Foundations of Reform

• Revival of religious feeling and belief in the 1820s and 1830s.

• Emphasized the role that individuals played in their own societies.

• Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians realized an increased sense of confidence.

• A group of Americans writers and artists like Henry David Thoreau, inspired another set of reforms.

• They created pieces focused on American themes, giving readers a message of hope and optimism.

• Some advocated that people challenge laws they considered unjust. This led to…

Foundations of ReformFoundations of Reform

• The process of defying codes of conduct within a community.

• Ignoring the policies and government of a state or nation when the civil laws are considered unjust.

• In the mid 1800s, some Americans, both black and white, were speaking against slavery.

• Slavery ended in the North by the early 1800s, but many Northerners still accepted it.

• William Lloyd Garrison- vocal abolitionist and publisher of the newspaper The The LiberatorLiberator. He also formed the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833.

• Frederick Douglass- an escaped slave, lectured against slavery and quickly became a leader in the movement.

• He started his own anti-slavery newspaper in 1847, North Star.

• Sojourner Truth- former slave inspired by Douglass to speak against slavery.

• Harriet Tubman- conductor of the Underground Railroad (a secret network of abolitionists that secretly helped runaway slaves to reach freedom in the North and Canada).

• Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton- attended the World Antislavery Convention in London in 1840, but couldn’t speak because they were women. Lucretia Mott

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

• Women had few political or legal rights:They could not vote (suffrage)They could not hold officeAny wages earned belonged to their

husbandsThere was no law against women being

abused by their husbands.

• Mott and Stanton decided to host a national women’s rights convention in New York.

• They modeled their proposal for women’s rights, the Declaration of Sentiments, on the Declaration of Independence.

• The Seneca Falls Convention demanded equality for women at work, school, church and the voting booth.

• Other notable people included Susan B. Anthony.

Declaration of Sentiments

• Dorothea Dix- schoolteacher from Massachusetts. Overwhelmed by the conditions she saw in a prison she visited:

Inmates bound in chains and locked in cages

Children jailed with adults Short supply of food Inmates crowded into

dark, damp cells.

• She was also alarmed by the treatment of the mentally ill.

• She issued a report to the state legislature highlighting these conditions.

• Lawmakers voted to create new mental hospitals for the mentally ill.

• They also enacted the outlawing of cruel punishments, the creation of special justice system for children, among others.

• Horace Mann- known as the “father of American public schools”.

• He spoke about the importance of public schools in producing an educated citizen.

• Under his guidance, citizens in Massachusetts voted to pay taxes to build better schools, to pay higher salaries for teachers, and to open schools to train teachers.

• Late 1820s- the temperance movement (a public campaign against the sale or drinking of alcohol)

• 1850- the state of Maine banned the sale of alcohol. This law was later repealed.

• Modern day reform programs such as AA, MADD and SADD continue the work begun by these earlier reformers.

1. Define civil disobedience.

2. Two well-known abolitionists were:

a. Lucretia Mott and Sojourner Truth

b. William Lloyd Garrison and Henry David Thoreau

c. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman

d. Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony

3. Women had few rights. Among these were:

a. No right to vote

b. No right to travel

c. No right to go to school

d. No right to walk by themselves

4. The Declaration of Sentiments was modeled after:

a. The Constitution

b. The Articles of Confederation

c. The Bill of Rights

d. The Declaration of Independence

5. Describe the temperance movement.