REFORM MOVEMENTS OF

THE 1800’s

• The first half of the nineteenth century was

a time of “movers and shakers,” people

who saw injustices in American society

and worked to abolish those injustices.

• These reforms would change the lives of

many individuals.

What were the major reform

movements of the 1800s?

• Treatment of the mentally ill

• Temperance movement

• Abolition of slavery

• Women’s rights

• Education

TREATMENT OF THE

MENTALLY ILL

Leader: Dorothea Dix

GOAL: better

treatment of

persons with

mental illnesses

REASON:

the mentally

ill were badly

treated

TREATMENT OF THE

MENTALLY ILL

• In the early 1800s, Americans viewed the United States as a land of unlimited opportunity. Many believed that those who failed did so because they had bad characters.

• As a result, debtors, children who were offenders, and the mentally ill were often locked up in jails with murderers and thieves.

• Dorothea Dix and other reformers worked to change Americans’ ways of thinking about these institutions and their inmates.

TREATMENT OF THE

MENTALLY ILL

• She found the

prisoners were

often living in

inhumane

conditions.

TREATMENT OF THE

MENTALLY ILL

• To Dorothea Dix’s horror,

she learned that some of

the inmates were guilty of

no crime—they were

mentally ill persons.

• Dix made it her life’s work

to educate the public as

to the poor conditions for

both the mentally ill and

prisoners.Dorothea Dix Hospital, Raleigh, NC

TREATMENT OF THE

MENTALLY ILL

• As a result of Dix’s work, Massachusetts

passed a law to build mental hospitals

where mental illness could be treated as a

disease rather than a crime.

• By 1852, she had persuaded 11 states to

open hospitals for persons with mental

illness.

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT

• Leader: American Temperance Union and

leaders like Carrie Nation

GOAL: to

eliminate

alcohol

abuse

REASON:

alcohol led

to crime,

poverty,

abuse of

family

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT

• Reformers blamed alcohol for:

– poverty

– breakup of families

– crime

– insanity

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT

• The reformers began a campaign against

drinking.

• The campaign was

known as the

temperance movement.

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT

• Northern and Southern temperance

societies used propaganda to win support

for their cause.

• They held meetings, gave speeches, and

distributed pamphlets.

• They even sang songs such as “Drink

Nothing, Boys, but Water,” and “Father,

Bring Home Your Money Tonight.”

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT

• State legislators took the reformers’

message to heart. By 1857 several states

had passed prohibition laws. Many

Americans protested the laws, and most of

the laws were later repealed.

• The temperance movement stayed alive,

though, and found renewed support later

in the century…….

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY

• In 1831 white abolitionist

William Lloyd Garrison

founded The Liberator, a

Boston anti-slavery

newspaper.

• In the first issue, Garrison

demanded the immediate

emancipation, or freeing,

of all enslaved persons.

• He urged abolitionists to

take action without delay.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY

• The North had many prominent African American abolitionists.

• Isabella Baumfree, although born into slavery in New York, gained her freedom when New York abolished slavery. She changed her name to Sojourner Truth and vowed to tell the world about the cruelty of slavery. She began a tireless crusade against injustice.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY

• The most important spokesperson for the cause was Frederick Douglass.

• Born into slavery, Douglass secretly taught himself to read, although Southern laws prohibited it.

• He escaped from slavery in 1838 and settled in Massachusetts.

• He captivated audiences by talking about his life in bondage.

• He spoke out against the injustices faced by free African Americans.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY

• Many abolitionists, like Douglass, did more than lecture and write. They became “conductors” on the Underground Railroad.

• The Underground Railroad began around 1817. It was not an actual railroad but a series of houses where conductors hid runaway enslaved persons and helped them reach the next “station.”

• Enslaved African Americans made their way to the North or Canada on the railroad.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY

• Harriet Tubman became the most famous African American conductor on the Underground Railroad.

• Tubman fled from slavery in 1849. Later she explained why she risked her life to escape:

“There was one of

two things I had a

right to, liberty or

death; if I could

not have the one, I

would have the

other.”

Women’s Rights

Leaders: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia

Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth

GOAL: obtain equal

rights for women,

including suffrage,

right to own property,

and education

REASON: women

did not have the

same rights as men

Women’s Rights

• After attending the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840 and not being allowed to participate in the discussions, Lucretia Coffin Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton spent hours talking about women’s position in society.

• They realized that they could not bring about social change if they themselves lacked social and political rights.

Women’s Rights

• On July 19, 1848, the first women’s rights

convention opened in Seneca Falls, New York.

• Both male and female delegates attended the

convention.

Women’s Rights

• The delegates issued the Seneca Falls Declaration that “all men and womenare created equal.”

• Then the declaration listed several resolutions. One of them demanded suffrage, or the right to vote, for women. After much heated debate, it passed by a narrow margin.

Women’s Rights

• Susan B. Anthony, a powerful organizer, joined the women’s rights movement. Her father encouraged her to get an education and so she became a teacher.

• A dedicated reformer, Anthony joined the temperance movement and worked for the American Anti-Slavery Society.

• She became one of the first to urge full participation of African Americans in the women’s suffrage movement.

• Through her efforts, the state of New York agreed to grant married women the guardianship of their children and control of their own wages.

• Today Anthony is one of the early movement’s best-remembered leaders.

Education Reform

Leaders: Horace Mann

GOALS: to

educate all

Americans

REASON: more

Americans were

qualified to vote

and needed to be

able to make wise

decisions about

their government

“Education does better than to disarm the poor of their

hostility toward the rich; it prevents them from being poor.”

Education Reform

• During the 1830s more Americans qualified to

vote than ever before. Educational reformers

argued that voters needed good educations to

make sound decisions about their government.

• The reformers proposed raising the standards of

schools across the nation and supporting them

with taxes.

• To accomplish these goals, they started the

common school movement.

Education Reform

• Horace Mann spearheaded the campaign for

common schools.

• Mann was especially concerned about poor

children. Their families could not afford to send

them to private schools or to contribute to the

support of schools in their district.

• Mann won over taxpayers to his way of thinking

by pointing out the benefits to society.