The Ferment of Reform & Culture

1790 - 1860

Reviving Religion 1850 – ¾ of population attended

church regularly Deism – very popular

Relied on reason Rejected original sin Denied Christ’s divinity but did

believe in a supreme being

Unitarian Faith Formal Puritans

God existed in only one person not in orthodox trinity

Stressed goodness of human nature Belief in free will & salvation through

good works Pictured God as a loving father Appealed to Intellectuals with

rationalism & optimism

Second Great Awakening

Started in 1800 Tidal wave of spiritual fervor resulted in:

prison, church reform, temperance cause, women’s movement, & a push for abolish of slavery

Spread through huge “camp meetings” Push to Christianize Indians Methodists & Baptists stressed personal

conversion Peter Cartwright – “circuit riders”

Charles Finney – great revival preacher

Denominational Diversity

Revival furthered fragmentation of religious faith NY with Puritans preaching “hellfire”

known as the “Burned-out District” Millerites (Adventists) – Christ would

return on 10-22-1844

Widen lines between classes & region

Split on slavery issue

A Desert Zion in Utah Joseph Smith (1830) - Mormons & The

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Antagonism for polygamy, drilling militia, &

voting as a unit Brigham Young took over after Smith’s

death Led followers to Utah Grew quickly by 1850’s by birth &

immigration from Europe

Problems in Utah 1857 – Federal government sent to Utah

when Brigham Young became territorial governor No bloodshed

Polygamy prevented Utah entrance to US till 1896

Free School for a Free People

Free education Originally opposed

Related to pauperism & used by poor Gradually supported because poor could vote

Established 1825-1850 Ill taught & ill trained teachers Horace Mann fought for better schools Too expensive for many communities,

blacks were exempted from education Noah Webster – dictionary Ohioan William H. McGuffey – McGuffey’s

Readers

Higher Goals for Higher Learning

Second Great Awakening led to the building of small denominational, liberal art colleges in South & West Taught Latin, Greek, math, & moral philosophy

1st state supported university – 1795 in NC 1819 – T.Jefferson – University of Virginia

Freedom from religion & political shackles Focus on modern languages & sciences

Women in Education Women were taught that too much

education was bad Injured the feminine brain, undermined health,

& rendered a young lady unfit for marriage Women’s Schools:

Emma Willard - Tory Female Seminary (1821) Mary Lyon - Mount Holyoke Seminary (1837) Oberlin College – accepted women & men

(1837)

Thirst for Knowledge Number of libraries increased

Both private & tax-supported Lyceum lecture associations – traveling

lectures 1835 – 3,000 Science, literature, & moral philosophy (Emerson)

Magazines North American Review – 1815 Godey’s Lady’s Book’s Book – 1830 - 1898 – 1830 - 1898

An Age of Reform

Reformers attacked: (especially women) Tobacco, alcohol, profanity, transit of mail on

Sabbath, women’s rights, polygamy, medicines Optimistic for a perfect society

Naïve & ignored problems of industrialization Fought for no imprison for debt – gradually

abolished Criminal codes soften & reformatories added Mentally insane treated badly – Dorothea Dix /

classic petition of 1843 American Peace Society – 1828 / William Ladd

Demon Rum – The “Old Deluder”

Drunkenness was wide spread 1826 - American Temperance Society –

Boston Children’s clubs – “Cold Water Army” signed

pledges Used pamphlets & anti-alcohol tracts

Ten Nights in a Barroom and What I Saw There (1854)

Two lines of attack Stressed temperance – individual will to resist Legislature-removed temptation

Neal S. Dow – “Father of Prohibition” Sponsored Maine Law of 1851 – prohibited liquor Other states followed

Temperance pledgePressured by his determined wife and pleading child, this reluctant tippler is about to submit to "moral suasion" and sign the pledge to abstain from alcohol. (Library of Congress)

Temperance pledge

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Women’s Roles Women stayed home with no voting rights Some women avoided marriage all together Gender differences separated women & men

Women - weak physically & emotionally but were the keepers of society’s conscience & fit for teaching

Men were strong but crude if not guided by women

Home was the center Catharine Beecher – reformer agreed

Family group daguerreotype, 1852This daguerreotype, taken about 1852, reveals the little things so important to etching a middle-class family's social status: curtains; a wall hanging; a piano with scrolled legs; a small desk with elegantly curved legs; a pet; ladies posed in nonproductive but "improving" activities (music, reading); and a young man seemingly staring into space--and perhaps pondering how to pay for it all. (George Eastman House)

