The Second Great Awakening
The Second Great Awakening
• Rejected Calvistic ideas that God
determined who was damned and who
was saved
• Beliefs during 2nd G.A. similar to
Jacksonian democracy  the common
citizen has the power
Revivalism
• Often located in the West
• Movement that used emotional meetings when
conversion happened in an experience
– Impassioned preaching
– Bible studies
– Examination of souls
• Strong impact on American public
– 1800: 1 in 15 belonged to a church
– 1850: 1 in 6 belonged to a church
Unitarian
• Often located in the Northeast
• Disliked Public emotionalism, but shared the idea of faith
in the individual
• Emphasized reason and appeals to conscience as path to
perfection as a gradual process
• “The Perfection of human nature, the elevation of men
into nobler beings”
– Individual reform
– Social reform
Transcendentalism
• Definition: a philosophical & literary movement that
emphasized living a simple life and celebrated the truth
found in nature and in personal emotion and
imagination, rather than in any organized system of
belief.
• Not a religious experience, but a reformation of
individuals:
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Fought for humanitarian reforms
Abolition of slavery
Improved conditions of schools and prisons
Stressed American ideals of optimism, freedom, and self-reliance
African American Church
• Revivalism feared by Slave Holders
• Slaves began to interpret Christian
message as a promise of freedom
• Church offered more than place of
worship:
– Political, Cultural, Social, Educational centers
How could these movements
promote change in American
society?
Effects:
• Sought to improve society and the human
condition:
– Prison reform
– Education reform
– Abolitionist Movements
– Women’s Suffrage Movements
– Industrial Labor Movements