The Second Great Awakening and the Social Reform Movements of the

1800’s

Mr. ClowesAPUSH

Another Great Awakening?• In the early 1800’s another religious revival

began to sweep through the US, and it would continue until the 1830’s

• It was different from the First Great Awakening in that it was not uniform in its motivations and characteristics– The First – was meant to increase the memberships of

churches and was based on emotional appeals– The Second – it was in response to American society’s

movement away from religion and it was different in its message and tactics depending on what region of the US it was found in

The Two Awakenings

• The Second Great Awakening was, however, similar to the First in some ways– It was emotional in its appeal as the First had

been (evangelical)– Preachers were trained in the eastern regions to

carry the evangelical message west, spreading the Awakening• Many of these evangelicals would not only take their

faith with them, but also their experience and education, making them social and educational leaders in the frontier West

The Awakening As a Populist Movement

• Though many preachers did preach intellectual messages of salvation of redemption, the most successful ministers were those who spoke on simple but emotional levels to the general public– For maximum success their message had to be

understood by even the uneducated and it had to have a widespread appeal for all who heard

The Awakening As a Populist Movement

• The Second Great Awakening, especially in the western frontier areas and in some regions of the South, truly was meant for all– Many preachers did not choose to preach

prejudice sermons they allowed all to hear their message and offered salvation for all, even both freed and enslaved African Americans

• The Second Great Awakening was in many ways a more radical reflection of the democratization of America during the time

Finney and the Burnt Out District• The most prominent of the Second Great

Awakening ministers was Charles G. Finney– Finney began holding revivals in the New York district

in 1832– He preached very emotional sermons that taught any

person could achieve salvation through hard work and repentance, something the members of the growing middle class strongly desire to hear

– His sermons became so numerous through the years that west New York state became known as the Burnt Out District because of the numerous “hellfire and brimstone” sermons that had taken place there

The Baptists and Methodists

• The Baptists and the Methodists focused on gaining memberships among those moving away from the eastern seaboard– Both used the camp meeting as a revival tool in the

wilderness• During a camp meeting all from the surrounding area would

come together for a number of days for a festival-like atmosphere where they would listen to revivalist sermons

• By 1850 the Baptists and Methodists were the two largest Protestant denominations in the US

The Awakening and Reform

• An important aspect of the Second Great Awakening in New England was its promotion of social reforms– The popular belief among religious denominations

had moved from the Puritan idea of predestination to the belief that one achieved salvation through acts of good will this made people want to ‘do right’ for society

– For example, the temperance movement (those who wanted to ban alcohol) received heavy support from the Second Great Awakening

The Awakening and Reform

• In the beginning, the reformers (who were most often associated with the Awakening) would try to use moral arguments to convince people to ‘do what’s right’

• However, these moral arguments could only achieve so much before the reformers began using political tactics to achieve their reforms

Abolitionism

• The abolitionist movement began around the same time as the Second Great Awakening

• The Second Great Awakening convinced many Northerners that slavery was a sin in the eyes of God, and mainly because of its idea that a person should “do what’s right for society and God”– This narrow view of slavery and abolition caused

many Northerners to not be willing to compromise when it came for negotiations between the North and the South

Abolitionism• There were two levels of abolitionists, moderates

who wanted a gradual reduction of slavery and radicals who wanted slavery banned immediately

• Most moderates in the 1820’s adopted the policy of relocation of African Americans– The American Colonization Society began efforts to

move freed blacks back to Africa in 1822, but their efforts were never successful

– This policy of course appealed to racist whites who desired the removal of freed African Americans from American society

Radical Abolitionists

• One of the most prominent radical abolitionists of the era was William Lloyd Garrison– He established the first abolitionist newspaper,

The Liberator– Helped to found the American Antislavery Society

in 1833– He made demands for the immediate abolition of

slavery throughout the entirety of the US

An Abolitionist Political Party

• In the late 1830’s abolitionists would band together to form the Liberty Party– They saw political means as the best method for

gaining abolitionist laws– Their single political platform was the banning of

slavery– They ran a presidential candidate in the elections

of 1840 and 1844

Black Abolitionists

• Some of the most radical and prominent of the abolitionists were former slaves– Their firsthand experience of the harsh conditions

of slavery were much more powerful in gaining supporters for abolition

– Frederick Douglass was the most recognized of these former slaves turned abolitionists• His journal The North Star would play an important role

in the antislavery movement

The Temperance Movement

• One of the main goals of the religious-based reformers was the banning of alcohol (temperance)

