Era of Reforms
th
America’s Early 19 Century
Society and Culture
Unit IIID
AP United States History
The North
► Commercial
farming and industrial
development
► Organized labor and dependence
► Increased urbanization
► Development of Old Northwest
► Concentration of reform movements
► Immigration
The South
► “King
Cotton” and cash crops in a plantation
system with slavery
► “Peculiar Institution”
 From “necessary evil” to “positive good”
 Southern paternalism
► Southern
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Thought
Feudal-like system
Education
Slavery and religion bonding
Attached to traditions and customs as the North
reformed
The West
► The
Frontier meant new opportunity and a
promising future
 Fur trading - Mountain Men
 Cattle ranches - cowboys
 Mining
► Extremely
difficult life on the frontier
 Squatters
► Experienced
frontiersmen helped expansion
► Settlement, agricultural overuse, deforestation,
hunting decimated the landscape and environment
Development of Antebellum American Society
► Increased
Social Mobility
 Urbanization, industrialization, geographic
expansion
► Expansion
of the Middle Class
 Market economy, industrialization
 Less emphasis on land, more on goods and services
► Role
of the Family
 Home and family changed from source of
production
 Became bastion of domestic lifestyle
Antebellum Women
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Cult of Domesticity OR “Cult of True Womanhood”
 Women as moral leaders in the home, especially among middle-class and
urban families
 A model of piety and virtue
 Provide husband a safe refuge from the world
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Urbanization and industrialization rigidly establish the American
family
 Men out of the home at jobs
 Women at home for domestic duties
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Single women mostly in factories while married stayed home
Chivalry toward Southern women
Western women had hard lives
Limited to no civic opportunities
Women’s Rights Movement
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Increasing animosity toward
secondary status
Letter on the Condition of
Women and the Equality of the
Sexes (1837) - Sarah Grumke
 Genders are equal in standing
 Men have kept women in
inferior positions
 Women capable of same skills
as men
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Seneca Falls Convention (1848)
 Declaration of Sentiments
 Led to rise of Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
Seneca Falls Declaration
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“We hold these truth to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal…”
“…establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.”
“He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise…thereby leaving
her without representation…he has oppressed her on all sides.”
“He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men – both
natives and foreigners.”
“He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.”
“He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.”
“He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity,
provided they be done in the presence of her husband…compelled to promise obedience…he becoming
to all intents and purposes, her master…”
“He has monopolized nearly all profitable employments…[as] a teacher of theology, medicine, or law,
she is not known.”
“He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education…”
“He allows her in Church, as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for
her exclusion from the ministry…”
“He has created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and
women…”
“He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to
lessen her self-respect and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.”
“Resolved, That the speedy success of our cause upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both men and
women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to women an equal
participation with men in various trades, professions, and commerce.”
“Resolved, therefore, That, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities, and the same
consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman,
equally with man, to promote every righteous cause by every righteous means…”
Antebellum Blacks and Slaves
North provided economic opportunities
but limited skilled labor and little to no
civic rights
► Northern blacks displaced by increasing
immigration
► Southern free blacks
► Slavery
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 Increased due to King Cotton
 Upper South limited on slavery
 Deep South more dependent on slavery
- cotton
 Internal slave trade expanded
dramatically
 Most southern slaves attended white
master’s churches (Baptists and
Methodists)
 Despite conditions and separations,
slaves bonded with family and faith
 Rebellions led restrictions
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Anti-literacy laws
Slave codes
Abolitionism and Antislavery Reforms
 Religious conviction and
sectional differences
 American Colonization
Society (1816)
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Henry Clay one of its founders along
with Quakers, abolitionists, former
Upper South slaveowners
Colony in Liberia (1821-1822)
 American Antislavery Society
(1833-1870)
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William Lloyd Garrison and The
Liberator
 Liberty Party (founded 1840)
 Frederick Douglass
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Former slave who promoted political
and direct actions
Led to leaders such as Sojourner
Truth and Harriet Tubman
 Nat Turner
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Inspired by rhetoric for direct action
and resistance
Revolt in Virginia in 1831 led to 55
white deaths
Whites retaliated with brutality and
quashed anti-slavery discussions in
the South
Lines Being Drawn
William Lloyd Garrison
John C. Calhoun
Frederick Douglass
Free and Slave States (1789-1861)
The Liberator First Issue, William
Lloyd Garrison (1831)
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“During my recent tour for the purpose of exciting the minds of the
people by a series of discourses on the subject of slavery, every place
that I visited gave fresh evidence of the fact, that a greater revolution
in public sentiment was to be effected in the free states – and
particularly in New England – than at the south. I found contempt more
bitter, opposition more active, detraction more relentless, prejudice
more stubborn, and apathy more frozen, than among slave owners
themselves.”
