Chapter 15
The Ferment of Reform
and Culture, 1790–1860
Key Concept 4.1: The United States began to develop a modern
democracy and celebrated a new national culture, while
Americans sought to define the nation’s democratic ideals and
change their society and institutions to match them.
• II. While Americans embraced a new national
culture, various groups developed distinctive cultures
of their own.
• III. Increasing numbers of Americans, many inspired
by new religious and intellectual movements, worked
primarily outside of government institutions to
advance their ideals.
• Theme: The rise of democratic and
individualistic beliefs, a response to
rationalism, and changes to society caused by
the market revolution, along with greater
social and geographical mobility, contributed
to a Second Great Awakening among
Protestants that influenced moral and social
reforms and inspired utopian and other
religious movements.
• A) Americans formed new voluntary
organizations that aimed to change individual
behaviors and improve society through
temperance and other reform efforts.
• B) Abolitionist and antislavery movements
gradually achieved emancipation in the North,
contributing to the growth of the free African
American population, even as many state
governments restricted African Americans’ rights.
Antislavery efforts in the South were largely
limited to unsuccessful slave rebellions.
• C) A women’s rights movement sought to create
greater equality and opportunities for women,
expressing its ideals at the Seneca Falls
Convention.
• Theme: The attempt to improve Americans’
faith, morals, and character affected nearly all
areas of American life and culture, including
education, the family, literature, and the
arts—culminating in the great crusade against
slavery.
• Theme: Intellectual and cultural development
in America was less prolific than in Europe,
but they did earn some international
recognition and became more distinctly
American, especially after the War of 1812.
APUS Questions
• “Reform movements in the United States sought to
expand democratic ideals.” Assess the validity of this
statement with specific reference to the years 1825–
1850.
• Discuss the changing ideals of American womanhood
between the American Revolution (1770’s) and the
outbreak of the Civil War. What factors fostered the
emergence of “republican motherhood” and the “cult
of domesticity”? Assess the extent to which these
ideals influenced the lives of women during this period.
In your answer be sure to consider issues of race and
class. Use the documents and your knowledge of the
time period in constructing your response.
Reviving ReligionThe Second Great Awakening
• 1790s-1830s/1840s
• Evangelical Protestant movement
• Partly a reaction to the rationalism that was evident in
the Enlightenment and the American Revolution
• Generally populist orientation (consistent with
egalitarian ideals and the democratization of society)
• Large numbers of people converted in revival meetings
• Revival- awakening
• Camp meetings- enthusiastic style of preaching and
audience participation.
– Very emotional
• Methodists and Baptists increase
o Become the largest Protestant denominations in the
country by 1850
• Itinerant (traveling) preachers brought
religious messages to the people
• More positive view of human nature.
• Emphasized that all could achieve salvation.
• Key feature of Second Great Awakening was
feminization of religion, both in church
membership and theology:
– Middle-class women were first and most fervent
enthusiasts of religious revivalism
– Made up majority of new church members
– Offered women an active role in bringing their
husbands and families back to God
– Many women then turned to saving rest of society
– Formed a host of benevolent and charitable
organizations
– Spearheaded most of era's ambitious reforms
• Upstate NY became known as the “Burnedover” district because of the large number of
revivals in the area
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Denominational Diversity
• Like First Great Awakening, the Second tended
to widen lines between classes and regions:
– Prosperous and conservative denominations in
East less affected
– Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, &
Unitarians tended to come from wealthier, bettereducated, urban areas
– Methodists, Baptist, & other sects tended to come
from less prosperous, less “learned” communities
in rural South and West
• Religious diversity reflected growing social
cleavages regarding slavery:
– In 1844-45, southern Baptists & southern
Methodists split from northern brethren
– In 1857 Presbyterians, North & South, parted
company
– Secession of southern churches foreshadowed
secession of southern states
– First churches split; then political parties split;
then Union split
• The Great Awakening sparked social reform
• Activist religious groups provided the
leadership and the organizations that drove
