Chapter 14

ReformersA time for change

To reform = to change

Key Vocabulary

immigrant – a person who settles in a new countrypush-pull factor – pushes people out of their native lands & pulls toward a new placefamine – a severe food shortagenativist – a native-born American who wanted to eliminate foreign influenceromanticism – a European artistic movement that stressed the individual, imagination,

creativity, and emotiontranscendentalism – a 19th century philosophy that taught the spiritual world is more

important than the physical world and that people can find the truth within themselves through feeling and intuition

civil disobedience – peacefully refusing to obey laws one considers unjusttemperance movement – a campaign to stop the drinking of alcohollabor union – a group of workers who ban together to seek better working conditionsstrike – to stop work to demand better working conditionsabolition – the movement to end slaverysuffrage – the right to voteUnderground Railroad – a series of escape routes used by slaves escaping the SouthSeneca Falls Convention – women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, NY, 1848Second Great Awakening – the renewal of religious faith in the 1790s and early 1800s

The hopes of immigrants• Millions of people left their home country to

become United States immigrants – people who settle in a new country.

• They came from Britain, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and China.

• WHY?1. Freedom

2. Economic Opportunity - $$

3. Abundant Land

The hopes of immigrants• Different groups came for different reasons.• Germans – economic opportunity for farmers as

well as businessmen

• Irish – a disease attacked their main crop, the potato, causing a famine – severe shortage of food. They were fleeing hunger.

• So many immigrants cause overcrowding in American cities and were unprepared.

– Crime flourished, outdoor toilets overflowed, disease spread, not enough police or firemen

The hopes of immigrants• Many immigrants faced prejudice – a

negative opinion not based on facts.• Some native-born Americans felt that

immigrants were too foreign to learn American ways.

• Many natives, called nativists, refused to hire immigrants and discriminated against them.

American literature & art• Many writers began to write books featuring the

American wilderness and urged Americans to cast off European influence and develop their own beliefs.

• James Fenimore Cooper wrote The Last of the Mohicans

– Other books include The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Oregon Trail

• Noah Webster wrote a American Dictionary of the English Language

• Henry W. Longfellow wrote Paul Revere’s Ride• Henry David Thoreau moved to a cabin in the

woods and wrote Walden

Second Great Awakening• In the early 1800s, the Second Great

Awakening – the renewal of religious faith – began.

• Revivals took place in many American cities and spread westward forcing people to strengthen their beliefs.

• People began to seek salvation.

Temperance Movement• Led by churches, some Americans began a

temperance movement.

• Temperance movement – campaign to stop the drinking of alcohol

– Linked drinking to family breakups, crime, and mental illness

Families took pledges to stop drinking in their

household.

Temperance Movement

Saloon is a bar

Education• In the 1830s, Americans began to demand better schools to

better educate children.

• Horace Mann – led a movement for education reform

– Mann set up the first State Board of Education in the U.S.– He demanded more money for schools and

education for African Americans– Said every child deserved to be educated

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Improving Education

• Horace Mann – head of first state board of education

• “the great equalizer”• By 1850 many public

elementary schools opened

Care for the sick• Some Americans promoted to improve society’s care

for the weaker members.

• Dorothea Dix – led a movement for reform in mental hospitals & prisons

– After visiting jails and hospitals and seeing the poor, dirty conditions these people lived in, she fought to improve their lives and living conditions

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Helping the Needy

• 1841 - Dorthea Dix fought to improve mental hospitals

• 1817 – Thomas Gallaudet started first school for the deaf

• 1830s – Samuel G. Howe founded Perkins School for the Blind

• Prison reform

Abolition movement• Abolition, the movement to end slavery, began in the

late 1700s.

• By 1804, most Northern states had outlawed slavery.• By 1807, Congress banned the

importation of African slaves into the United States.

• Abolitionists then began to work to end slavery.

Abolitionists• William Lloyd Garrison was a white

Northerner who published The Liberator, an anti-slavery newspaper

• The Liberator preached that slavery was evil and should be ended immediately.

• He helped organize the American Anti-Slavery Society.

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Abolitionists

• The movement to end slavery• 1831 – William Lloyd Garrison

published The Liberator• “I will not retreat a single inch

– and I WILL BE HEARD”• Sarah and Angelina Grimke• John Quincy Adams

Abolitionists• Frederick Douglass was a former slave who

was a famous abolitionist.• A powerful public speaker and lecturer

for the Anti-Slavery Society.• Published an autobiography of his

horrible slave experiences.• Spoke out about the evils of slavery• “If I Should Have a Country”

• Sojourner Truth was a runaway slave who was a famous abolitionist & fought for women’s rights

• Gave famous speech “Ain’t I a Woman”

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Frederick Douglass

• Former slave who escaped to the north

• Wrote an autobiography• Brilliant public speaker• Published an antislavery

newspaper

Ain’t I a Woman?• That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages,

and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?

• Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman?

• I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman?

• I have borne thirteen children, and seen most

all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with

my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me!

And ain't I a woman?

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Sojourner Truth

• Former slave who escaped to live with the Quakers

• Famous public speaker who stood up for abolition and women’s rights

Underground Railroad• Harriett Tubman was a former slave

who was a famous abolitionist and led runaway slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad.

• She returned to the South 19 times to lead over 300 slaves to freedom – risking her own life every time.

• Underground Railroad was a secret aboveground series of escape routes from the South to the North (usually Canada)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin• Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a book written by

Harriett Beecher Stowe about the evils of slavery. The book was based on true tales of the horrors of slavery.

• VERY popular book – sold thousands of copies.• A poorly treated slave dies from beatings.

Women’s Rights• Elizabeth Cady Stanton fought for women’s

suffrage & equal rights for women.• Suffrage – the right to vote• She formed the Seneca Falls Convention - a

national women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York

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Women’s Rights

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott

• Held Seneca Falls Convention to call for equal rights for women

• Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions

• “All men and women are created equal.”

Reformers ReviewHorace Mann

Dorothea Dix

William Lloyd Garrison

Frederick Douglass

Harriett Tubman

Harriett Beecher Stowe

Sojourner Truth

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Reform education

Reform prisons & ill

Abolitionists - ending slavery

Abolitionist & women’s rights

Women’s suffrage