“…yea, till every chain be broken, and every bondman set free! Let
Southern oppressors tremble – let their secret abettors tremble – let
their Northern apologists tremble – let all the enemies of the
persecuted blacks tremble.”
“I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this
subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No!
no! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm… but
urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in
earnest – I will not equivocate – I will not excuse – I will not retreat a
single inch – AND I WILL BE HEARD.”
Abolition or Union…What is Right?
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“I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about
in any way the social and political equality of the white and
black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of
making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them
to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I
will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference
between the white and black races which I believe will
forever forbid the two races living together on terms of
social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot
so live, while they do remain together there must be the
position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any
other man am in favor of having the superior position
assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do
not perceive that because the white man is to have the
superior position the negro should be denied everything. I
do not understand that because I do not want a negro
woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife.
My understanding is that I can just let her alone.”
John C. Calhoun’s Speech on the Reception of
Abolition Petitions (1837)
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Such…is the language held towards us and ours. The peculiar institution of the South—that, on the maintenance of which the
very existence of the slaveholding States depends, is pronounced to be sinful and odious, in the sight of God and man; and this
with a systematic design of rendering us hateful in the eyes of the world—with a view to a general crusade against us and our
institutions. This, too, in the legislative halls of the Union; created by these confederated States, for the better protection of
their peace, their safety, and their respective institutions—and yet, we, the representatives of twelve of these sovereign States
against whom this deadly war is waged, are expected to sit here in silence, hearing ourselves and our constituents day after
day denounced, without uttering a word; for if we but open our lips, the charge of agitation is resounded on all sides, and we
are held up as seeking to aggravate the evil which we resist. Every reflecting mind must see in all this a state of things deeply
and dangerously diseased.
I do not belong to the school which holds that aggression is to be met by concession. Mine is the opposite creed, which
teaches that encroachments must be met at the beginning, and that those who act on the opposite principle are prepared to
become slaves. In this case, in particular, I hold concession or compromise to be fatal. If we concede an inch, concession would
follow concession—compromise would follow compromise, until our ranks would be so broken that effectual resistance would
be impossible. We must meet the enemy on the frontier, with a fixed determination of maintaining our position at every hazard.
But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the
slaveholding States is an evil—far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will
continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central
Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but
morally and intellectually. It came among us in a low, degraded, and savage condition, and in the course of a few generations it
has grown up under the fostering care of our institutions, as reviled as they have been, to its present comparatively civilized
condition. This, with the rapid increase of numbers, is conclusive proof of the general happiness of the race, in spite of all the
exaggerated tales to the contrary.
In one thing only are we inferior—the arts of gain; we acknowledge that we are less wealthy than the Northern section of this
Union, but I trace this mainly to the fiscal action of this Government, which has extracted much from, and spent little among
us. Had it been the reverse—if the exaction had been from the other section, and the expenditure with us, this point of
superiority would not be against us now, as it was not at the formation of this Government.
But I take higher ground. I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished
by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the
slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good—a positive good.
I might well challenge a comparison between them and the more direct, simple, and patriarchal mode by which the labor of the
African race is, among us, commanded by the European. I may say with truth, that in few countries so much is left to the share
of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or where there is more kind attention paid to him in sickness or infirmities of age.
Compare his condition with the tenants of the poor houses in the more civilized portions of Europe—look at the sick, and the
old and infirm slave, on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and
mistress, and compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poor house.
