Protestant Revivalists
What problems did Protestant
Revivalists want to solve?
• Alcoholism, illiteracy, overcrowded housing,
poor health care, abuse of women, declining
moral values
• Many people sought to improve problems
through reform movements that began in the
early 1800s
What did PRs believe?
• Reformers rejected the Puritan belief that God
predetermined peoples’ lives and placed them
in rigid social ranks
• Taught the possibility of salvation for all
• Called for a crusade against personal
immorality
• Worked for the reform of society
Major Leaders
• Charles Grandison Finney
– Central figure in revivalist movement
– Powerful sermons drew enormous crowds
– Emphasized individuals’ power to reform
themselves
• Lyman Beecher
– Taught “good people would make a good country”
– Father of Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher
Stowe
Transcendentalists
• Who were they?
– Included many philosophers and writers
– Centered in Concord, MA
What did they believe?
• Rejected traditional religion
• Taught that the process of spiritual discovery
and insight would lead a person to truths
more profound than he or she could reach
through reason
• Declared that humans are naturally good
• Rejected outward rituals and group worship in
favor of inward searching
Major Leaders
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
– Well known writer
– Began a literary movement known as “American
Renaissance”
– Believed in
• Intimate connection b/n man and nature
• Self-reliance and independent spirit
• Sanctity of the individual
Major Leaders
• Henry David Thoreau
• Wrote Walden
• In his Essay, Resistance to Civil Government,
Thoreau claimed that an individual should
refuse to obey unjust laws
• In his later years, devoted much of his time to
the abolitionist movement
Temperance Movement
• What was the problem that the temperance
movement attempted to solve?
– Early 1800s America consumed more alcohol that
at any other time in our history
– Temperance mov. Opposed alcohol b/c it tended
to make people lose control
– Valued self control and self discipline
– Believed people should abstain from all alcohol
What actions did they take?
• Asked people to sign abstinence pledges
promising not to use alcohol
• Organized the American Temperance Society
• Wanted states to restrict the sale and
consumption of alcohol
• Alcohol consumption dropped sharply as
movement gained strength
Public Education
• What were the problems with American
schools in the 1800s?
– More popular in the north, few public schools in
the South
– Very few standards for teachers or education
– Most schools were segregated
– Opportunities for women were limited
– Weak textbooks
Major Leader
• Horace Mann
– Became head of Board of Ed. in MA
– Believed in the right of education for every human
being
– Believed a democracy couldn’t survive w/out an
educated society
– Wanted tax supported public schools
• Some people didn’t support using tax money for
schools
Mann’s Accomplishments
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Est. grade levels
Est. curriculum and teacher training
Known as “Father of American public schools”
Spoke out against slavery
Public school children of Mann’s day were taught
how to behave, stand in line, wait their turn and
respect authority
• Textbook called McGuffey’s Readers not only
helped teach reading but also taught Protestant
values like obedience, honesty and temperance
Reforming Prisons
• What were the problems with American
prisons in the 1800s?
– Early 1800s many states built prisons for the first
time
– Conditions in prison were typically bad
– Mentally ill people were put in prison instead of
being hospitalized
Major Reformer
• Dorthea Dix fought for prison reform
• Led efforts to build hospitals for the mentally
ill
• Traveled from prison to prison in MA
documenting problems
• Campaigned in Congress for reform
Utopian Communities
• What were they?
– Small societies dedicated to perfection in social
and political conditions
– Encouraged cooperation and unity
– Believed if social arrangements could be
perfected, the ills of society could be eliminated
– Utopia –fictional place where human greed or sin
did not exist
Did they exist in the 1800s?
• More than 100 communities arose int eh US in
the early 1800s
• Became short lived experiments
– Most fell to laziness, selfishness and in fighting
• EX
– New Harmony, IN founded by Robert Owen
– Oneida
– Shakers, an offshoot of the Quakers
What was the Brook Farm
Experiment?
• Formed by George Ripley in 1841
• Communal society where everyone was to
work together for the common good
• Tried to live out Transcendentalists ideals