The Age of Reform

Jacksonian Era Reform Movements

THEME: A response to

changes in economics and

politics

Education

Prisons/Asylums

Temperance

Communitarianism

Women’s Rights

Religion

Education

• An educated population is essential to a democracy.

• Public school movement• Horace Mann standards, consistency• William McGuffey --> McGuffey “Readers”;

instill civic virtues• Colleges

– New colleges: UNC, UVA– Women: Mt. Holyoke; Coed: Oberlin

• Informal education: libraries, Lyceum mov’t

Prison/Asylum Reform

• Reflects a “concern for the common man”

• Rehab v. punishment as a goal– “Gaols” become “penitentiaries”

• Dorothea Dix

Temperance

• Alcohol abuse effects families; workplace safety

• American Temperance Society• Neal S. Dow / Maine Law (1851)

Women’s Rights

• Participatory democracy for whom? Universal male suffrage?

• “Cult of Domesticity” & Catherine Beecher

• Early Feminists: Mott, Stanton, Anthony, the Grimke Sisters

• Seneca Falls Convention – Declaration of Rights and Sentiments

Communitarianism

• Reactions against “dog-eat-dog” society and economic competition.– New Harmony – socialism– Brook Farm – transcendentalism /

utopianism– Oneida – free love, complex marriage,

eugenics, communism, and silverware!– Shakers – simple living, celibacy

The Oneida Community practiced eugenics or “scientific breeding” in which a special committee selected members of the community to breed children. In this image,

children parade in front of their proud “parents.”

Religion

• Second Great Awakening– Emphasis on religion for the “common

man”– New religions (Methodism, Baptists, etc.)

encouraged missionary activity / reform

• New faiths emerge, especially in the west– Millerites– Mormons

Cartoon satirizing the death of Brigham Young in 1877