Be assured that emancipation itself would not satisfy these fanatics—that gained, the next step would be to raise the negroes
to a social and political equality with the whites; and that being effected, we would soon find the present condition of the two
races reversed. They and their northern allies would be the masters, and we the slaves;
Natives
► Forced
to settle farther west or decimated by war,
famine, disease
► Horses
 Nomadic life
 Hunting of buffalo
 Tactical advantage
► Native
removal
 Indian Removal Act (1830)
 Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia
 Trail of Tears
Immigration
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Immigrants continue to arrive in United States seeking
opportunity and/or fleeing homeland difficulties
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1820
1830
1840
1850
10 million to 60,000
12.5 million to 143,000
17 million to 600,000
23 million to 1.7 million
Democratic Party
Irish Potato Famine (1840s)
Germans
Mexican-American War by 1849
California Gold Rush 1849-1850
Nativists
 Know-Nothing Party
The Second Great Awakening
► Religious
revivalist reaction to Enlightenment
principles and conservative Puritan ideals
beginning in 1790s and into early 19th century
► Educated ministers promote salvation for all and
life void of vices
► Revivals meetings
► Protestant domination by Baptists and Methodists
► Millennialism and Seventh-Day Adventist Church
Mormons and Church of the LatterDay Saints
► Joseph
Smith, founder in 1830, gathered
flock from New York to Illinois
► Brigham Young led Mormons west and
eventually settled in Utah Territory
► Book of Mormon aka Scripture
► Open canon, exaltation, polygamy lead to
harassment
Communal Societies
 Expansion provided
opportunities for development
of utopias
 Fourier Phalanxes
► Tight-knit
community based in
a phalanx-type structure
 Brook Farm
► Share
equally in labor and
leisure
 Robert Owen’s New Harmony
► Equality
in labor
 Shakers
► common
ownership, shared
rewards, strict celibacy, against
vices, “separate but equal”
 Oneida Community
► “perfectionists,”
married to all,
children raised communally
Reform Movements
► Temperance
 Reform movement which gathered political support
against society’s vices (alcoholism, gambling,
prostitution)
 American Temperance Society and Washingtonians
► Rehabilitation
and Institutions
 Mental hospitals and Dorothea Dix
 Educational and rehabilitation for handicapped
 Prisons and penal societies
► Education
 Support for public education
 Horace Mann and rigid public education
 Private and religious schools incorporate morality in
literacy
Health, Literacy, Entertainment in America
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Home Design and
Furnishing
 Visual representation of
social classes
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Diseases
 Cholera in 1830s
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Newspapers
 Penny press
 Associated Press (AP)
(1846)
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Fiction
Lectures
Theaters
 Minstrel shows –
blackface
Transcendentalism
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Spiritual gain over materialism
Individual over the organization/group
Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Self-Reliance (1841)
► “Nothing
is at last sacred, but the integrity of
your own mind.”
► Communion with the unity of the universe;
divinity of the individual
 The American Scholar (1837)
► Despite
cultural heritage, instinctive creative
genius of individual could lead to greatness
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Henry David Thoreau (Walden, On Civil
Disobedience)
 “I went to the woods because I wished to live
deliberately, to front only the essential facts of
life, and see if I could not what it had to
teach, and not, when I came to die, discover
that I had not lived.”
 Passive resistance – a public refusal to obey
unjust laws
America’s Culture Changes
► Romanticism
 Beyond reason, seek understanding and expression of
emotion and spirit
 Associated with growth of nationalism
► Paintings
 Portraits of ordinary American life
 American landscapes
 Hudson River School
► Architecture
 Classical construction
► Literature
 Transition from European/British style to more American
style
 The Last of the Mohicans, The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick
Hudson River School – Thomas Cole
Themes in American Literature
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The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
 tragedy of encroachment of European/American civilization on
Natives
 Use of nature as a form of developing characters
 Spirituality
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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
 Satire on America’s puritanical lifestyle and conformity
 Sin more as an opportunity for growth rather than a hindrance
 Strength of the individual over the community
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Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
 No matter how much knowledge acquired, no way to fully
understand the force of nature
 Captain Ahab views Moby-Dick as embodiment of evil and his
vengeance leads to his destruction