Chapter 15

• The Ferment of Reform and Culture, 1790–1860

I. Reviving Religion

• Thomas Paine’s book “The Age of Reason” declared that all churches were “set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”

• Paine promotes Deism (as does many of the founding fathers) which relies on reason rather than revelation from the Bible. They reject Christ’s divinity, but believed in a supreme being that created the universe and gave man the capacity for moral behavior.

• Deism inspires some to create the Unitarian faith. Unitarians held that God existed in only one person (no trinity.) They denied the deity of Jesus, and stressed the essential goodness of man rather than its vileness. They believed in free will and salvation through good works.

• The Second Great Awakening was larger than the first. Camp meetings reached thousands (as many as 25,000 at a time) during several days of hellfire preaching.

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• Charles Finney was the most successful of the revival preachers. – He led massive revivals in NY in 1830 and 1831.

• Feminization of religion was a key feature during this awakening.– Middle-class women were most fervent and

made up the majority of new church members.

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III. A Desert Zion in Utah

• Western New York heard so much hellfire preaching that it became known as the “Burned-Over District.”

• In 1830, Joseph Smith (from the burned-over district) reported that he had received some golden plates from an angel. When deciphered, they made up the Book of Mormon, and the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons)

– Many opposed Smith’s Mormons.– Mormons made many angry by drilling their

militia (for defensive purposes.) – Polygamy also angered many non-mormons’

• In 1844, Joseph Smith and his brother were murdered by a mob in illinois.

• Brigham Young grabbed the reins and moved the Mormons to Utah.– Others soon followed making the 1,300 mile trek

on foot, pushing two-wheeled carts.– Young married as many as 27 women and had 56

kids.

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XII. The Blossoming of a National Literature

• Romanticism was seen as a reaction to the hyper-rational Enlightenment. – Romanticism emphasized imagination over reason,

intuition over calculation, and self over society.– 19th century romantics celebrated the primal

nature.

• Washington Irving, born in NY City, was the first American to gain international recognition as a literary figure.

• Irving published gothic tales of “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

• James Cooper followed Irving’s lead and put out “The Spy” and “The Last of the Mohicans.” His tales pointed to the vanishing frontier.

• The third of NY’s allstars was Puritan William Cullen Bryant. He wrote the “Thanatopsis”, which was one of the first high-quality poems in the U.S.

XIII. Trumpeters of Transcendentalism

• Transcendentalist movement (1830s) is influenced by German romantic philosophers and religions of Asia

• Transcendentalists rejected the idea that all knowledge comes to the mind through the senses (John Locke.) They would say that truth “transcends” the senses, and that it can not be found by observation alone.– Everyone has an inner light that can illuminate the

highest truth and put them in direct touch with God

• Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the best known transcendentalists.– “The American Scholar,” (Emerson’s address at

Harvard) gave an appeal to writers to declare an intellectual declaration of independence from European traditions in literature.

– He stressed self-reliance, self-improvement, self-confidence, optimism, and freedom.

– Outspoken critic of slavery.

• Henry David Thoreau (Emerson’s buddy) was another transcendentalist of note. – Condemning of a Gov’t that supported slavery,

he refused to pay Massachusetts poll tax and was jailed for the night.

– Well known for Walden: Or Life in the Woods which recorded his two years of living a simple life of isolation on the edge of Walden Pond.

– Believed that he should reduce his body’s wants in order to gain time to pursue truth through study and meditation.

XV. Literary Individualists and Dissenters

• Edgar Allen Poe was an eccentric genius!– Orphaned at an early age, always sick, and lost

his 13 year old wife to tuberculosis, he suffered hunger, cold, poverty and debt.

– Obsessed with the romantic antiheroes (i.e. bad guys) on the verge of losing their minds.

– Poe was found drunk in a gutter and dies shortly after.

• Nathaniel Hawthorne, focused on the Calvinist obsession with original sin.– authored The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The

Marble Faun (1860)

• Herman Melville was orphaned at an early age and went to work aboard a whaling ship at sea.– Authored Moby Dick • “In the end the untamed sea, like the terrifyingly

impersonal and unknowable universe of Mellville’s imagination simple rolls on.” –American Pageant

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