The Second Great Awakening & Antebellum Reform Movements

In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America, I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country… Religion was the foremost of the political institutions of the United States.

Alexis de Tocqueville, 1832

The Rise of Popular Religion

R1-1

Moving away from Traditional Anglican Church

Many Founding Fathers were Enlightenment Deists• Believed in Watch Maker metaphor• Believed man’s reason could figure everything

outCongregational Churches- independent local

churches Unitarians split Congregational establishment

in New England• Took control of Harvard & wealthiest urban

churches• Est. American Unitarian Association in 1826

Challenges to Anglican Church

Dramatic increases in immigration

-Irish Catholic, Scots-Irish Presbyterians, German and Northern European Lutherans

Transcendentalism emphasized individualism & emotion/intuition over reasonRalph Waldo Emerson (Self Reliance) Henry David Thoreau (Walden, Civil

Disobedience)

Changing Societal Conditions

Educated clergy out of touch with frontier communities Clash of social class Calvinist theology too complex & restrictive for uneducated poor

people Disestablishment & 1st Amendment created competition

among denominations Non seminary ministers needed to meet demands

1775: 1,800 ministers (1:1,500) 1845: 40,000 ministers (1:500) Revivalists used democratic rhetoric to attack “aristocratic”

religious elites- signs of Jeffersonian Republic?

The Second GreatAwakening

“Spiritual Reform From Within”[Religious Revivalism]

Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal of Equality

Temperance

Asylum &Penal Reform

Education

Women’s Rights

Abolitionism

Second Great Awakening: Methodists

Methodism came over to America after successfully transforming Great Britain in the late 1700s John & Charles Wesley began reform

movement within the Anglican Church – later became Methodist Episcopal Church

Francis Asbury was 1st Methodist Bishop in the U.S.

Peter Cartwright was leading circuit rider preached salvation as a free gift to all Set up Sunday Schools & bible studies

Francis Asbury

John Wesley

The Spread of Methodism

Methodist Camp Meeting

Second Great Awakening:Baptists

Baptists also spread rapidly Rejected Calvinist roots John Leland combined Jeffersonian

democracy with Christian morality Both groups used popular mass culture

Took advantage of cheap printing to produce Bibles, tracts, Sunday School curricula, etc.

Took popular songs and wrote new lyrics Created interdenominational

organizations: American Bible Society American Sunday School Union American Tract Society

Leland MonumentCheshire, Mass.

Challenging Race & Gender Conventions

Initially preached racial & gender equality Women & blacks allowed to preach

Later backed off due to concern for respectability

Richard Allen founded Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.) after whites tried to segregate St. George’s Methodist Church in Philadelphia

Richard Allen

Mother Bethel AME Church

Revival Preaching

Congregationalists & Presbyterians

Presbyterians & Congregationalists adopted methods by 1830s-40s, bringing revival to Northeast Lyman Beecher traveled

around preaching conversion Charles G. Finney developed

system for revival, deliberately playing on emotions

Converted 100,000 people in Rochester, NY in 1839

Charles G. Finney

Come-Outer Sects:Mormons

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) Joseph Smith, Jr. saw angel Moroni & found

in gold tablets in 1823 Book of Mormon published in 1830 Established utopian communities:

• Kirtland, OH 1831-38• Nauvoo, IL 1839-45

Hierarchical, male-dominated church• Polygamy encouraged

Smith killed by mob in Nauvoo, Illinois in 1844 Brigham Young led migration to Deseret

(Utah) in 1846-48

Joseph Smith, Jr.

Brigham Young

Hill Cumorah, Palmyra, NY

Reconstructed TempleNauvoo, Illinois

Mormon TempleSalt Lake City, Utah

Come-Outer Sects:Shakers

United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (Shakers) started in England in 1747 Mother Ann Lee Stanley claimed to be 2nd, female

incarnation of Jesus Christ Came to America with 8 disciples in 1774

Established 19 communities between 1783-1836 4,000 – 5,000 members at peak Lived communally & practiced celibacy Danced & experienced ecstasies in worship Embraced modern technology

Shaker Dance

Round Barn (1826)Hancock Shaker Village

Mill Powered by Water TurbineHancock Shaker Village

Weave ShopHancock Shaker Village

Elders’ BedroomHancock Shaker Village

Oneida Community

Oneida Community founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848

Noyes had been converted by Finney, but became an antinomian

“Complex marriage” came to be eugenic breeding program

Noyes fled to Canada in 1879 to avoid adultery charge

Community became a joint-stock company in 1881

John Humphrey Noyes

Oneida Community Mansion

Antebellum Reform Movements: Abolition

American Colonization Society (1817) favored gradual, compensated manumission & “returning” freed blacks to Africa Liberia founded in 1821 6,000 immigrants, 1817-67

American Antislavery Society (1833) demanded immediate, uncompensated emancipation & black citizenship William Lloyd Garrison began publishing

The Liberator in 1831 Frederick Douglass was escaped slave who

became eloquent spokesman

William Lloyd Garrison

Frederick Douglass

Antebellum Reform Movements: Temperance

Temperance movement combated widespread evils of alcholism

American Temperance Society & Washington Temperance Society led voluntary individual reform efforts Parades featured water wagons Teetotalers pledged total abstinence Per capita consumption drastically reduced

by 1850 Neal Dow got 13 states to pass “Maine

laws,” 1851-55 Prohibited manufacture & sale of

intoxicating liquor Did not apply to beer, wine or cider

Antebellum Reform Movements:Women’s Rights

Women’s Rights movement grew out of other reform movements

Many, like Susan B. Anthony, were Quakers

Elizabeth Cady Stanton began as temperance advocate & abolitionist

Seneca Falls Convention (1848) issued Women’s Declaration of Independence

Antebellum Reform Movements: Penitentiaries & Asylums

Criminals, poor, etc. seen as result of societal failure

Penitentiaries designed to remove criminals from corrupting influences & provide discipline through labor Auburn (1819-23) Ossining (1825)

Asylums isolated patients from outside influences in order to cure them Mental illness viewed as result of stress Asylums were utopias

Dorothea Dix