CH. 8-1 NEW MOVEMENTS IN
AMERICA
American History
 Most
famous preacher—Charles Grandison
Finney
 Led revivals designed to awaken religious
feelings
 THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING
 1820-1850—number of people attending
church doubled
 Movement called “Second Great
Awakening”
 “First Great Awakening” occurred in 1700s
 Many
preachers were Protestant
 They DID NOT teach strict adherence to
church rules, or obedience to a minister.
 Preachers said that destiny lay in their
own hands
 People were told to live well and work
hard.
 Second Great Awakening helped launch
a remarkable period in American History
 “The Reform Era”—1830-1860

Americans attempt to reshape American Society
THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
 One of the main goals of reformers was to
reduce the use of alcoholic beverages
 TEMPERANCE—moderation
 Books, plays, songs written about evils of alcohol.
 Reformers also started temperance societies.
 1851—Maine outlaws alcohol
 12 states follow in the next several years.

 Prior
to 1840s—American schools were
either private schools or common
schools
 Common Schools—free public schools
where children learned basic reading,
writing, and math skills
 Most families couldn’t afford private
schools
 Quality of teaching in common schools
was generally poor.
 THE
COMMON-SCHOOL MOVEMENT
 Reformers wanted children to be
educated
 Educated people made better decisions
and that wide-spread education was
fundamental to a democratic society
 Education reformers organized
themselves into “friends of education”
 HORACE
MANN
 The greatest education reformer of the
era
 Mann advocated a new, highly organized
approach to education
 He said states should fund education and
schools should be controlled locally
 Compulsory attendance
 Creation of so-called normal schools
where teachers would be trained
 1839—MA
creates the first normal school
 1852—MA passes first compulsory
attendance law in the USA
 Other states copied Mann’s work
 1860– 6 out of 10 white children attended
school (double from 30 years before)
 Reformers didn’t or couldn’t help Native
Americans or African Americans
 WILLIAM MCGUFFY
 Another well-known reformer
 Wrote and published a series of
textbooks
called “Eclectic Readers”
 Became known as “McGuffy Readers”
 Books written for different grade levels
 Taught reading and moral and intellectual
values
 Over 100,000,000 were sold
 Nearly every American student used them
in the middle and late 1800s
 DORTHEA
DIX—campaigned for humane
treatment of prisoners
 Taught Sunday school to prisoners 1841
 Mentally ill and non-violent criminals were
confined with violent criminals
 Horrible overcrowding
 Unsanitary conditions
 Prisoners were abused by jailers
 MA created state-supported institutions to
treat and house mentally ill people, separate
from criminals
 Dix
and supporters convinced other state
governments to create similar institutions
 TRANSCENDENTALISM
UTOPIANISM
AND
 TRANSCENDENTALISM—the
belief that
knowledge is found not only by
observation of the world but also through
reason
 Thus, by
transcending, or going beyond,
observation, people can have a deeper and
truer understanding of the world
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON
 The leading transcendentalist
 Gave sermons and lectures and
wrote
essays
 Self-reliant and trust their intuition
 Transcendentalists supported reform
 America’s most renowned authors
 HENRY
DAVID THOREAU
 Firmly believed in the power of selfreliance and individual thought
 1845—Thoreau lived in a small cabin by
Walden Pond, MA
 He thought simple living would lead to
meaningful life
 People should act according to their own
beliefs, even if they had to break the law
 1846-Thoreau
refused to pay a tax he
thought would promote slavery
 He spent a night in jail
 In the essay “Civil Disobedience” he said
“that government is best which governs
least”
 “Civil Disobedience” was very influential
 Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr.
 UTOPIANISM
 Some
reformers wanted to create new
communities that were free from social
ills
 UPTOPIA— ”the perfect society”
 One community was led by Robert Owen
 1825—He purchased the town of
Harmonie, IN
 Owen
attempted to start a utopian
community in Harmonie, IN
 Residents failed to implement Owen’s
ideals and the community failed 3 years
later
 Another community occurred in 1841 at
Brook Farm, MA. It failed due to
mounting debt in 1847
 Most communities were small and shortlived.
A
notable exception were communities
built by the Shakers
 Shakers—Christian sect
 Started building communities in the late
1700s
 By the 1830s, nearly 6,000 Shakers lived
in more than a dozen communities
throughout the USA.
 THE
END