A Reforming
Society
The Reform Movement
improve
schools
Improve
prisons
Stop
alcohol
abuse
Stop
slavery
The Public School Movement
What they wanted:
• Tax-supported public
schools
• Laws requiring children to
attend school
Why they wanted it:
• Education would give
Americans the knowledge
they needed to participate
in government
• Educated workers would
promote economic growth
• Educating all will keep the
wealthy from oppressing
the lower classes
Horace Mann
• Established and led the first
Board of Education in
Massachusetts
• Argued for:
• School oversight
• Adequate funding for
education
• Abolition of corporal
punishment in classrooms
Worked to create well-trained teachers
Women In the Reform Movement
Catherine
Beecher
Emma
Willard
Elizabeth
Blackwell
Ann
Preston
Dorothea
Dix
Education
Reform
Education
Reform
Medical
Training
for
women
Medical
Training
for
women
Prison
and
Hospital
Reform
DorotHea Dix
• Travelled around
Massachusetts, noting the
condition of prisons,
almshouses and hospitals
• Petitioned Massachusetts
legislature to stop the
abuses she saw
• Advocated for the creation
of mental hospitals
• Leader of the penitentiary
movement
Penitentiary movement
• Saw prisons as a place to instill penitence rather
than punish criminals
The Pennsylvania System
• Prisoners lived and
worked in complete
solitary confinement
• Eastern State
Penitentiary
• was expensive and
thought to be cruel
Auburn Prison, New York
• prisoners work
together by day in
silence
• at night prisoners slept
in solitary cells
• Most American prisons
adopted this system
Temperance Movement
• Wanted to take control of
alcohol abuse which they
saw as the root of many
social problems
• Temperance = drinking
alcohol in moderation
• Some wanted prohibition
• Used pamphlets, posters,
rallies, and petitions to
governments
Temperance Victory
• Leader of the movement
Neal Dow became mayor
of Portland, Maine (1851)
• He passed the so-called
“Maine Law” which
restricted the sale of
alcohol
• Many states followed suit