Antebellum Reform and The Women’s Rights Movement

From Domestic Ideology to Seneca Falls

Defining the Reform Impulse

Perfectionist Attitude; Let’s Remake the World

Variety of Reforms Men Lead, but

Women Form Grass Roots

Why Reform? Religion is One Answer

Second Great Awakening and Evangelical Religion

Sense of both sinfulness and choice

Women Dominated Evangelical Religion

Market Revolution (Surprise!) Encouraged Reform

Greater Circulation of Ideas and the Organizational Impulse

Market Revolution (Surprise!) Encouraged Reform

Greater Circulation of Ideas and the Organizational Impulse

Loss on Control, Especially in Urban Areas

What political party was more likely to support reform?

A. Democrats—they believed in giving ordinary people greater voice in politics.

B. Whigs—they had most of their support from the middle class.

From Domestic Ideology to Public Life

Domestic Ideology

MORAL REFORM

(temperance)(abolitionism)

Public Life:Organizations, Petitions, Speaking

Religion (Evangelicalism)

Republicanism

Market Revolution

Crucial Reform Movement: The Abolitionists

Key figure: William Lloyd Garrison (Began Publishing The Liberator in 1831 at Age 26)

Radical Demands for Immediate Abolition, Complete Equality

Free Blacks, Women Important

New England and Northeast: Center of Abolitionism

Abolitionists: Slavery Violated Domestic Ideology & Religion

Were the Abolitionists Popular in the North?

A. Yes—the antislavery movement fueled the Civil War.

B. No—they challenged too many fundamental assumptions.

Were the Abolitionists Popular in the North?

Abolitionists Seen as

*Bad for Business

*Unpatriotic

*Racially Suspect

Abolitionism Helps Create Women’s Rights Movement Abolitionism provides women with

opportunity to write & speak in public. Natural rights ideology could be applied to

women as well: are women like slaves? Some abolitionists (Garrison) supported

women’s rights.

“Not for Ourselves Alone:Elizabeth Cady Stanton and

Susan B. Anthony”

Documentary by Ken Burns

Important Questions!

What is important about the background of Stanton and Anthony?

What was the most controversial subject at the Seneca Falls Convention?

Why was the Declaration of Sentiments so powerful—and controversial—in the 1840s?

Questions to Ponder Over the Weekend

Was there a big difference between moral authority and political power?

Why Did Most Women in the Nineteenth-Century OPPOSE the Women’s Rights Movement?