• Though the movement took some time to build momentum, after it was realized that crime, poverty, and working output could all be improved through the ban of alcohol, many prominent political and business leaders began to support the movement

The Temperance Movement

• Successes of the Temperance Movement– The Temperance Movement was led by the

American Temperance Society– The Temperance supporters would achieve their

largest victory in 1851 when Maine became the first state to adopt prohibition (banning the making and selling of alcohol)

– The Temperance Movement would lose much of its appeal in the 1850’s after the abolitionist cause overshadowed it in importance

The Women’s Movement• Because of the changes taking place in American

society, especially the beginning of America becoming an urban society, the roles of men and women in society changed– In the cities these changes were very prominent– Men were leaving home six days a week for 10 to 12 hours

a day to work in factories or offices– Women were left at home (middle class women) to run

the household and raise the children• Many women were left with little to do during the day• This idea that women were to care for the upbringing

and education of their children has been called The Cult of Domesticity

The Women’s Movement

• With the birth of the wage-earning class in American society children lost their economic value– Before, children had been an asset for their ability

to work farmland now many saw children as a burden because they were another mouth to feed

• During the period of 1800 to 1850 the average American family decrease from 7 to 5

The Women’s Movement

• With their new leisure time middle class women became the backbone of many reform movements– These first began as social gatherings among

neighborhood wives, but many of these gatherings adopted specific social reforms to address

– An example was the New York Female Reform Society which worked to keep young, lower class New York Women

The Women’s Movement

• Many women were actually kept from joining in national reform movements because men viewed them as inferior… when they were allowed to participate it was most often in secondary roles– This led to resentment from the women– In 1837 Sarah Grimke, after being denied the right to

participate in the Northern abolitionist movement, published Letter on the Condition of Women and the Equality of the Sexes, which spoke out against the perceived inferiorities of women in US society

The Women’s Movement• Many women in the period began pushing for

women to be given the right to vote (suffrage)– The early women’s suffrage leaders were most often

those who had been denied the right to participate in other reform movements

– Elizabeth Cady Stanton (abolitionist) and Susan B. Anthony held the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848• Was a women’s rights convention but it did focus on

suffrage• Published the “Declaration of Sentiments”

– It took the language of the Declaration of Independence but reworded many passages to display the frustrations that women felt (i.e. “Men are created equal” to “Men and women are created equal”)

Educational Reform

• Public education would be a major issue of the period– Tax-supported schools (public schools) were very

rare, and there were many places in the South and West with no access to public education

– Many in politics and the upper classes grew to support education after they considered the possibility of what uneducated and ignorant men with voting rights might do to society

Educational Reform• Horace Mann became the Secretary of Education

for Massachusetts and began a series of reforms that would spread to other states– He pushed for tax-supported public education, a

longer school year, and teacher preparation programs• Leaders of the educational movement also

wanted morality to be incorporated into education– William Holmes McGuffey created a series of

textbooks, called McGuffey Readers, for reading and moral instruction• These readers would be used for decades in the schools

Other Reforms of the Period• Mental Patients, Prisoners, and the Handicapped– Dorothea Dix fought endlessly to gain reforms for

those mentally handicapped states finally began to build mental hospitals (before that the mentally impaired most often shared prisons with criminals

– Prisons during the earlier periods had been very harsh places that focused on punishment and not rehabilitation reforms won during the period led many states to rebuild their prisons and offer new rehabilitative programs

– Thomas Gallaudet founded the first school for the blind and Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe founded the first school for the blind

The South and Reform

• Though many reform movements, especially abolitionism and temperance, were gaining strength in the North, for the most part reforms were ignored in the South– Most Southerners saw northern reforms as an

assault against their way of life– By the 1830’s most states had gag orders (it was

not allowed to even be brought up) against any talk of abolition in state legislatures