Reform Movements

ü  Americans faced w/rapid & fundamental alterations in their surroundings

ü  1^st Impulse

• Reform society to meet its new conditions
• Based on optimistic faith in human nature (romanticism)

ü  2^nd Impulse

• desire for order and control

ü  A movement in art and literature in Europe, during the early years of the 19^th century

ü  Stressed intuition and feelings, individual acts of heroism, and the study of nature

ü  Genre painting – portraying everyday life of ordinary people – became the vogue

ü  Hudson River School expressed the romantic age’s fascination with the natural world

ü  Famous painters:

• Albert Bierstadt
•  Thomas Cole
• Asher B. Durant
•  Martin Johnson Heade
• George Inness
•  John F. Kensett

ü  Adapted classical Greek styles to glorify the democratic spirit of the republic

ü  Columned facades like those of ancient greek temples graced the entryways of public buildings, banks, hotels, and even some private homes

ü  In addition to the transcendentalists authors, other writers helped create a literature that was distinctly American

ü  Partly as a result of the War of 1812, people became more nationalistic and more eager to read the works of American writers about American themes

ü  Romantic and idealistic themes best expressed by a small group of New England writers & reformers

ü  Transcendentalists

• Questioned the doctrines of est. churches & the capitalist habits of the merchant class
• Argue for a mystical and intuitive way of thinking as a means for discovering one’ inner self
• Looked for the essence of God in nature **
• Challenged the materialism of American
• Highly individualistic
• Supported a variety of reforms including anti-slavery

ü  Best known transcendentalist

ü  Urged Americans not to imitate European culture but to create our own

ü  Argued for self-reliance, independent thinking, & the primacy of spiritual matters over material ones

ü  Critic of slavery

ü  Pioneer ecologist & conservationist

ü  Advocate of non-violent protest

• Refused to pay a tax that might support an “unjust war” (Mexican War)
• Had to spend the night in jail

ü  Lived in the woods for 2 yrs to test his philosophy

ü  Pursuit of the ideal led to a distorted view of human nature & possibilities

• The Blithedale Romance

ü  Questioned the intolerance & conformity of American life

• Scarlet Letter
• House of the Seven Gables

ü  Founded by George Ripley

ü  Tried to live the transcendentalist ideal

ü  Some of the leading intellectuals of the age lived there (Emerson/Hawthorne)

ü  Remembered as an atmosphere of artistic creativity and an innovative school

ü  Bad fire & debts forced its closure in 1849

ü  Founded by Utopian Socialist Robert Owen in 1825

• Wanted his community to provide an answer to the problems of inequity & alienation caused by I.R.
•  wanted a Village of Cooperation
• It failed – financial problems & member disagreements

ü  In the 1840s, many Americans,                            became interested in the theories                                 of Charles Fourier

ü  To solve the problems of a fiercely                       competitive society, Fourier                                  advocated people share work &                              living arrangements in communities popularly known as Fourier Phalanxes

ü  Movement died out quickly – we’re too individualistic

ü  Founded by John Humphrey Noyes in New York

ü  Elements of millenialism

• Believed 2nd coming had already occurred – humans no longer obliged to follow moral rules of the past

ü  Dedicated to an ideal of perfect social & economic equality

• Members shared property …and marriage partners
• Redefined gender roles

ü  Critics attacked the Oneida system as a sinful experiment in “free love”

ü  Community prospered economically by producing and selling silverware

ü  One of the earliest communal movements

ü  6,000 members in various communities by the 1840s

ü  Held property in common

ü  Kept women and men strictly separated (no marriage or sexual relationships)

ü  Died out by mid-1900s

ü  Church of Jesus Christ of  Latter-Day Saints founded by Joseph Smith, 1830

ü  Book of Mormon traced a connection between the Native Americans and the lost tribes of Israel

ü  Smith gathered a following

ü  He was murdered by a local mob in Illinois

ü  To escape persecution, Brigham Young led the Mormons to the far west

ü  Est. Salt Lake City, Utah

ü  They                                           prospered

ü  Much of the religious enthusiasm based on widespread belief the world was about to end

ü  William Miller

• gained tens of thousands of followers
• predicted a specific date for 2^nd coming (Oct. 21, 1844)

ü  Millerites would continued as a new religion, the Seventh-Day Adventists

ü  Reform during the antebellum era went through several stages. 

ü  At first, leaders of reform hoped to improve people’s behavior through moral persuasion

ü  After they tried sermons and pamphlets, however, reformers often moved on to political action and to ideas for creating new institutions to replace old ones.

ü  Puritan sense of mission

ü  Enlightenment belief in human goodness & perfectibility

ü  Politics of Jacksonian democracy

ü  Changing relationships among men and women & among social classes and ethnic groups

ü  2^nd Great Awakening

ü  Religious rival that swept U.S. in the early 19^th c.

ü  Puritan reaction against:

• Rationalism of the Enlightenment & Am. Rev.
• More liberal & forgiving doctrines (like Unitarianism) that had rejected Puritan teachings of original sin & predestination
• Societal changes caused by IR

ü  Presbyterian minister

ü  Started a series of revivals in New York

ü  Appealed to peoples’ emotion and fear of damnation

ü  “Soul-shaking” conversions

ü  For many of his followers revivalism not only meant personal salvation but a mandate for reform

ü  Finney preached all were free                          to be saved by faith & hard work

ü  Ideals strongly appealed                                  to the rising middle class

ü  Western NY became                                   known as the burned                                       over district for its                                          frequent “hell &                                             brimstone” revivals

ü  Excellent example of the shift from moral exhortation to political action

 

ü  In 1820, the average American consumed 5 gallons of hard liquor per year!!

