Section 1: the Reforming Spirit

Section 1: The Reforming Spirit

•  How did political and religious ideals provide inspiration for reform?

•  Why did Dorothea Dix seek to reform the treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill?

•  What were the goals of the temperance movement?

•  How did reformers improve American education?

Roots of Reform

Political ideals

•  Politics was becoming more democratic. People pointed to the Declaration of Independence’s promise of liberty and equality.

•  People question slavery as undemocratic.

•  People asked why women had few rights.

Religious ideals

•  In colonial times, American Protestants believed in predestination, the idea that God decided in advance which people would attain salvation after death. A religious movement of the early 1800s—the Second Great Awakening—stressed free will instead. Preachers said that individuals could save their souls by their own actions.

•  In revivals, or huge outdoor meetings, people heard that individual salvation was the first step toward reforming the world. This message inspired people to improve society.

Political Origins

•  The ideals of liberty and equality in the Declaration of Independence inspire people to try to improve society

•  During Jackson era, more people can vote than ever before

•  Critics say slavery and other injustices violate democratic ideals

Religious Influences

•  Second Great Awakening stresses free will rather than predestination

•  Revivals encourage people to reform their lives

•  Finney teaches that individual salvation is the first step to the reform of a society

Dorothea Dix Seeks to Reform the Treatment of Prisoners and the Mentally Ill

Reasons Dix called for prison reform:

•  Men, women, and children were often crammed together in cold, damp rooms.

•  Sometimes prisoners went hungry unless they could buy their own food.

•  Most prisoners were debtors, people who could not pay the money they owed.

Reasons Dix called for reform in treatment of the mentally ill:

•  The mentally ill were put in jails rather than hospitals.

•  The mentally ill were often put in “cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods.” Dix reported.

The Temperance Movement

•  In the late 1820s, a campaign against alcohol abuse

•  Some groups urged people to drink less.

•  Others sought to end drinking altogether.

Prohibition Movement

What led to it?

•  The 18th amendment to the U.S. Constitution banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. The leaders of the prohibition movement, many of whom were women who had religious motivations, were alarmed at the drinking behavior of Americans.

How was it carried out?

•  The formation of Anti-Saloon league in 1895 and other organizations that supported prohibition, such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, began to succeed in enacting local prohibition laws.

What effects did it have on society?

Positive:

•  The consumption of alcoholic beverages declined dramatically under prohibition.

Negative

•  The public demand for alcohol led to widespread law breaking.

•  Boot legging quickly became a big business. Because liquor continued to be illegal, prohibition gave enormous boosts to violent, organized crim. Illegal stills, as well as liquor smuggled in from Canada, supplied the needs of those Americans who continued to drink. Nearly every town and city had at least one “speak easy,” where people could drink and enjoy entertainment.

•  As crime increased, tax dollars decreased.

Improving Education

Public Schools

•  In the early 1800s, Massachusetts was the only state that required free public schools. Reformers argued that a republic such as the United States requires educated citizens.

•  In 1814, New York State passed a law requiring local governments to set up tax-supported school districts.

•  In Massachusetts, Horace Mann urged legislators to provide more money for education. The state built new schools, extended the school year, raised teachers’ pay, and established colleges to train teachers.

•  By the 1850s, most northern states had set up free tax-supported elementary schools.

Education for African Americans

•  A few northern cities set up separate schools for black students.

•  In the North, a few African American men and women opened their own schools.

•  Some African Americans went on to attend private colleges such as Harvard, Dartmouth, and Oberlin.

•  In 1854, Pennsylvania chartered the first college for African American men.

Education for people with disabilities

•  In 1817, Thomas Gallaudet set up a school for the deaf in Hartford, Connecticut.

•  In 1832, Samuel Gridley Howe founded the first American school for the blind.

Section 2: Opposing Slavery

•  How did the antislavery movement begin and grow?

•  How did the Underground Railroad help slaves reach freedom?

•  Why did many white northerners and southerners oppose the campaign to abolish slavery?

Roots of the Anti-Slavery Movement

Early antislavery efforts

•  Since colonial times, Quakers had taught that slavery was a sin.

•  During the Second Great Awakening, ministers called on Christians to stamp out slavery.

Colonization Movement

•  The American Colonization Society proposed to end slavery by setting up an independent colony in Africa for freed slaves. In 1822, the society founded the nation of Liberia, in West Africa. Only a few thousand African Americans settled there.

Abolitionist Movement

•  Reformers known as abolitionists wanted to end slavery completely in the United States.

•  Some African Americans tried to end slavery through lawsuits and petitions. Others, such as Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm, used their newspaper to influence public opinion.

•  Free African American David Walker encouraged enslaved African Americans to free themselves by any means.

•  Frederick Douglass, the best-known African American abolitionist was a powerful speaker. He lectured in the United States and Britain.

•  White abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison published The Liberator, the most influential antislavery newspaper.

•  The Grimké Sisters lectured against slavery.

Abolitionist Movement

What led to it?

•  Slavery led to it. Slavery was considered immoral, and it violated our country’s founding principles. Many northerners objected it.

•  Still, slavery remained an established institution in the south, where slaves formed and important part of the economy. There were books and stories written about slavery. For example, Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850’s.

How was it carried out?

•  The most influential abolitionist was Boston printer William Lloyd Garrison. In 1831, he published an antislavery newspaper, The Liberator. He used dramatic language to attack slave holders and convince his readers that slavery was morally wrong.

•  Frederick Douglass was the most eloquent voice against slavery. He became a powerful speaker at abolitionist meetings. He published his own abolitionist newspaper, The North Star.

