Religion & Reform in the 1800s

Overview

·  The idea of “perfectionism” permeated religious, philosophical and reform movements. Americans believed that, given the right conditions, human beings could become happier and society could become more harmonious.

·  Religious and reform movement brought people together as well as creating divisions in society.

·  Women fought for a greater role in public life and played a central role in many reform movements.

Movement / Leaders / Effects
Second Great Awakening / Charles G. Finney / ·  Began on the New York frontier (“Burned-Over District”)
·  Revivalist preachers spread the awakening to other states
·  Religion for the “common man” (Protestantism, poor people, ideals of equality)
·  The Second Great Awakening inspired moralistic reform movements (abolitionism, temperance, etc.)
New Protestant Groups / Richard Allen
William Miller
Joseph S. Buckminster / ·  African-Americans created the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, which sometimes featured female preachers
·  Millerites (Seventh-Day Adventists) expected an imminent “second coming”
·  Unitarians found the concept of the “holy trinity” theologically unsound
Transcendentalism / Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Margaret Fuller / ·  Believed that an “oversoul” connected all of humanity
·  Supported abolitionism, education, medicine, pacifism
·  Texts: The American Scholar, Self-Reliance, Nature, Walden, Civil Disobedience
·  Attempted to create a utopian community at Brook Farm
Mormonism
(Latter-Day Saints) / Joseph Smith
Brigham Young / ·  Originated in the “Burned-Over District”
·  Smith produced the Book of Mormon that he said came from golden plates revealed to him by an angel
·  Mormons practiced polygamy and had closely-knit, quasi-theocratic communities
·  Mormons were frequently persecuted; Smith was jailed and later killed by a mob
·  Young led Mormons on an “exodus” to Salt Lake valley of Utah but the practice of polygamy delayed Utah statehood until 1896
Utopianism / Thomas More (England)
Mother Ann Lee
George Ripley
Robert Owen (England)
John Humphrey Noyes
Mormons / ·  More’s Utopia described an ideal society isolated from the outside world in which property and duties were shared
·  Shakers practiced simplicity, gender separation and celibacy
·  Transcendentalists created the short-lived Brook Farm community
·  Owenites set up many utopian experiments based on socialist principles, including New Harmony
·  The Oneida community practiced “complex marriage” and “free love”
·  Salt Lake Mormons envisioned a state of “Deseret,” but eventually joined the U.S. as the state of Utah
Women / Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Lucretia Mott
Susan B. Anthony / ·  Women played key roles in many different reform movements
·  Revolutionary-era concept of “Republican motherhood” meant that mothers had a duty to raise their sons as virtuous citizens
·  1800s-era concept of “Cult of Domesticity” meant that women should make the home a “haven” and provide a tender and “civilizing” influence on men; some female reformers embraced this idea while others rejected it
·  The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 produced the Declaration of Sentiments, listing grievances against patriarchal society
·  The women’s suffrage movement began to emerge; Susan B. Anthony was arrested for trying to vote (civil disobedience)
·  Laws treated women essentially the same as children
·  Women campaigned against “white slavery” (prostitution)
·  Many women saw parallels between their own treatment and the treatment of slaves; they became involved in abolitionism
Temperance
(Prohibition) / T.S. Arthur
Neal S. Dow
Carrie A. Nation / ·  Ten Nights in a Bar-Room highlighted the negative consequences of alcoholism
·  Many women supported temperance as a way to improve their home-life; they asked men to take “abstinence pledges”
·  Many nativists also supported temperance because they associated alcohol with immigrants and Catholics
·  Maine and 11 other states passed prohibition laws in the 1850s, but they were soon repealed
·  Nation was the most flamboyant prohibitionist, carrying a Bible in one hand and smashing bottles with an ax in the other
Education / Horace Mann
Catharine Beecher
Emma Willard
Elizabeth Blackwell / ·  Education was key to the ideals of the Enlightenment (tabula rasa = “blank slate”) and American democracy (“civic virtue”)
·  Nascent industrialism drew in child labor; educational reformers could get children out of the factories
·  Mann established public schools in Massachusetts with long years and high standards
·  Literacy rate increased; best-sellers were The Bible, Webster’s Dictionary, McGuffey’s Reader
·  German-inspired reforms: kindergarten, physical education, music
·  Women fought for access to higher education but had only limited success
Penal (Prison) & Mental Health Reform / Dorothea Dix / ·  “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”
·  Penal Reform: Change from harsh, punitive treatment to humane treatment, rehabilitation and reduced use of the death penalty; “prisons” became “penitentiaries” and “reformatories”
·  Mental Health: Dix helped change attitudes about “demon possession” toward a more modern understanding about treatable illnesses
Abolitionism
(Anti-Slavery Movement) / Quakers
Sarah & Angelina Grimke
Charles G. Finney
David Walker
Nat Turner
William Lloyd Garrison
Elijah P. Lovejoy
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Hinton R. Helper
John Brown
Frederick Douglass
Harriet Tubman
Sojourner Truth / ·  Quakers believed in an “inner light” of the holy spirit in all humans and had opposed slavery since colonial times
·  Grimke sisters became Quakers, inherited their father’s slaves, freed them, and encouraged others to manumit slaves
·  American Colonization Society encouraged freed slaves to colonize west Africa; established the country of Liberia
·  Second Great Awakening renewed focus on abolitionism; Christian reformers opposed slavery on spiritual and moral grounds; Finney refused to offer communion to slaveholders
·  Radical abolitionists believed that slavery should be ended by any means necessary
·  Walker’s Appeal critiqued the hypocrisy of the Declaration of Independence and urged blacks to start a new revolution
·  Turner’s rebellion terrified slave owners; new laws restricted education and assembly of slaves and gave owners immunity for harsh treatment of slaves
·  Northern abolitionist newspapers inflamed southerners; southern Congressmen passed a “gag rule” against debating slavery in the 1830s
·  Garrison published The Liberator and urged northerners to enact “personal liberty laws” to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act
·  Pro-slavery mob murdered Lovejoy and dumped his printing press in the river
·  Slavery divided churches; the Southern Baptist Convention broke away from the National Baptists; slaveholders defended slavery by citing Biblical passages
·  George Fitzhugh’s The Sociology of the South argued that blacks were better off being American slaves than being free Africans or laborers in European industry
·  Stowe’s bestseller Uncle Tom’s Cabin highlighted plight of fugitive slaves and encouraged northern abolitionism
·  Helper’s Impending Crisis of the South argued that slavery harmed poor whites, slowed economic growth, and prevented modernization
·  Brown, a radical abolitionist, killed pro-slavery men at Pottawatomie, Kansas (“Bleeding Kansas”) in 1856 and raided Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859
·  Southerners reacted to Brown’s raid by beginning militia drills… preparing for Civil War
·  Douglass, a former slave, was the most eloquent abolitionist; he wrote a best-selling autobiography, traveled the north to give speeches, published the North Star newspaper and (later, during the Civil War) encouraged Lincoln to free the slaves and helped to organize black regiments for the Union Army
·  Tubman “conducted” hundreds of fugitive slaves along the Underground Railroad at tremendous risk to herself
·  Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech highlighted the dual plight of African Americans who were oppressed as both slaves and as women