before possessed or
dreamed of by any one.
Horace Mann
The property of this commonwealth is pledged to the education of all its youth up to such point as will save them from
poverty and vice, and prepare them for the adequate performance of their social and civil duties.
Horace Mann, Twelfth Annual Report to the Massachusetts Board of Education as Secretary of Massachusetts
State Board of Education (1847)
Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of the conditions of men,—the balance
wheel of the social machinery. I do not here mean that it so elevates the moral nature as to make men disdain and abhor
the oppression of their fellow men. This idea pertains to another of its attributes. But I mean that it gives each man the
independence and the means by which he can resist the selfishness of other men. It does better than to disarm the poor of
their hostility toward the rich: it prevents being poor. Agrarianism is the revenge of poverty against wealth. The wanton
destruction of the property of others -- the burning of hay-ricks, and corn-ricks, the demolition of machinery because it
supersedes hand-labor, the sprinkling of vitriol on rich dresses -- is only agrarianism run mad. Education prevents both the
revenge and the madness. On the other hand, a fellow-feeling for one's class or caste is the common instinct of hearts not
wholly sunk in selfish regard for a person or for a family. The spread of education, by enlarging the cultivated class or
caste, will open a wider area over which the social feelings will expand; and, if this education should be universal and
complete, it would do more than all things else to obliterate factitious distinctions in society.. ..
For the creation of wealth, then,—for the existence of a wealthy people and a wealthy nation,—intelligence is the grand
condition. The number of improvers will increase as the intellectual constituency, if I may so call it, increases. In former
times, and in most parts of the world even at the present day, not one man in a million has ever had such a development of
mind as made it possible for him to become a contributor to art or science.... Let this development proceed, and
contributions . . . of inestimable value, will be sure to follow. That political economy, therefore, which busies itself about
capital and labor, supply and demand, interests and rents, favorable and unfavorable balances of trade, but leaves out of
account the elements of a wide-spread mental development, is naught but stupendous folly. The greatest of all the arts in
political economy is to change a consumer into a producer; and the next greatest is to increase the producing power,—and
this to be directly obtained by increasing his intelligence. For mere delving, an ignorant man is but little better than a
swine, whom he so much resembles in his appetites, and surpasses in his power of mischief....
McGuffey Readers
Lesson 34
“Papa, may we have the big flag?” said James.
“What can my little boy do with such a big flag?”
“Hoist it on our tent, papa. We are playing Fourth of July.”
“Is that what all this noise is about? Why not hoist your own flags?”
“Oh! They are too little.”
“You might spoil my flag.”
“Then we will all join to pay for it. But we will not spoil it, papa.”
“Take it, then, and take the coil or rope with it.”
“Oh! Than you. Hurrah for the flag, boys!”
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Lesson 39
See my dear, old grandma in her easy-chair! How gray her hair is! She wears glasses when she reads.
She is always kind, and takes such good care of me that I like to do that she tells me.
When she says, “Robert, will you get me a drink?” I run as fast as I can to get it for her. Then she says, “Thank you, my
boy.”
Would you not love a dear, good grandma, who is so kind? And would you not do all you could to please her?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
In'do-lent; adj. lazy, idle
Com-mer'cial; adj. trading
Com'ic-al; adj. amusing
Drone; n. an idler
Nav'i-ga-ble; adj. in which boats can sail
The IDLE SCHOOL-BOY
Pronounce correctly. Do not say indorlunt for in-do-lent; creepin for creep -ing; sylubble for syl-la-ble, colud for colored; scarlit for scar-let; ingnerunt for ig-no-rant
1. I will tell you about the laziest boy you ever heard of. He was indolent about every thing. When he played, the boys
said he played as if the teacher told him to. When he went to school, he went creeping along like a snail. The boy had
sense enough; but he was too lazy to learn anything.
2. When he spelled a word, he drawled out one syllable after another, as if he were afraid the syllables would quarrel if
he did not keep them a great way apart.
Utopian Communities
Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (2007), pg. 296
The interest aroused by communitarian social experiments in the United States on the eve of the industrial revolution
revealed something about the mood and temper of the American public, its willingness to entertain a broad range of social
and economic possibilities. The seeming boundlessness of America's prospects and the open-mindedness of its people
encouraged the formation of big plans of all kinds, whether for an integrated transportation network, African colonization,
utopian communities, or the Second Coming of Christ.
Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (2007), pg. 292-296
The utopians simply carried even further the perfectionism that mainstream evangelists like Charles Grandison Finney
preached. Typically, they did not so much reject American society as wish to elaborate upon it, to carry its innovative
qualities to extremes. Their communities attracted attention out of all proportion to their size. Contemporaries took as
potential alternatives for religious, social, and economic life. Of particular interest are the ways the communities
addressed gender issues before there was a women's movement addressing them in the world at large. Collectively, the
communities underscore the experimental nature of American life, its idealism and ambition, its independence from the
givens of custom and tradition.