reform movements in the antebellum period
Changes in the Family
• The Industrial Revolution redefined the family
• The economic value of children declined
• The average size of the family declined
– 7.04 family members in 1800 to 5.42 in 1830
• More affluent women had time to devote to
religious and moral reform
Reform Movements
•
•
•
•
•
•
Public schools
Treatment of the mentally ill
Prisons
Temperance
Women’s rights
Abolition
Mormons
• The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day
Saints
• 1830 Founded by Joseph Smith
• Based on the Book of Mormon
• Smith murdered
• To escape persecution, the Mormons, under
Brigham Young, established the community of
New Zion on the Great Salt Lake in Utah
Map 15-1 p311
Public Schools
• Middle class reformers partly feared that the
uneducated poor might pose a threat to the
future of the republic
– Democracy depended upon an educated populace
• Horace Mann
– Massachusetts
– Worked for compulsory education
– 1840s movement spread to other states
• Tax-supported public education lagged in South,
but grew in North between 1825 & 1850
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Higher Goals for Higher Learning
• Protestant denominations founded new
denominational colleges, especially in the
western states
An Age of Reform
• Antebellum reform movements were
characterized by great diversity
• They were not necessarily unified movements
• They were generally based on local voluntary
associations that were sometimes loosely
associated with national organizations
• Used:
– “moral suasion”- persuading people to do the right
thing
– Coercion- legislation and social pressure
Multiple Causes
• Secular- Faith in human reason and belief in
rights
• Religious- evangelical Christianity gave reform its
moral urgency
• Economic and Demographic changes
– Growth of urban areas (most of America was still
small town and rural, though) and associated
problems
– Rise of the middle class
– Involvement of educated women
• Improvements in printing technology and
transportation
• Change and continuity
– See “The First Age of Reform” by Ronald G.
Walters http://ap.gilderlehrman.org/history-byera/first-age-reform/essays/first-agereform?period=4
(paragraph 14)
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Temperance
• American Temperance Society formed in
Boston (1826):
– Implored drinkers to sign temperance pledge
– Used pictures, pamphlets, & lurid lectures to
convey message
• Maine Law of 1851:
– Banned manufacture & sale of intoxicating liquor
– Others states followed Maine's example
– By 1857, a dozen states passed prohibition laws
1842
The Fruits of Temperance, by Nathaniel Currier, published by J.B. Allen, New York,
1848. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)
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Abolition
• 1830’s- more radical anti-slavery movement
developed
– Rejected earlier concept of colonization advocated
by groups such as the American Colonization
Society
• Advocated abolition of slavery
• Gained following only in northern states
Women’s Rights
• Crash Course, Women in the 19th Century
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM1czS_V
YDI
• Some argue that greater equality existed in
rural society
• As America became more industrialized and
increasingly urban, this changed
– Women and men became separated into distinct
economic roles
• Separate gender spheres developed
Cult of Domesticity
• Cult of True Womanhood
• Industrialization changed the role of women in
the family
• Men took jobs outside of the home
• Women took charge of the household and
children
– They became moral leaders in the home
• Mostly involved middle and upper class white
women
• “Normal” gender arrangements became
associated with white, Protestant, middleclass gender values
• Attributes of the “true woman”:
– Piety
– Purity
– Submissiveness
– Domesticity
• “It is the grand feature of the Divine economy, that there should be
different stations of superiority and subordination, and it is
impossible to annihilate this beneficent and immutable law...In this
arrangement of the duties of life, Heaven has appointed to one sex
the superior, and to the other the subordinate station…. It is
therefore as much for the dignity as it is for the interest of females,
in all respects to conform to the duties of this relation. And it is as
much a duty as it is for the child to fulfil similar relations to parents,
or subjects to rulers. But while woman holds a subordinate relation
in society to the other sex, it is not because it was designed that her
duties or her influence should be any the less important….”
• “Woman is to win every thing by peace and love; by making herself
so much respected, esteemed and loved, that to yield to her
opinions and to gratify her wishes will be the free−will offering of
the heart. But this is to be all accomplished in the domestic and
social circle….”