ü  Founded by concerned Protestant ministers

ü  Used moral arguments to persuade drinkers not just to moderate their drinking but to take a pledge of total abstinence to fight “demon rum”

FAVORED – “Dry”

ü  By the 1840s, temperance societies had more than 1 million members

ü  Path to middle-class respectability

ü  Factory workers and politicians joined with the “teetotalers”

OPPOSED – “Wet”

ü  German and Irish immigrants

ü  Lacked the political power to prevent city and state governments from siding with reformers

ü  Push for free public schools

• Started by middle class reformers
• Motivated by fear of growing numbers of the uneducated poor both immigrant and native born
• An uneducated populace                                                                   is bad for democracy

ü  Generally supported by                           workers’ groups in cities

• Educated workers needed in                                         factories

ü  MA à always at the forefront of education

• 1^st state to establish tax support for local public schools.

ü  By 1860 every state offered free public education to whites

• US had one of the highest literacy rates.

ü  “Father of American Education”

ü  children were clay in the hands of teachers & school officials

• should be “molded” into a state of perfection
• discouraged corporal punishment

ü  est. state teacher-training programs

ü  Besides the teaching of basic literacy, Mann and other education reformers wanted children to be instructed in principles of morality

ü  McGuffey Eclectic Reader

• Used parables to teach                                          American values
• Taught middle class morality                                               & respect for order
• Taught three R’s &                                            Protestant ethic (frugality, hard work, sobriety)

ü  2^nd Great Awakening fueled the growth colleges

• 1830s, various Protestant denominations founded private colleges especially in newer western states

ü  New opportunities for women

• Mt. Holyoke College in MA and Oberlin College in OH began to admit women

ü  Lyceum lectures societies also further education

ü  Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe founded Perkins School for the Blind

ü  1820s-1830s: Criminals, mentally ill, & paupers were forced to live in poor conditions

ü  Regularly abused or neglected

ü  Dorthea Dix proposed setting state supported prisons,  mental hospitals, & poorhouses

ü  Took the place of crude jails & lock-ups

ü  Started in Pennsylvania

ü  Used solitary confinement to force reflection on sins & encourage repentance

ü  Reforms reflected belief that structure & discipline would                                                              bring moral reform

ü  Developed by Elam Lynd in 1820s

ü  Enforced rigid rules of discipline while also providing moral instruction and work programs

ü  Mid-19^th c. American society still rural

ü  Industrial Rev. brought change to cities

• Redefined roles of men and women
• Men left home to work six days a week
• Middle class women stayed home w/kids
• Value of large families reduced so avg. family size declined

ü  More affluent women now had leisure time to devote to religious & moral uplift

ü  Abolitionist movement split over the role of women

ü  Lucretia Mott & Elizabeth Cady Stanton were barred from speaking at the convention

ü  Began campaign for women’s rights

ü  1^st Women’s Rights Convention

ü  Issued “Declaration of Sentiments’

• Closely modeled after Dec. of Indep.
• Declared “all men and women are created equal”
• Listed women’s grievances against the laws and customs

ü  Following the convention                                Elizabeth Cady Stanton &                                   Susan B. Anthony led the                             movement

ü  1816 – American Colonization Society founded

• Favored gradual, voluntary emancipation

ü  1822 – Created a free slave state in Liberia, West Africa

ü  No real anti-slavery sentiment in the North in the 1820s and 1830s.

ü  2^nd Great Awakening encouraged many to view slavery as a sin à limited the possibility of compromise

ü  1831 – William Lloyd Garrison’s began publication of abolitionist newspaper

ü  Event marked the beginning of the radical abolitionist movement

ü  Founded by moderate northern abolitionists in 1840

ü  One campaign pledge: bring about the end of slavery by political and legal means

ü  Ran James Birney as their candidate for president in 1840 and 1844

ü  Written by Hinton R. Helper

ü  Used statistics to show slavery had a negative impact on the South’s economy

• Argued slavery not profitable
• Thesis actually wrong
• Banned in the South but widely distributed in the North

ü  No longer argued slavery was a necessary evil, instead argued slavery was good for slave and master alike

ü  Slavery was sanctioned by the Bible & firmly grounded in philosophy and history

ü  George Fitzhugh, the boldest and best known of the proslavery authors

• Questioned the principle of equal rights for “unequal men”
• Attacked capitalist wage system as worse than slavery – “wage slaves”

ü  Former slave

ü  Early follower of Garrison

ü  Later advocated political & direct action to end slavery

ü  Black Abolitionists

• David Walker
• Henry Highland Garnet

ü  Argued slaves should not wait for whites, instead should rise up in revolt against their masters

ü  1829 – Walker wrote Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World

ü  VA slave Nat Turner led a revolt in which 55 whites were killed

ü  In retaliation,                                                             whites killed                                                    hundreds of blacks                                                              in a brutal fashion

ü  managed to put                                                      down the revolt

BEFORE

ü  Some antislavery sentiment & discussion in the South

AFTER

ü  Fear of future uprisings as well as Garrison’s  inflamed rhetoric put an end to antislavery talk in the South

ü  The antebellum reform movement was largely a regional phenomenon

• Succeeded at the state level in the north & west but had little impact on many areas of the South.

ü  Southerners alarmed to see northern reformers join forces to support the antislavery movement

ü  Increasingly, viewed social reform as a northern conspiracy against the southern way of life