John Humphrey Noyes
When the will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven there will be no marriage; my wife is yours, she is Christ's, and in
him she is the bride of all saints.
Robert Cater, Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, 1889
At Brook Farm the disciples of the “Newness” (transcendentalism) gathered to the number, I think, of about a hundred.
Among them were George Ripley, the founder of the institution, Charles A. Dana, W.H. Channing, J.S. Dwight, Warren
Burton, Nathaniel Hawthorne, G.W. Curtis, and his brother Burrill Curtis. The place was a farm of two hundred acres of
good land, eight miles from Boston, in the town of West Roxbury, and was of much natural beauty, with a rich and varied
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landscape. The avowed object of the association was to realize the Christian ideal of life by make such industrial, social,
and educational arrangements as would promote economy, combine leisure for study with healthful and honest toil, avert
collisions of caste, equalize refinements, diffuse courtesy, and sanctify life more completely than is possible in the
isolated household mode of living.
It is a remarkable feature of this establishment that it was wholly indigenous, a genuine outgrowth of the times in New
England, and not at all derived from Fourierism (French cooperative socialism), as many supposed. Fourier, was, in fact,
not known to its founders until Brook Farm had been a year or two in operation. They then began to study him, and fell
finally into some of his fantasies, to which in part is to be ascribed the ruin of the institution.
Of the life of Brook Farm I do not intend to say much, for I was there only one day, though I knew nearly all the
members. It was a delightful gathering of men and women of superior cultivation, who led a charming life for a few years,
laboring in its fields and philandering in its pleasant woods. It was a little too much of a picnic for serious profit, and the
young men and maidens were rather unduly addicted to moonlight wanderings in the pine-grove, though it is credible to
the sound moral training of New England that little or no harm came to these wanderings- at least not to the maidens. So
far as the relation of the sexes is concerned, the Brook Farmers, in spite of their free manners, were as pure, I believe as
any other people.
The enterprise failed peculiarly, after seeming for some years to have succeeded. Fourierism brought it into disrepute, and
finally a great wooden phalanstery (main building), in which the members had invested all their means, took fire, and
burned to the ground just as it was completed. Upon this catastrophe the association scattered (in 1847, I think), and
Brook Farm became the site of the town poorhouse.
Brook Farm Constitution, 1840s
In order to more effectually to promote the great purposes of human culture; to establish the external relations of life on a
basis of wisdom and purity; to apply the principles of justice and love to our social organization in accordance with the
laws of Divine Providence; to substitute a system of brotherly cooperation for one of selfish competition; to secure to our
children and those who may be entrusted to our care, the benefits of the highest physical, intellectual and moral education,
which in the progress of knowledge the resources at our command will permit; to institute an attractive, efficient, and
productive system of industry; to prevent the exercise of worldly anxiety, by the competent supply of our necessary
wants; to diminish the desire of excessive accumulation, by making the acquisition of individual property subservient to
upright and disinterested uses; to guarantee to each other forever the means of physical support, and of spiritual progress;
and thus to impact a greater freedom, simplicity, truthfulness, refinement, and moral dignity, to our mode of life;- we the
undersigned do unite in a voluntary Association, and adopt and ordain the following articles of agreement, to wit:
Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (2007), pg. 470-471
Of all major branches of science in this period, possibly the least well developed was medicine. Vaccination against
smallpox constituted one of the few valid medical interventions practiced. The germ theory of disease had been suggested
but remained untested, an eccentric speculation… Recurrent epidemics promoted cities to start to improve sanitation
provisions, but they did not act decisively until much later in the nineteenth century. Physicians practiced neither asepsis
nor antisepsis and often infected a patient with the disease of the last one they had seen…."Heroic", that is, drastic,
measures of bloodletting, purging, and blistering found favor with physicians for a wide variety of diseases… Reacting to
the futility of scientific medicine, many patients resorted to a variety of alternatives: homeopathy, Thomonianism,
Grahamism, phrenology, spiritualism, and folk remedies.
Cultural Trends
Wikipedia, "Romanticism"
The European Romantic movement reached America in the early 19th century. American Romanticism was just as
multifaceted and individualistic as it was in Europe. Like the Europeans, the American Romantics demonstrated a high
level of moral enthusiasm, commitment to individualism and the unfolding of the self, an emphasis on intuitive
perception, and the assumption that the natural world was inherently good, while human society was filled with
corruption.
