Reform Movements

1800-1850

Crusade for individual improvement

Women prominent in reform movements

Turn to government for change

Religion

• Second Great Awakening begin in the West in 1800

• Baptists, Presbyterians and Methodists all sent clergymen west

• 1821 Charles G Finney became “father of modern revivalism” in New York—preached fear of damnation and New York becomes know as the “burned over district”

• Peter Cartwright –circuit preacher—camp meetings-10,000 to 25,000 were the largest

New Religious Groups

• Mormons—founded by Joseph Smith in Western New York in 1830

• Originally known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

• They had to flee persecution in Ohio

Missouri and Illinois –Smith was

Murdered in Illinois

Brigham Young

• Young become the leader and leads the Mormons to the Great Salt Lake Valley in Utah

Salt Lake Valley

• Through the church, Young directed political decision making, economic development, cultural affairs, law enforcement and education.

• He financed wagon trains in order to promote emigration.

• In 1851 Utah became a territory and Young became governor

• 1852 –announcement that polygamy was a basic tenet of the church

• Buchanan’s Mormon War—also known as Buchanan’s Blunder--war in name only

Shakers

• Largest and most permanent of the utopian experiments

• Founded by Ann Lee—in 1774--an off shoot of the Quakers

United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing,

More Shakers

• Bedroom Known for furniture

The Last Ones Standing

Only four Shakers are left in the world, all living in southern Maine. But if they can't attract converts to their celibate lifestyle and this really is the end for them, they have a plan to ensure that their legacy lives on forever. 2006

Shaker Work Hymn'Tis the gift to be simple, 'Tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,And when we find ourselves in the place just

right,'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gainedTo bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed,

To turn, turn will be our delight,'Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Other Utopian Groups• New Harmony 1825-Robert Owen financial

disagreements. Because they lacked the strong central belief which served to unite other utopian groups, the members of the community were lacking the commitment to carry out the mission that Owen envisioned. New Harmony dissolved in less than three years

• Oneida-John Humphrey Noyes-flatware-complex marriage ideas

• Brook Farm-George Riley—rejected materialism—members included Emerson, Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller

Brook Farm

Hawthorne Ripley Fuller Emerson

Thoreau

The Hive

• Home to the Transcendentalists 1841-1847• A bad fire and heavy debts forced them to

end experiment.

Temperance

• Consumption of alcohol was very prevalent in the early 19th century

• Temperance movement had a strong religious basis—selling of alcohol was seen as violation of the Sabbath

• It was seen as a destroyer of families• Ten Nights in a Barroom (1853) by Timothy Say

Arthur dramatized the evils of drinking• Popular song “Father, dear father come home with

me now”

More Temperance

• The American Society for the Promotion of Temperance (1826) pledge of abstinence

• Children enlisted in the Cold Water Army• Maine Laws prohibited the sale and

manufacture of liquor—promoted by Neal Dow “Father of Prohibition

Education

• Compulsory education in every state by 1860• Horace Mann worked toward reform in education

in Massachusetts • As Sec of State Board of Education he pushed for:

teacher training institutions,increased salaries, founded 50 new high schools,

• month school year• Other states followed

More Education

• Noah Webster’s Spellers and grammar books were widely used

• William Holmes McGuffey readers that contained lessons of morality—most popular textbooks in the United States

Women’s Rights

• No Property Rights—little education• Catherine Beecher established academies

for young women: Treatise on Domestic

Economy -became the standard for housekeeping and child-rearing

More Women’s History

• Oberlin College in Ohio-1833-first college to admit women

• Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts first women’s college with a curriculum comparable to those of men’s school

• Vassar opened in 1865

Grimke Sisters

• Fought for abolition and women’s rights

More SistersGoal:To Strengthen the Legal Position of

Women• Daughters of a prominent South Carolina

plantation owner• Angelina Grimke was the first woman to address a

legislative body in the United States• The Grimke sisters were the first women to speak

to audiences of both women and men• Angelina “it is a woman’s right to have a voice in

all laws and regulations by which she is governed, whether in church or state”

• Sarah “Letters on the Condition of Women and Equality of the Sexes”

Seneca Falls Convention

• Major meeting of the women crusade in 1848 led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott

More Seneca Falls

• 250 met and issued the:• Declarations of Rights and Sentiments• Demands-control of earnings-guardianship

of children-equal education –right to easier divorces—the ballot.

• Soon Stanton met Susan B, Anthony—worked for women’s rights.

More Women’s Rights

• 1849-Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery-Underground railroad

• 1850 Amelia Jenks Bloomer launches the dress reform movement with a costume that bears her name

Abolitionism

• First founded in 1776 by Quakers• American Colonization Society founded in

1816—emancipated and settle the former slaves in Monrovia, Liberia—not all that successful—only about 12,00 left

• Elijah Lovejoy murdered in Illinois

William Lloyd Garrison

• Founded and published The Liberator—anti-slavery newspaper for 35 years.

• His outspoken views caused for be imprisoned for libel

• The State of Georgia offered a reward of $5,000 dollars for his arrest.

• He received numerous death threats

Garrison

• He demanded immediate and uncompensated emancipation

• He founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832 and a year later the American Anti-Slavery Society

• Quote:”On this subject, I do not wish to think, to speak, or write with moderation, I will not retreat a single inch—And I will be head.”

Theodore Weld

• Weld worked for gradual emancipation—used Oberlin College as a training ground

• He was a Minster• By 1840—2000 local antislavery societies• Other famous name Frederick Douglas

North Star• Harriet Tubman- Underground Railroad

Sojourner Truth

• In December of 1851, former slave Sojourner Truth delivered he “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech before a spellbound audience at a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio.

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?Delivered 1851

Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio • Well, children, where there is so much racket there

must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

• That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Abolition and Congress

• Abolitionist deluged Congress with petitions—gag rule of 1838—it forbid the discussion of slavery in Congress—it was found by John Quincy Adams

• President Jackson attacked abolitionists as fanatic's intent on instigating a slave insurrection.

• Abolitions were denied the used of the mails to distribute their materials

Dorothea Dix

•

Hudson River SchoolFirst Coherent school of American Art

• Thomas Cole :The Oxbow

More Thomas ColeCelebrated Majestic Natural Resources

Dawn of Morningby Jasper Francis Cropsey

Kindred Spirits by

Asher B. Durand