The Age of Reform

Changing American Life in the 19th Century

2nd Great AwakeningPeople came to pray, sing, weep, & shout

Men & women became eager to reform their lives & the world around them…led to new reform movements

Religious movement using outdoor revivals to

convince people to return to a strong faith

Industries & LaborFactories were noisy,

unsafe, and work was boring

Workers wanted better conditionsThey organized into

trade unionsEventually organized

into labor unions

Other groups called for shorter hours and higher wages

140 strikes took place in 1835 & 1836 alone

Example: Lowell girls went on strike in 1836 demanding lowered rent and better conditions

Seal for the Knights of Labor, first organized union in the United States

Reforming Education"Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree."

- Thomas Jefferson, 1805

The English School, first public high school in America

Caring for the Needy/Helpless

Abolitionists in America

William Lloyd Garrison White abolitionist who

called for the “immediate & complete emancipation”

Frederick Douglass Most widely known

black abolitionist/former slave

Sojourner Truth Used personal

narratives and worked for abolitionism & women’s rights/former slave