Romanticism became popular in American politics, philosophy and art. The movement appealed to the revolutionary
spirit of America as well as to those longing to break free of the strict religious traditions of early settlement. The
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Romantics rejected rationalism and religious intellect. It appealed to those in opposition of Calvinism, which includes the
belief that the destiny of each individual is preordained. The Romantic movement gave rise to New England
Transcendentalism which portrayed a less restrictive relationship between God and Universe. The new philosophy
presented the individual with a more personal relationship with God. Transcendentalism and Romanticism appealed to
Americans in a similar fashion, for both privileged feeling over reason, individual freedom of expression over the
restraints of tradition and custom. It often involved a rapturous response to nature. It encouraged the rejection of harsh,
rigid Calvinism, and promised a new blossoming of American culture.
American Romanticism embraced the individual and rebelled against the confinement of neoclassicism and religious
tradition. The Romantic movement in America created a new literary genre that continues to influence American writers.
Novels, short stories, and poems replaced the sermons and manifestos of yore. Romantic literature was personal, intense,
and portrayed more emotion than ever seen in neoclassical literature. America's preoccupation with freedom became a
great source of motivation for Romantic writers as many were delighted in free expression and emotion without so much
fear of ridicule and controversy. They also put more effort into the psychological development of their characters, and the
main characters typically displayed extremes of sensitivity and excitement.
The works of the Romantic Era also differed from preceding works in that they spoke to a wider audience, partly
reflecting the greater distribution of books as costs came down during the period. The Romantic period saw an increase in
female authors and also female readers.
David S. Reynolds, Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson (2008), pg.236
The years from 1815 to 1848 produced American masterpieces, many of which had a worldwide impact. In literature, this
period witnessed the greatest writings of Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allen Poe, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Frederick Douglass. The Fireside Poets- William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf
Longfellow, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.- established themselves as the nations' most popular writers of verse. Many
others- among them Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Harriet Beecher
Stowe- served literary apprenticeships, preparing for that concentrated movement of literary expression (1850 to 1855)
that the critic F.O. Matthiessen called the American Renaissance. In art, America reached indigenous expression in the
early Hudson River School and genre painting. Performance culture saw the rise of characteristically American styles of
music and theater. Culturally, these years were among the richest in American history.
Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (2007), pg. 623-624
Why did Thoreau not go out to the frontier and build his cabin in an actual wilderness? Because he wanted to prove such a
major undertaking not necessary; one could conduct a living experiment within easy reach, using few resources. If others
who felt discontented with their lives wished to imitate his example, they could readily do so. The important thing was to
explore one's inner state of mind, not journey long distances. As Thoreau wryly put it, "I have traveled a good deal in
Concord."
Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (2007), pg. 625-626
As a formal religious philosophy, Transcendentalism proved evanescent; its intellectual appeal barely lasted for a single
generation after Emerson's announcement of it in 1836. Yet as a literary movement, it has retained interest, and rightfully
so. The writings of the Transcendentalists affirm some of the best qualities characteristic of American civilization: selfreliance, a willingness to question authority, a quest for spiritual nourishment. Their writings, even today, urge us to
independent reflection in face of fads, conformity, blind partisanship, and mindless consumerism.
Quotes by Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson
The less government we have, the better- fewer laws, and the less confided power (Emerson).
I heartily accept the motto "The government is best which governs least." Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I
also believe: "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of
government they will have (Thoreau).
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison (Thoreau).
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We are reformers in spring and summer; in autumn and winter we stand by the old; reformers in the morning, conservers
at night. Reform is affirmative, conservatism negative; conservatism goes for comfort, reform for truth (Emerson).
Every reform was once a private opinion (Emerson).
If a man owns land, the land owns him (Emerson).
To be great is to be misunderstood (Emerson).
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the
music he hears, however measured or far away (Thoreau).
I have never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude (Thoreau).
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation (Thoreau).
Our day of dependence, our apprenticeship to the learning of other lands draws to a close (Emerson).
Europe stretches to the Alleghenies, America lies beyond (Emerson).
Henry David Thoreau, "Walden- Or Life in the Woods" (1854)
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not
learn what it had to teach me, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Noah Webster, Dissertations on the English Language (1789)
Besides this, a national language is a band of national union. Every engine should be employed to render the people of
this country national; to call their attachments home to their own country; and to inspire them with the pride of national
character. However, they may boast of independence, and the freedom of their government, yet their opinions are not
sufficiently independent; an astonishing respect for the arts and literature of their parent country; and a blind imitation of
its manners, are still prevalent among the Americans.
Edgar Allen Poe, "The Raven" (1845)
And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted — nevermore!
Herman Melville, Moby Dick (1851)
The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men
feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been
from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient
Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devil; -- Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously
transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and
torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the
subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in
Moby-Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from
Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.
Walt Whitman, "O' Captain, My Captain" (1865)
O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we
sought is won
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people al
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exulting
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim
and daring
But O heart! Heart! Heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
The Growth of Newspapers, 1820-1840
1820
1830
1835
1840
U.S. population (millions)
9.6
12.8
15.0
17.1
Number of newspapers published
500
800
1200
1400
Daily newspapers
42
65
---
138
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