Family group daguerreotype, 1852

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Women’s Movement Fought for:

Women’s rights, temperance, abolition of slavery

Women’s Rights Convention – 1848

Seneca Falls – NY Declaration of

Sentiments Demanded ballot for

women Launched women’

rights movement

Leaders: Lucretia Mott Susan B. Anthony

(Suzy B’s)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton Elizabeth Blackwell

(first female medical graduate)

Margaret Fuller Grimké Sisters Amelia Bloomer

(bloomerism)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and sons, 1848Elizabeth Cady Stanton posed in 1848 with two of her sons, Henry Jr., left, and Neil. Stanton, one of the organizers of the Seneca Falls Woman's Rights Convention, traveled widely and agitated for women's equality while raising five children. (Collection of Rhoda Jenkins)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and sons, 1848

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Angelina GrimkéBorn in the south to a prominent slaveholding family, Angelina Grimké moved to the north to distance herself from an institution she hated. When she discovered that northerners were no more sympathetic about the plight of slaves than southerners and would not give abolition a free hearing, she chose to do something about it. She toured the northeast, speaking first to groups of women and then to large mixed audiences. She capped her tour by becoming the first woman to address the Massachusetts state legislature. Her courage won new respect both for abolitionists and for women. (Library of Congress)

Angelina Grimké

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Wilderness Utopians

Robert Owen – founded New Harmony – 1825 Confusion & contradiction

Brook Farm – Mass –1841 20 intellectuals committed to transcendentalism Lasted until 1846

Oneida Community – NY – 1848 Practiced free love, birth control, eugenic

selection of parents to produce superior offspring Shakers – 1770s – Mother Ann Lee

Communistic community / Can’t marry so extinct

The Dawn of Scientific Achievement

Early American interested in practical science rather than pure

T. Jefferson - plow Nathaniel Bowditch – navigation & oceanographer Matthew Maury – ocean winds & currents

Influential US scientists Benjamin Silliman – pioneer in chemist, geologist Louis Agassiz – Harvard, insisted on original

research Asa Gray – Harvard – Botany John Audubon – painted birds

Medicine in America

Primitive Bleeding – common cure/ curse Smallpox & yellow fever killed many Poor diet & ignorance of germs & sanitation

Life expectancy – 1850 – 40 years old Self-prescribed patent medicine common

& often harmful Surgery

Tied down with a shot of whiskey for pain 1840s – laughing gas

Artistic Achievement

US imitated European styles Thomas Jefferson – great architect

Monticello & University of Virginia Painting suffered - No leisure time & Puritan

prejudice Gilbert Stuart – painted Washington & competed

with English artists Wilson Peale – portraits of Washington John Trumbull – painted American Revolution

After War of 1812 – human landscapes & romanticism

Music Puritans frowned upon nonreligious

singing “Darky” tunes became popular

“Dixie” – 1859 Stephen C. Foster – “Old Folks at Home”

The Blossoming of a National Literature

Reading plagiarized from England US literature was practical in nature

The Federalist, Common Sense, Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography

Literature was revived after the War of 1812

The Knickerbocker Group – NY

Washington Irving 1st American to win international recognition The Sketch Book

James Fenimore Cooper 1st American novelist Leatherstocking Tales, The Last of the

Mochicans William Cullen Bryant

1st high quality poet in US “Thanatopsis”

Trumpeters of Transcendentalism

Transcendentalists Rejected Locke’s theory that all

knowledge comes to the mind through the senses

Truth “transcends” the senses: it cannot be found by observation alone but with inner light

Dignity of the individual – black & white

Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson

Stressed self-reliance, self-improvement, self-confidence, optimism, & freedom

Henry David Thoreau Condemned slavery On the Duty of Civil Disobedience – idealistic

thought Walt Whitman

“Poet Laureate of Democracy” – Leaves of Grass

Glowing Literary Lights Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – Poet John Greenleaf Whittier – Poet

Against inhumanity, injustice, & intolerance James Russell Lowell – political satirist Oliver Wendell Holmes – poet Louisa May Alcott – Little Women Emily Dickinson – poet William Gillmore Simms – southern themes

Literary Individualists & Dissenters

Edgar Allan Poe – “The Raven” Fascinated with ghostly & ghastly

Reflected Calvinist obsession on original sin & struggle between good & evil Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter Herman Melvile – Moby Dick

Portrayers of the Past George Bancroft

Founded naval academy “Father of American History”