American Stories:
A History of the United States
Second Edition
Chapter
12
The Pursuit of
Perfection
1800–1861
American Stories: A History of the United States, Second Edition
Brands • Breen • Williams • Gross
Revival Meeting, 1850 Christians respond
emotionally at an open-air revival meeting. Oil on
panel by Jeremiah Paul, c1850. The Granger
Collection, NYC.
The Pursuit of Perfection
1800–1861
• The Rise of Evangelicalism
• Domesticity and Changes in the American
Family
• Reform Turns Radical
Redeeming the Social Class
• 1830–1831—wave of religious revivals
swept northern states
• Finney of Rochester converted
hundreds in Evangelical crusade
• Rochester was economic boomtown,
evangelical Protestantism gave middle
class stronger identity
Redeeming the Social Class
(cont’d)
• Religious reformism also inspired
crusade against social and political
institutions
• Abolitionism movement challenged
the Southern states and helped trigger
civil war
The Rise of Evangelicalism
The Rise of Evangelicalism
• Separation of church and state gave all
churches the chance to compete for
converts
• Pious Protestants formed voluntary
associations to combat sin, “infidelity”
The Second Great Awakening
• Camp meetings contributed to
frontier life
 Provided emotional religion
 Offer opportunity for social life
• Camp meeting revivals conveyed
intensely personal religious message
• Camp meetings rarely led to social
reform
The Second Great Awakening
(cont’d)
• New England reformers led by Timothy
Dwight defended Calvinism against the
Enlightenment
• Nathaniel Taylor: Individuals are free
agents and can overcome natural
inclination to sin
• Lyman Beecher and evangelical
Calvinism
The Second Great Awakening
(cont’d)
• Charles G. Finney
 Departed radically from Calvinist doctrine
 Appeal is based in emotion not reason
 Finney preached in upstate New York and
stressed revival techniques
• Beecher and others disturbed by
emotionalism of Finney’s methods
• Revivals led to organization of more
churches
From Revivalism to Reform
• Northern revivals stimulated reform
• Middle-class participants adapted
evangelical religion to preserve
traditional values
Temperance Propaganda warned that the
drinker who began with “a glass with a friend”
would inevitably follow the direct path to poverty,
despair, and death. (Source: “The Drunkard’s
Progress,” Fruitlands Museum, Harvard,
Massachusetts.)
From Revivalism to Reform
(cont’d)
• "The benevolent empire" of evangelical
reform movements altered American
life
 For example, temperance movement cut
alcohol consumption by more than 50%
Domesticity and Changes in the
American Family
Domesticity and Changes in the
American Family
• New conception of family’s role in
society
• Child rearing seen as essential
preparation for self-disciplined
Christian life
• Women confined to domestic sphere
• Women assumed crucial role within
home
The Cult of Domesticity
• "The Cult of True Womanhood"
 Placed women in the home
 Glorified home as center of all efforts to
civilize and “Christianize” society
The Cult of Domesticity (cont’d)
• Middle- and upper-class women
increasingly dedicated to the home as
mothers
• Women of leisure entered reform
movements
The Discovery of Childhood
• 19th-century child the center of family
• Each child seen as unique, irreplaceable
• Ideal to form child’s character with
affection
The Discovery of Childhood
(cont’d)
• Parental discipline to instill guilt, not
fear
• Train child to learn self-discipline
• Family size declines from average of
7.04 children to 5.42 by 1850
The Extension of Education
• Public schools expanded rapidly from
1820 to 1850
• Means of advancement for working
class
• Means of inculcating values of hard
work, responsibility to middle-class
reformers
The Extension of Education
(cont’d)
• Horace Mann argued schools saved
immigrants, poor children from parents’
bad influence
• Many parents believed public schools
alienated children from their parents
Reform Turns Radical
Reform Turns Radical
• Most reform aimed to improve society
• Some radical reformers sought
destruction of old society, creation of
perfect social order
 Antislavery movement
The Rise of Radical Abolitionism
• Moderates sought gradual end to
slavery and colonization of freed slaves
to its colony of Liberia
• Radicals like William Lloyd Garrison
demanded immediate emancipation
 1831: Garrison founded The Liberator
 1833: American Anti-Slavery Society
The Rise of Radical
Abolitionism (cont’d)
• Weld an itinerant minister converted by
Finney
• Adapted his revivalist techniques to
abolition
• Successful mass meetings in Ohio, New
York
Black Abolitionists
• Former slaves related the horrible
realities of bondage
 Prominent figures included Frederick
Douglass and Sojourner Truth
• Black newspapers, books, and
pamphlets publicized abolitionism to a
wider audience
• Blacks were also active in the
Underground Railroad
Abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who escaped
from slavery in 1838, became one of the most
effective voices in the crusade against slavery.
Freedom Calling Harriet Tubman, far left, is
shown here with some of the slaves she helped
escape on the Underground Railroad. Born a slave
in Maryland, she escaped to Philadelphia in 1849.
She is said to have helped 300 African Americans
flee slavery. She led many of them all the way to
Canada, where they would be beyond the reach of
the Fugitive Slave Law. (Source: Smith College,
Sophia Smith Collection, Northampton,
Massachusetts.)
From Abolitionism to
Women’s Rights
• Abolitionism opened to women’s
participation
• Involvement raised awareness of
women’s inequality
From Abolitionism to
Women’s Rights (cont’d)
• Seneca Falls Convention in 1848
 Organized by Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton
 Prompted by experience of inequality in
abolition movement
 Began movement for women’s rights
A Mother’s Movement Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
a leader of the women’s rights movement, reared
seven children. In addition to her pioneering work,
especially for woman suffrage, she also lectured on
family life and child care.
Conclusion: Counterpoint on
Reform
Conclusion:
Counterpoint on Reform
• Reform encountered perceptive critics
 Nathaniel Hawthorne allegorically refuted
perfectionist movements suggesting the
world was inherently an imperfect place
• Reform prompted necessary changes in
American life
Timeline