Abolitionist societies sprang up

•  Some abolitionists turned to law-breaking as a means of protest. Henry David Thoreau spent a night in jail when he refused to pay a tax he felt supported slavery. Later, he wrote the essay “Civil Disobedience.”

What effect did it have on society?

•  It kept some northerners from the idea of spreading slavery. Abolitionists held politicians to it. Abolitionism began as a social movement, but it became a national political issue. It led to the formation of the Republican Party in the 1850’s and to the Civil War. The abolitionist movement opened up new possibilities for action. Through their participation in antislavery activity, some women came to a vivid realization of the social constraints on their activism.

The Underground Railroad

•  The Underground Railroad was a network of black and white abolitionists who secretly helped slaves escape to freedom.

•  Conductors guided runaways to stations where they could hide—the homes of abolitionists, churches, and caves.

•  Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery. She risked her freedom and her life by returning to the South 19 times. She led more than 300 former slaves to freedom.

Reasons Why People Opposed Abolition

In the North

•  Northern mill owners, bankers, and merchants who depended on southern cotton worried about losing their cotton supply.

•  Northern workers feared that freed African Americans might come and take their jobs.

In the South

•  Many white southerners accused abolitionists of preaching violence.

•  Slave owners defended slavery even more firmly than before. Some argued that slaves were better off than northern factory workers.

•  To many southerners, slavery was an essential part of the southern economy and way of life.

Section 3: A Call for Women’s Rights

•  Why did some women call for equal rights in the 1800s?

•  What goals were set at the Seneca Falls Convention?

•  How did women win new educational opportunities?

Seeking Equal Rights for Women

Reasons people sought equal rights for women in the mid-1800s

•  Women could not vote or hold office.

•  When a woman married, all of her property became her husband’s property.

•  A working woman’s wages belonged to her husband.

•  A husband had the right to hit his wife.

•  The abolitionist movement made people aware that women, too, lacked full social and political rights.

Sojourner Truth

•  This former slave was a spellbinding speaker. She spoke out against slavery and also for women’s rights.

Lucretia Mott

•  This Quaker woman used her organizing skills to set up petition drives across the North.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

•  Stanton joined Mott and other Americans at the World Antislavery Convention in London. Back at home in the United States, she and Mott organized a convention to draw attention to women’s problems.

Susan B. Anthony

•  Traveled across the country, speaking tirelessly for women’s rights.

Goals of the Seneca Falls Convention

Seneca Falls Convention—meeting held in 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York, to discuss the problems that women faced. It was the start of the women’s rights movement, an organization campaign for equal rights.

Goals

•  The convention issued a Declaration of Sentiments, which proclaimed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.”

•  Resolutions demanded equality at work, at school, and at church.

•  A resolution demanding women’s right to vote passed narrowly.

New Educational Opportunities for Women

Reformers said that education was a key to women’s equality.

Reformers opened new schools for women.

•  Emma Willard opened a high school for girls in Troy, New York.

•  Mary Lyon opened Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in Massachusetts, the first women’s college in the United States.

A few men’s colleges began to admit women.

•  Elizabeth Blackwell attended medical school at Geneva College in New York.

•  Maria Mitchell became a noted astronomer.

•  Sarah Josepha Hale became editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book.

•  Antoinette Blackwell was the first American woman ordained a minister.

Section 4: American Art and Literature

•  How did American painters develop their own style?

•  What themes did American poets, novelists, and storytellers explore?

•  Why was the “inner light” important to Emerson and Thoreau?

American Painters

Before 1800, most American painters studied in Europe.

•  Benjamin West

•  Charles Willson Peale

•  Gilbert Stuart

By the mid-1800s, American artists began to develop their own style. The Hudson River School painted vivid landscapes of New York’s Hudson River region.

•  Thomas Cole

•  Asher B. Durand

•  Robert S. Duncanson

Some American artists painted scenes of hard-working country people.

•  George Caleb Binghan: frontier life along the rivers

•  George Catlin: Indians of the Great Plains and Rockies

•  Alfred Jacob Miller: Indians of the Great Plains and Rockies

American Poetry, Stories, and Other Literature

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

•  Poems based on events from the American past, such as “Paul Revere’s Ride” and “The Song of Hiawatha.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

•  Poems about the evils of slavery.

Frances Watkins Harper

•  Poems about the evils of slavery.

Walt Whitman

•  Leaves of Grass, a book of poetry celebrating democracy and common people.

Emily Dickinson

•  Recognized as one of the nation’s greatest poets.

Washington Irving

•  The Sketch Book, including “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

James Fenimore Cooper

•  Stories set in the American past. The Deerslayer and The Last of the Mohicans, about a strong, solitary frontiersman.

Herman Melville

•  Moby Dick, about the captain of an American whaling ship.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

•  Stories set in early New England, such as The Scarlet Letter.

Edgar Allan Poe

•  Tales of horror. Known as the “father of the detective story” for stories such as “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

William Wells Brown

•  The first African American to earn his living as a writer. Wrote Clotel, a novel of slave life.

The “Inner Light” of the Transcendentalists

Transcendentalists believed that the most important truths in life transcended, or went beyond, human reason.

•  They valued the spark of deeply felt emotions more than reason.

•  They believed that each individual should live up to the divine possibilities within.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

•  He believed that civilization provides material wealth, but the human spirit was best reflected in nature.

•  He believed that nature exhibited values that came from God.

•  He stressed individualism, or the importance of each individual. He said that people have an “inner light” they can turn to for guidance in their personal lives and to help them improve society.

Henry David Thoreau

•  He believed that the growth of industry and the rise of cities were ruining the nation.

•  He urged people to live as simply and as close to nature as possible.

•  He believed that each individual must decide what is right or wrong.

•  He argued in favor of civil disobedience, the idea that people have a right to disobey unjust laws if their consciences demand it.