Unit IV1820-1861

Part 1

Review

Four Points of Sectional Conflict Nullification Crisis Clay’s American System Missouri Compromise (1820)

Northwest Ordinance: first federal legislation to outlaw slavery

ReformsEducation Literature Religion Utopian communities Abolition Women’s Rights Movement Temperance Immigration Prison System Practical Reformers Unions

Also

Jacksonian Democracy was considered part of the larger reform movement

Jackson’s Administration

Began a much bigger reform movement in the United States

Demand for more public schools…especially in New England and the Midwest

Not so practical for the South

Westerners did not associate schools with education

The Public School movement is important

It was the first major effort in the U.S. which succeeded in linking the power of government to an effort to reform and transform society

The Government wanted to wrest education out of the hands of the Church

Massachusetts

1837 First to establish a State Board of Education

Horace Mann was the first State School Superintendent

1852 Compulsory Attendance Law

Pennsylvania

1834 Pennsylvania Free School Act: divided the state into districts

Districts levied taxes to support schools

By the Civil War, most states had begun with free public schooling

Women’s (higher) Education

1827 Emma Hunt Willard established the Troy Female Seminary

1837 Mary Lyon established Mt. Holyoke

1841 Oberlin First coed college First integrated college

Literature and the Romantic Period

More of a mood than a set of ideas

Emphasized: imagination, feeling, emotion, intuition, inspiration, the inner light of an individual, outward zeal for reform

A revolt against the Age of Reason

European Influence

Rousseau: the father of Romanticism: So long as man preserves the human form, he is fettered by institutions (of “civilization”)

The German influence: Philosophy of Kant, poetry of Goethe, music of Beethoven

The English Influence: Coleridge, Wordsworth, Carlyle

The Americans

Irving: The legend of Sleepy Hallow

Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter Melville: Moby Dick Poe: The Raven Cooper: The Leather Stocking

Series Mark Twain: Tom Sawyer,

Huckleberry Finn Longfellow: The Village Blacksmith

The Transcendentalists(kill me now)

Thoreau: Walden, “Civil Disobedience”

Emerson: “Nature” “Self Reliance”

Whitman: Leaves of Grass

Anti organized government, religion, any institution (schools, political party and even reform movements)

The Transcendentalists

Stress “natural” man, intuition, freedom, spiritual distance from society…

Talked about reform (abolition) but no action

In the South: romanticized Southern “institutions” (slavery)

NOTE: about 1/5 whites in South were slave-owners

Religion

Unitarians: moved away from Christian doctrine to no doctrine

New: Deciples of Christ, Church of Christ

Still: The Second Great Awakening Off shoots from other churches:

Primative Baptists, Free-will Baptists

New surge of revivalism and camp meetings

The Mormons

1823 Joseph Smith visited by a “divine being”

Called Moroni Said, “The Lord has work for you to

do…later”

Smith was barely literate, not overly religious

1827 Moroni returned, instructed Smith to dig under a tree.

The Mormons

Smith dug up book plates inscribed with an ancient language

Moroni gave Smith tools to translate with and instructed him to write The Book of the Mormon

11 people who were witnesses to the original plates signed affidavits to verify

By 1830

The Book of the Mormon was published

Difficult to find recruits Smith had a small following Did institute polygamy

Began to move his small community West

On the Way

In Illinois Smith was attacked by a mob and killed

Mormons continued West led by Brigham Young

Made it to Utah by 1847 where they multiplied and prospered

Utopian Communities

Experiments in communal living: people would pool their belongings, share the work and share in the profits (harvest usually)

Some Communes were religious (often millenarians')

Some were purely secular

The Brook Farm Community

Secular Monogamous Lived separately from society Property ownership was communal Strictly voluntary Hawthorne lived there for 2 years

Oneida Community

1850’s Founder John Humphrey Noyes Shared EVERYTHIG Communal marriages, Children

Other Secular Communities

Amana Community New York and Iowa in the 1840’s and 1850’s

Fruitlands: founder Amos Alcott (father of Louisa May Alcott

Religious Utopian Communities

Rappites: Founder George Rapp 1804

Had 600 followers Millenarians Renounced Sex Took the Bible literally Believed the END was at hand

The Shakers Ann Lee: illiterate but effective speaker Died 1784 By 1830’s: 6,000 members in 20

successful Shaker Communities Made furniture Also millenarians Strict separation of the sexes Took in orphans, fed those down on their

luck Much singing and dancing

Practical Reformers

Dorthea Dix: worked alone for 30 years on behalf of the insane

Began in 1841 By 1854 Congress passed a bill to

provide federal funds to care for the insane

Was vetoed by Pierce who thought funding was unconstitutional…but urged charitable giving

Practical Reformers

1851 Thomas Gallaundet: established schools for the deaf in 14 states

Dr. Samuel Howe: worked with the blind. Before the introduction of Braille, he devised his own system of raised letters

Other Reforms

Flogging was abolished in the navy

Prison Reform: 2 model systems:

The Auburn System and the Philadelphia System

Both were very harsh. Prisoners: absolute silence, no

contact with the outside world

The Big Three

Temperance Women’s Rights Abolition