–
Catharine Beecher
• Women, especially those involved in the
abolition movement, realized that they were
not treated equally
Seneca Falls Convention
• 1848
• Women’s rights convention
• Listed grievances against the laws and
customs that discriminated against them
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Wilderness Utopias
• Oneida Community (1848) founded in New
York:
– Practiced free love (“complex marriage”), birth control
through “male continence,” and eugenic selection of parents
to produce superior offspring
– Flourished for 30 years, largely because its artisans made
superior steel traps and silver plate
• Shakers:
– Longest-lived sect, founded in England, but brought to
America by Mother Ann Lee in 1774
– Attained membership of 6,000 by 1840
– Since their customs prohibited marriage and sexual relations,
they were virtually extinct by 1940
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The Dawn of Scientific Achievement
Artistic Achievements
Architecture
• Americans copied Old World styles rather than
created indigenous ones
• Federal Style:
• Borrowed from classical Greek and Roman examples
• Emphasized symmetry, balance, and restraint
• U.S. Capitol and White House
• Greek Revival:
– Between 1820 and 1850
– By midcentury, medieval Gothic forms with emphasis
on arches, sloped roofs, and large, stained-glass
windows
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Art
– After War of 1812, painters turned from human
portraits & history paintings to pastoral
mirrorings of local landscapes
– Hudson River school (1820s and 1830s):
• Thomas Cole and Asher Durand celebrated raw
sublimity and grand divinity of nature
• Cole's The Oxbow (1836) portrayed ecological threat of
human encroachment on once pristine environments
• Masterpiece The Course of Empire (1833-1836)
depicted cyclical rise & fall of human civilization—
analogy of industrialization and expansion
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The Blossoming of a National
Literature
Transcendentalism
• Resulted from liberalizing of straight-laced Puritan
theology
• Rejected prevailing empiricist theory of John
Locke that all knowledge comes through senses
• Truth, rather, “transcends” senses: it cannot be
found by observation alone
• Every person possesses an inner light that can
illuminate highest truth, and indirectly touch God
• Beliefs of transcendentalism:
– Individualist in matters of religion & society
– Committed to self-reliance, self-culture, & selfdiscipline
• Hostile to authority, formal institutions, & conventional
wisdom
• Romantic exaltation of dignity of individual—whether
black or white—mainspring of numerous humanitarian
reforms
• Best known transcendentalist was Ralph
Waldo Emerson (1803-1882):
– “The American Scholar”:
• Delivered at Harvard College in 1837
• Intellectual declaration of independence
• Urged American writers to throw off European
traditions and delve into cultural riches surrounding
them
– Stressed self-reliance, self-improvement, selfconfidence, optimism, and freedom
• Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862):
– Condemning a government that supported
slavery, he refused to pay his Mass. poll tax
• Walden: Or Life in the Woods (1854):
– His two year life on edge of Walden Pond
– Epitomized romantic quest for isolation from society's
corruptions
• His essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” (1849):
– Influenced Mahatma Gandhi to resist British rule in India
– Influenced Martin Luther King, Jr.'s ideas about nonviolence
• Margaret Fuller (1810-1850):
– Edited movement's journal, The Dial
– Her series of “Conservations” promoted scholarly
dialogue among local elite women
– Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)
powerful critique of gender roles and iconic
statement of budding feminist movement
Literature
• Walt Whitman (1819-1892):
– Famous collection of poems Leaves of Grass (1855)
highly emotional and unconventional
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882):
– One of most popular poets produced in America
– Some of his most admired poems—Evangeline (1847),
The Song of Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles
Standish (1858)—based on American themes
– First American to be enshrined in Poet's Corner of
Westminster Abbey
• Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888):
– Little Women (1868).
• Emily Dickinson (1830-1886):
– Lived as a recluse—extreme example of romantic
artist's desire for social remove
– In spare language & simple rhymes, she explored
universal themes of nature, love, death, &
immortality
• Not all writers believed in human goodness
and social progress:
– Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849):
• Gifted poet -- mesmerizing rhythms in “The Raven”
(1845)
• Excelled in short stories, especially Gothic horror type
• Fascinated by ghostly and ghastly, as in “The Fall of the
House of Usher”
• Two writers reflected continuing Calvinist
obsession with original sin and with neverending struggle between good and evil:
– Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864):
• Masterpiece The Scarlet Letter (1850) described
Puritan practice of forcing adulteress to wear a scarlet
“A” on her clothing
• In The Marble Faun, he explored omnipresence of evil
– Herman Melville (1819-1891):
• Masterpiece Moby Dick (1851) a complex allegory of
good and evil
• Had to wait until twentieth century for readers and for
proper recognition
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Portrayers of the Past
• American Historians:
– George Bancroft (1800-1891):
• Deservedly received title “Father of American History”
• Published super patriotic history of United States based
on vast research
– William H. Prescott (1796-1859):
• Published classic account of conquest of Mexico (1843)
and of Peru (1847)
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